You could easily say that Dave Tiger Williams and Bryan Trottier had very different careers. Trottier is a Hall of Famer who won six Stanley Cups and scored 1,425 points in 1,279 games. Tiger Williams never won a Cup and is mostly famous for being the most penalized player in NHL history, with 3,966 penalty minutes. But it’s thanks to Tiger Williams that Trottier even played hockey.
Bryan Trottier, born on July 17, 1956, grew up in Val Marie, a very small town in southwest Saskatchewan, pretty close to the American border. Due to the size of the community, Trottier’s father realized that if his son wanted to play hockey at a higher level, he would have to move away from home. Being just 14 years old, that seemed almost impossible. Still, Trottier moved an hour away to play for the Swift Current Broncos in the WCHL.
Bryan Trottier met Tiger Williams
Standing 5’11”, Trottier had a hard time making waves among the older, bigger players. But then he met a friend.
“Do you like to fight? Of course not. But you’re going to have to fight if you want to make it. Luckily, you’re going to meet the perfect person (and I honestly mean the single perfect person) to teach you those skills. His name is ‘Tiger’ Williams,” Bryan Trottier wrote for The Players’ Tribune.
Tiger is actually named David, but he earned the nickname Tiger when he was five years old—after punching a referee who happened to be his older brother. Trottier and Williams became very good friends, and with Williams being a few years older, he showed Trottier the ropes.
Trottier quit hockey
But in 1972, Bryan Trottier had grown tired of being beaten up all the time.
“I had a black eye; I lost all my teeth. Mom was making all my favorite foods for Christmas. I started planning to go back to school the next week, but I didn’t tell anyone,” Trottier told Athletes Quarterly.
But then, one morning, there was a knock on the door. It was Tiger Williams.
“He told my mom that the coach had told him to pick me up, and that if Bryan didn’t come back, he shouldn’t come back either. It was comical. The whole way back, Tiger said, ‘You know, I’ll take care of you. No one is going to touch you.’ And then hockey became fun again. Tiger was a big influence on me,” Trottier told Athletes Quarterly.
The duo returned to the Broncos, and both got drafted in 1974. Bryan Trottier would go on to win four Stanley Cups with the New York Islanders and two with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Tiger Williams kept fighting until 1988, racking up 3,966 penalty minutes—an NHL record that still stands today. Imagine how different it all would have played out without that knock on the door.
