The scars on Ted Lindsay's face told the story of Terrible Ted _ one of the best to ever play in the NHL.
"Every one of those scars told a different story," said Bill Roose, the former Free Press sports writer who edited a book about Lindsay. "When you saw him up close, you really saw the depth of those scars. It was kind of like the opening of 'Saving Private Ryan' when he's walking through the headstones and you see his eyes watering, and the camera comes up really close to his eyes. When you would get up close to Ted, you could see the depth of his playing career, and how he earned all of those scars."
But those scars came from a different time.
Almost a different person.
"I didn't know him as Terrible Ted," Roose said. "There was nothing terrible about that man in the years I knew him."
Lindsay, the Detroit Red Wings icon who died Monday morning at age 93, was a beloved superstar. Even after his playing days were done, he remained a part of the fabric of Hockeytown. Everybody seems to have a heart-felt story about Lindsay.
"He was just one of the most compassionate, people-loving folks you would ever meet," Roose said. "Always had a smile on his face."
But Lindsay was also meticulous. He wanted everything to be perfect, as they worked on the book, "Seven: A Salute to Ted Lindsay", which was written by Bob Duff, edited by Roose and published in 2008.
"I've done books now with eight different athletes and he was the one who printed off all the pages _ the manuscript _ put them in a binder and had everything tabbed," Roose said. "He said that he wanted to come in and edit with me. As we worked on things, he'd go off some tangent, telling another story.
"We would sit there and go through his photos. His wife was outstanding, Joanne was an East-sider, like I am," Roose continued. "We would talk about her days at (Detroit) Denby, how she met Ted and how she could care less that Ted was a hockey player. She didn't know Ted as a hockey player. Just met Ted Lindsay, fell in love with him."
Roose, who took a job with the Red Wings after his time at the Free Press, had an office in Joe Louis Arena in the Zamboni pit, across the hallway from the referee's room and Lindsay would stop by year-round.
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"During the season, he had a locker in the locker room," Roose said. "He would work out, two, three, four times a week. He always had some type of business that he was dealing with in Windsor. In the summer, if the players weren't around, he would still stop in on his way to Windsor. He'd come in all the time and really just shoot the breeze."
Shoot the breeze?
It was more like a daily dip into hockey history.
"The stories he would tell _ the one in Toronto when they were in the playoffs and they were leaving Detroit to head to Toronto for a game," Roose said. "The fans came out and said that somebody is going to die. A Red Wing player was going to get killed if the Red Wings won. The Wings won, and Ted turned his hockey stick around and aimed it at the fans in the stands and pretended it was a Tommy gun."
Lindsay grew up listening to Red Wings games, when the weather was just right.
"He would talk about lying in bed at night in Kirkland Lake (in Northeastern Ontario, Canada)," Roose said. "If it was a clear, cloudless night, he could pick up Red Wings games up there."
When Lindsay did a book singing, or an autograph event, it would be a slow-motion affair.
He would start telling stories with fans, or pose for pictures, and it might have slowed down profits, but he didn't care.
Gordie Howe was the same way.
"They were told, as youngsters, that you had to make that signature legible," Roose said. "They have to know who signed that puck or stick or ball or whatever. That's the paying public and you respect them."
But at his core, Lindsay was a family man.
"He loved his family," Roose, now the vice president of marketing and communications at Warren De La Salle Collegiate High School, said. "He spent a lot of time with them up north. His daughter has a place Up North. I remember when he turned 90, I said, 'What are you going to do special?'
"He goes, 'Nothing. Probably have a cake. Go to dinner. And be with my family.'
"He wasn't simple. But he simply wanted to be with his family."
