If you set Ed Babiuk's goaltending career to music, it could be Travellin Man by Ricky Nelson, or The Long and Winding Road by the Beatles.

Ed Babiuk was born in Edmonton just before World War II. His first team was his hometown Oil Kings. After playing goal for the Melville Millionaires, Ed received a phone call from the Toronto Maple Leafs, they wanted him to report to the Rochester Americans, but stop by Toronto and sign a contract and practice with the Leafs.

Punch Imlach, the T.O. Coach, must have liked what he saw in young Babiuk, because Punch kept Ed around the Maple Leafs practicing and staying at the Royal York Hotel, near Maple Leaf Gardens. Back then Johnny Bower was the one and only Leaf goaltender, and there was no such thing as a backup, as Babiuk explained to me on the phone the other night when I interviewed him for this article.

Imlach kept saying to Ed that he was going to play him against the Rangers (Bower played), then he was going in against Detroit (Bower played that one). This went on for a while.

Finally young Mr. Babiuk saw his opportunity, Johnny Bower had wrecked his thumb in practice (Stick hand). The Maple Leafs were playing Montreal Canadiens at home, in the Gardens. After one period it was 4-0 Habs, and then it went to 6- 0 Habs. Rocket Richard, Jean Beliveau, Henri Richard, Phil Goyette all scoring against Bower the ageless wonder. King Clancy told Ed to stay close to the tunnel and get ready to play the third, because Imlach was going to make a change. Right around the end of the second. Babiuk slipped away to grab a hotdog, and have a cigarette. When they finally connected with Ed, Punch looked at him (Ed appearing white as a sheet, writer Scott Young said in a book about the Leafs). So Punchy Imlach did not give Ed Babiuk the nod to go in and Bower played the third period.

Now Ed did play in some NHL exhibition games, but that was as close as he got to appearing in a regular season game. Back in those days being a pro goaltender you went where you were needed.

This is a story Ed told me on the phone the other day. It is worth retelling. Babiuk was in Pittsburgh to play for the Hornets. A trade took place. The General Manager Jack Button (his kid Craig Button is on TV as a hockey commentator these days) drove all night from Pittsburgh to Buffalo with Ed and his goalie equipment trying to get a flight for Ed to Calgary where he was to start in goal that night.

It was winter in 1962 and the roads were bad. They hit the Buffalo Airport, nothing doing there, so drove across the border to Toronto Malton Airport.

Babiuk jumped on a plane for Cowtown with his goalie stuff, and a bag of toiletries, (shampoo razor, tooth brush etc) Ed made it to Calgary to play in goal, then he was off with the team to Spokane, then Portland, followed by a game in San Francisco, and back to Seattle, before making it to his new home, Los Angeles Cal. Presumably with the clothes on his back. His suitcases in Pittsburgh were shipped west, and they vanished shortly thereafter.

Ah the life of a professional hockey player back then.

Through the wonderful world of the internet, I am listing the cities in North America where Babs played between the pipes (Babs is a Dynamiter dressing room nick- name) Here are Ed Babiuk's hockey stops, 1956 Edmonton Oil Kings, 1960 Melville Millionaires, 1960 Kingston Frontenacs, 1960 Sudbury Wolves, 1961 Calgary Stampeders WHL, 1962 Rochester Americans AHL (Don Cherry was his D Man) 1962 Los Angeles Blades WHL, Sudbury Wolves, 1963 Rochester Americans, 1964 Jacksonville, 1965 Clinton, 1966 Clinton Comets, 1967 Long Island Ducks, 1968 - 1973 Kimberley Dynamiters of the Western International Hockey League.

I actually heard about this pro goalie from Rochester being signed by the Dynamiters. Billy Steenson mentioned it to me at the Credit Union in Kimberley about the new goalie, so I went down to the practice to check him out.

Tall stand up goalie, really big on playing angles, moved pretty well for a big man, but not flashy, fundamentally sound. I got to know Ed working out at the Pulp Mill. He is a speak when spoken to type of guy, never one to be too chatty.

Ed played for the Dynamiters for five years, until he hung up his goal pads at the end of 1974 season. He played for 18 seasons, ironically the same as Earl Betker his neighbour in Kimberley. Maybe it was his pro experience, but Babiuk when he played for the Dynamiters never appeared rattled, even when his defensemen were running around in their own end, and the shots were coming in bunches.

He played the shooter and angles, if it missed Ed, it was going to miss the net as well. It's good to have a cool goalie, it settles the whole team down.

Babs still has contact with Kimberley BC, his partner Marg, has her sister Vera and brother in law here in town, and Ed comes back for the Pucksters Golf Tournament quite often.

Ed Babiuk was a top-notch goalie for the Kimberley Dynamiters, first string all five years he suited up with the Nitros.

Being a goal tender takes a very strong willed athlete not to mention brave, for facing the barrage of rubber these goalies deal with in games and practices. Sully Sullivan (Danny) once was hit in the eye in a pro game in the US and sustained a detached retina, and was strapped in a hospital chair for three days and could not move. (I know this because I am good friends with Sully and saw the photos from his hospital room). He went back to playing when his eye was saved, and is now a barber in Kimberley.

Ed Babiuk was a pro goalie for 13 years before getting his amateur card back with the Dynamiters, He told me he had only one regret in his hockey career, going for a smoke that night long ago at Maple Leaf Gardens, in an age when most people lit up. Ed could possibly have shut out the Habs in that third period so many moons ago. and never made it to Kimberley BC, of course then we would not be reading this about Ed Babiuk's travels with his goal pads. Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda, eh.

These days Ed Babiuk is retired from the pulp mill industry and lives in Chilliwack BC with Marg. His health is most excellent, and Ed Babiuk as a person is most excellent as well, it was always a pleasure to see him come around the corner at the dry end in the Skookumchuck Mill, if the Nitros had lost the night before, Eddy was always upbeat, not bummed out like some players who took losing hard.

Another good person who came to Kimberley because of The Dynamiter Hockey Club.

Thanks to Vera for input on this story about her Brother in law Eddy Babiuk.