October 24, 1978: Keith Richards Cops a Plea

Left to right: Charlie Watts, Keith Richards,

Mick Jagger, Ron Wood, Bill Wyman

October 24, 1978: Keith Richards cops a plea. Having been busted for heroin possession at his Toronto hotel on the Rolling Stones' 1977 North American tour, the guitarist pleads guilty, gets a suspended sentence plus 1 year of probation, and forced rehab.

On that tour, Richards' addiction to heroin delayed his arrival in Toronto; the other members had already arrived. On February 24, 1977, when Richards and his family flew in from London, they were temporarily detained by Canadian Customs after Richards was found in possession of a burnt spoon and hash residue.

Three days later, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrived at Keith's hotel room, armed with an arrest warrant for Anita Pallenberg, Keith's longtime domestic partner, and the mother of 3 of his children. (One had died shortly after birth. Keith had stolen her from a former Stones member, the late Brian Jones.) They discovered 22 grams of heroin in the room. Keith was charged with importing narcotics into Canada, which carried a minimum 7-year sentence. The Crown prosecutor later conceded that Richards had procured the drugs after his arrival.

A blind fan testified on his behalf, so the judge got the idea to have Keith play a benefit concert on behalf of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. With the Stones, Keith played 2 shows at the Oshawa Civic Auditorium in Oshawa, Ontario on April 22, 1979.

The story that Keith beat his addiction by having all of his blood drained and new blood of the same type pumped in is an urban legend. It's not possible: Such a procedure would kill the patient.

The old joke is that, if Keith Richards tells you that you have a drug problem, you know it's bad. But as recently as 2016, he says that he still smoked marijuana. In 2022, Keith, so often photographed with a cigarette in his mouth or in his hand, said that he had quit smoking 2 years earlier.

*

October 24, 1978 was a Tuesday. Baseball season had ended a week earlier, with the New York Yankees beating the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series. Football was in midweek. There were 8 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Atlanta Hawks, 113-109 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New Jersey Nets beat the Indiana Pacers, 97-95 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the New Orleans Jazz, 122-104 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio.

* The Kansas City Kings beat the Chicago Bulls, 123-117 at the Chicago Stadium. Artis Gilmore scored 30 points in defeat for the Bulls.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Boston Celtics, 132-109 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 124-116 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Walter Davis scored 38 for the Suns.

* The San Diego Clippers beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 124-123 at the San Diego Sports Arena (now the Pechanga Arena). Lloyd "All-World" Free, later to change his name to World B. Free, scored 35 for the Clippers.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Washington Bullets, 104-102 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland.

There were 3 games in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders and the Philadelphia Flyers played to a tie, 4-4 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The Atlanta Flames beat the Los Angeles Kings, 7-2 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* And the Boston Bruins beat the St. Louis Blues, 7-2 at the St. Louis Arena (then known as the Checkerdome).

And there were 2 games in the World Hockey Association. The New England Whalers beat the Cincinnati Stingers, 2-1 at the Riverfront Coliseum (now the Heritage Bank Center) in Cincinnati. And the Birmingham Bulls beat the Edmonton Oilers, 3-2 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.

October 7, 1971: "The French Connection" Premieres

October 7, 1971: The French Connection premieres, based on the 1969 book by Robin Moore, itself based on a real break-up of a drug-smuggling operation in New York in 1962.

Moore (1925-2008) had served in the U.S. Army Special Forces, and not only co-wrote the lyrics to "The Ballad of the Green Berets" with Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler, but wrote the novel The Green Berets, which became a 1968 John Wayne film. In 1971, he collaborated with Dutch call girl Xaviera Hollander on her memoir The Happy Hooker: My Own Story, which was made into a series of 3 films, each starring a different actress. In 1986, Moore was convicted of tax fraud.

The real case, with heroin going from Indonesia, where the poppies were grown; to Turkey, where it was processed; to Marseille on the south coast of France, where it was distributed throughout the world; to New York, and then distributed throughout America, was cracked by Detectives Eddie Egan (1930-1995) and Sonny Grosso (1930-2020).

The French drug kingpin they sabotaged, but never arrested, was Jean Jehan. Jehan used French television personality Jacques Angelvin (1914-1978) to make contacts in America. Angelvin apparently never knew what was really going on until he was arrested. Jehan was arrested by French authorities in 1967, because he was given immunity due to being an anti-Nazi Resistance fighter in World War II. He was seen alive in Nice, on the French Riviera, as late as 1977, and is believed to have died of old age in his native Corsica. But Angelvin served 4 years in an American prison.

In the movie, directed by William Friedkin, Egan became Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, played by Gene Hackman; Grosso became Buddy "Cloudy" Russo ("Cloudy" being the opposite of "Sunny," or "Sonny"), played by Roy Scheider; Jehan became Alan Charnier, played by Fernando Rey. Angelvin became actor Henri Devereaux, played by Frédéric de Pasquale. And Angelvin's 1960 Buick Invicta, with 112 pounds of bagged heroin hidden in the rocker panels, became a 1970 Lincoln Continental Mark III.

Friedkin, who had previously directed The Thin Blue Line, The Night They Raided Minsky's and The Boys In the Band; and would go on to direct The Exorcist, The Brink's Job, Cruising, To Live and Die In L.A. and Blue Chips, knew who he wanted to play Charnier, but couldn't remember the man's name: All he remembered was that he was a Spanish actor who had worked with Spanish director Luis Buñuel in a French-language movie.

Someone told him it was Rey, and he invited Rey to come to New York to discuss the movie. Then he found out that the actor he really wanted was Francisco Rabal -- and that Rey hadn't even appeared in the movie that Friedkin was thinking of, Belle du Jour. Rabal was able to meet with Friedkin first, but, as it turned out, he could speak neither English nor French. Rey, as it turned out, could speak both of those languages just well enough to pull the role off.

The film made a star of Hackman, but he wasn't even close to the first choice to play Doyle. Friedkin wanted Paul Newman. If not him, then Steve McQueen. Both were superstar actors and experienced drivers, which was integral for the chase scene. But both would have demanded paychecks too big for the producers, so they never asked Newman. They did ask McQueen, but he had made Bullitt in 1968, with its famous chase scene over the hills of San Francisco, and he didn't want to do another cop film.

They considered Jackie Gleason, who was already too old for the role (he was 54 when it was filmed in 1970; Newman was 45, while McQueen and Hackman were both 40), and hadn't done a film since his comedy Gigot flopped in 1962. (Gleason later played a cop in chase scenes in the Smokey and the Bandit films.) They asked Peter Boyle (who was 35), who thought the idea for the film was too violent.

They asked a real New Yorker, but not a real actor: New York Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin (who was 42). Breslin, who had covered the original story, was intrigued with the idea of playing a detective. But he had never driven a car before -- living your whole life in New York City, that is possible -- and didn't want to start with such an important scene. He wanted the movie to succeed enough to admit that he was the wrong guy.

They asked Lee Marvin (46) and Robert Mitchum (53, nearly as old as Gleason), already veteran tough guys; and James Caan (30), who'd just finished Brian's Song, and was already in line to play Sonny Corleone in The Godfather. All of them turned it down. Rod Taylor (40), star of the 1960 version of The Time Machine, wanted it, but Friedkin didn't want him. So he cast Hackman, then known for a supporting role in Bonnie and Clyde and starring in I Never Sang for My Father.

What everyone remembers from the film is the chase: After Pierre Nicoli, played by Marcel Bozzuffi, escapes from Doyle, he boards an elevated train in New York's Subway system. So Doyle commandeers a 1971 Pontiac Le Mans (a brand-new car at the time), and drives under the elevated line, hitting other cars but staying on the chase, until he sees Nicoli disembark, and finally shoots him. The line was the old BMT West End Line in Brooklyn, at the time running as the B Train, now the D Train. The chase lasts from the 86th Street station to the 62nd Street station.

Some of the cops who acted as advisors on the film told Friedkin that a cop would not have shot a suspect in the back, because that would be murder, not self-defense. Friedkin told them, "I am secure in my conviction that that's exactly what Eddie Egan would have done, and Eddie was on the set while all of this was being shot."

The ending of the film matches the reality: While the big deal is busted, and the heroin is confiscated, Charnier gets away. This inspired one of the earliest film sequels, The French Connection II, in which Doyle gives up the home-field advantage to try to bust Charnier on his own turf, in Marseille, with results that, at first, prove disastrous. (That film has no connection to real life: Egan did not pursue Jehan any further.)

The French Connection was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, and won 5, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Hackman, and Best Director for Friedkin. Over 50 years later, it has a 96 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 94 percent rating on Metacritic. Akira Kurosawa called it one of his favorite films, David Fincher called it one of the five films that "had a profound impact on my life," Brad Pitt called it one of the reasons he took the lead role in Fincher's film Se7en, and Steven Spielberg said he studied it in preparation for his film Munich.

Bozzuffi died in 1988, Rey in 1994, de Pasquale in 2001, Scheider in 2008. As of October 7, 2022, Friedkin and Hackman are still alive. (UPDATE: Friedkin died in 2023.)

One more thing: For a stakeout, Hackman as Doyle plays a "sidewalk Santa," ringing a bell and raising money for the Salvation Army. And the scene takes place on a very cold day in New York, with some snow on the ground. If Die Hard, which has no snow at all, is a "Christmas movie," then so is The French Connection, which is a much better movie.

*

October 7, 1971 was a Thursday. Football was in midweek. The NHL season started the next day; the NBA season, 4 days after that; the American Basketball Association season, the night after that. And baseball was between its League Championship Series and its World Series, which the Pittsburgh Pirates would win over the Baltimore Orioles in 7 games. So there were no scores on this historic day.

October 4, 1970: Janis Joplin Dies

October 4, 1970: Janis Joplin dies of a heroin overdose at the Landmark Motor Hotel in Los Angeles. She was 27 years old.

She had starred at the Monterey Pop Festival in California in 1967, became a symbol of the Hippie era, and had also played Woodstock. Jimi Hendrix had done each of these things as well. He died on September 16, as a result of mixing drugs and alcohol. When asked for her thoughts on his death, Janis said, "There but for the grace of God go I."

She wasn't kidding. She died just 16 days later.

When he found out about Jimi's death, Jim Morrison, the lead singer of The Doors, himself a hippie icon with a booze problem and a drug problem, asked his friends, "Do you believe in omens?" Like Janis, he didn't take the hint. When Janis died, Jim told his friends, "Believe it or not, you're drinking with number three."

If any of those friends tried to get him to stop, it didn't take. Nine months after Jimi and Janis, Jim Morris was dead, too. All 3 of them died at the age of 27, giving rise to the idea of rock and roll's "27 Club."

*

October 4, 1970 was a Sunday. The NBA, the ABA and the NHL were still a few days away from starting their new seasons. But Major League Baseball had begun its Playoffs:

* In Game 2 of the American League Championship Series, the Baltimore Orioles beat the Minnesota Twins, 11-3 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. It was only 4-3 O's going into the 9th inning, but the Birds scored 7 runs to put it away. Frank Robinson and David Johnson hit home runs for Baltimore, and Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva did so for Minnesota.

* In Game 2 of the National League Championship Series, the Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-1 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Bobby Tolan hit a home run for the Big Red Machine. Pete Rose went 0-for-4, and Johnny Bench went 0-for-3 with a walk, but they weren't needed. Roberto Clemente went 1-for-4 with an RBI, and Willie Stargell went 0-for-4.

Baltimore and Cincinnati would clinch their Leagues' respective Pennants the next day, each completing a 3-game sweep.

*

And there were NFL games that day: 

* The New York Giants lost to the New Orleans Saints, 14-10 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. It was 1 of only 2 games the Saints would win all season, the other coming on November 8, when they beat the Detroit Lions at home, on the last play of the game, a record-setting 63-yard field goal by Tom Dempsey.

* The New York Jets lost to the Buffalo Bills, 34-31 at War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo.

* The Baltimore Colts beat the Boston Patriots, 14-6 at Harvard Stadium in Boston. The next season, the Patriots would move to Foxborough, Massachusetts, and change their name to the New England Patriots.

* The Washington Redskins beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 33-21 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

* The Atlanta Falcons beat the San Francisco 49ers, 21-20 at Atlanta (later Atlanta-Fulton County) Stadium.

* The Houston Oilers beat the Cincinnati Bengals, 13-10 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.

* The Green Bay Packers beat the Minnesota Vikings, 13-10 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Dallas Cowboys, 20-7 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Denver Broncos beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 26-13 at Mile High Stadium in Denver.

* The Los Angeles Rams beat the San Diego Chargers, 37-10 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

You'll notice that this accounts for 20 of the 26 teams then in the newly-merged NFL. On Saturday, October 3, the Miami Dolphins beat the Oakland Raiders, 20-13 at the Orange Bowl in Miami. And the Cleveland Browns beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 15-7 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

And, on October 5, in the new phenomenon of ABC Monday Night Football, which had begun just 2 weeks earlier, the Detroit Lions beat the Chicago Bears, 28-14 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

July 3, 1971: Jim Morrison Dies

July 3, 1971: Jim Morrison, lead singer of rock band The Doors, dies in Paris. It wasn't publicly announced until July 8, as the circumstances of his death were unusual.

With the release of their self-titled debut album on January 4, 1967, The Doors -- lead singer Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robbie Krieger and drummer John Densmore -- merged the influences of rock and roll, jazz and classical music, and Morrison's interest in older literature and poetry for their lyrics, to form one of the most spectacular bands of all time.

Morrison's looks, stage presence and lyrics made them stand out. Krieger wrote the lyrics to their hits "Light My Fire," "Love Me Two Times," "Touch Me" and "Love Her Madly," but Morrison wrote most of the others.

The Doors during their controversial appearance

on The Ed Sullivan Show, September 17, 1967.
L to R: John Densmore, Robbie Krieger, Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek.

But Morrison was an alcoholic and a user of psychedelic drugs, and as they went along -- releasing Strange Days later in 1967, Waiting for the Sun in 1968, The Soft Parade in 1969, Morrison Hotel/Hard Rock Cafe in 1970, and L.A. Woman in 1971 -- he became more controversial and less reliable.

Much like a later Los Angeles-based band, Guns N' Roses, a Doors concert was unpredictable: You never knew when the lead singer was going to join with the others to give you a transcendent experience, or when he was going to start a riot, or whether he was going to show up at all.

On September 18, 1970, another of the icons of psychedelic rock, Jimi Hendrix, died as a result of mixing drugs and alcohol. When asked for her thoughts on it, bluesy rock singer Janis Joplin said, "There but for the grace of God go I." She wasn't kidding. She died just 16 days later.

When he found out about Jimi's death, Morrison asked his friends, "Do you believe in omens?" Like Janis, he didn't take the hint. When Janis died, Jim told his friends, "Believe it or not, you're drinking with number three."

In March 1971, Morrison left Los Angeles for Paris, the adoptive home of so many writers and composers he'd admired, in the hopes of getting away from L.A., clearing his mind, and getting ready to make great art again. By this point, he had gotten fat, and had started using harder drugs like heroin. He was joined by Pamela Courson, his longtime girlfriend.

At first, the sabbatical seemed to work. He wrote of taking long walks through the great city. He lost weight, including some of the puffiness in his face that had led him to grow a beard.

But on July 3, at around 6:00 AM local time, Pam found Jim in the bathtub, dead. She said he seemed to be looking up, with a smile and a look of peace on his face. He had seemed to celebrate death in some of his songs, and now he had achieved it. He seemed not to have found peace in life. I hope he found it in the afterlife.

No autopsy was performed. The official cause of death was heart failure, which was possible, considering his weight gain and his heavy drinking. It has been speculated that the real cause was an accidental heroin overdose. It has also been rumored that his death was faked, and that he went elsewhere, to live out his years in obscurity, away from prying eyes. Pam definitely died from heroin, 3 years later.

Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison. All 3 of them, dead within 10 months. All of 3 of them, dead at the age of 27. (The New York Times, who relegated Jim's death to a minor Page 1 story, mistakenly listed him as 25.) This gave rise to the idea of rock and roll's "27 Club."

Pamela died on April 25, 1974, from a heroin overdose in Los Angeles. She, too, was 27 years old. Ray Manzarek died of cancer in 2013, at the age of 77. As of July 3, 2022, the other 2 Doors are still alive: Robbie Krieger is 76, while John Densmore is 77.

*

July 3, 1971 was a Saturday. Actor Benedict Wong was born. So was arch-criminal Julian Assange.

It was the off-season for the NFL, the NBA, the ABA and the NHL. But there was a full slate of Major League Baseball games that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 2-1 at Fenway Park in Boston. Luis Tiant allowed only 3 hits, but 1 was a home run by Roy White. Fritz Peterson was the winning pitcher.

* The New York Mets beat the Atlanta Braves, 7-1 at Shea Stadium. Hank Aaron went 1-for-4 with an RBI, and Mike Lum hit a home run to help knock Gary Gentry out of the box in the 1st inning.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Montreal Expos, 6-3 at Jarry Park in Montreal.

* The Washington Senators beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-3 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers, 8-1 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Merv Rettenmund hit a home run, Brooks Robinson went 2-for-4 with an RBI, Frank Robinson went 0-for-4 but drew a walk, and Paul Blair went 2-for-2 with 2 walks and 4 RBIs. For the Tigers, Jim Northrup hit a home run, but Al Kaline went 0-for-4.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie Banks did not play for the Cubs, but Don Kessinger hit a home run. For the Pirates, Roberto Clemente went 1-for-4, but Willie Stargell went 0-for-3.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 7-1 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Harmon Killebrew went 0-for-4, but had an RBI on a groundout. Rod Carew went 2-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Kansas City Royals, 1-0 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Tommy John pitched a 6-hit shutout.

* The Houston Astros beat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-3 at the Astrodome in Houston. Jack Hiatt singled home the winning run in the 13th inning. Pete Rose went 3-for-4 with 2 walks, and Johnny Bench went 1-for-6.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres, 1-0 at San Diego Stadium. (It was later renamed Jack Murphy Stadium, Qualcomm Stadium and SDCCU Stadium.) Al Downing outdueled Dave Roberts, pitching a 6-hit shutout.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the California Angels, 5-3 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Reggie Jackson went 1-for-4.

* And the San Francisco Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 10-1 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. For the Giants, Chris Speier, Bobby Bonds and Ken Henderson hit home runs; Willie Mays went 1-for-3 with 2 walks, and Willie McCovey did not play. Steve Carlton got knocked out in the 6th inning. Lou Brock went 0-for-3 with a walk, and Joe Torre went 0-for-4.

March 5, 1982: John Belushi Dies

March 5, 1982: John Belushi dies of a drug overdose at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Los Angeles. He was only 33 years old.

Belushi rose to fame as part of the original cast of Saturday Night Live, "The Not Ready for Prime Time Players." His father was an immigrant from Albania, and so John, like other sons of immigrants, often played foreign characters, including in the very first sketch the show ever aired, on October 11, 1975, as a man learning English. The teacher, played by Michael O'Donoghue, went against type by teaching him with expressions that would never be used in real life: "Repeat after me: I would like to feed your fingertips to the wolverines."

His father owned a diner in Wheaton, Illinois, outside Chicago, and it was called The Olympia. That would be the name of a sketch, and the diner in the sketch, where Belushi served, "No hamburger! Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger!" And, "No fries, chips!' And, "No Coke, Pepsi!" Later sources would say the sketch was based on the Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago, which some SNL writers, from Chicago, knew well, but Belushi denied it, saying he'd never been to the Billy Goat.

Another immigrant character was Samurai Futaba, who had a different job in every appearance: Hotel desk clerk, delicatessen operator, tailor, and so on. Belushi did not, however, play one of the show's best-known immigrants, the alien Coneheads.

Dan Aykroyd did, and he and Belushi developed a music act, The Blues Brothers, who would sing 1950s and '60s soul tunes, backed by Booker T. & The M.G.'s. This led to a 1980 film, easily the most successful movie ever based on an SNL sketch. Another great Belushi music-themed sketch showed him playing Ludwig van Beethoven, then putting on sunglasses and playing "What'd I Say?" and doing a fantastic Ray Charles impression.

By that point, Belushi had already made his first hit movie, Animal House, playing John "Bluto" Blutarsky, the embodiment of the film's fraternity of slobs at a fictional college in 1962. His speech after the frat members are all expelled is legend. Psychotic, but legend.

John Belushi was the acting equivalent of a rock star. But he wanted to be a real rock star. To him, that meant fully embracing the lifestyle. And that meant drugs. They say marijuana is not a gateway drug. It was for him. It led to cocaine, and finally to heroin. It was a combination of cocaine and heroin, a "speedball," that killed him.

Later in the 1980s, his younger brother Jim Belushi joined the SNL cast, and became a star in his own right. In the 1990s, Aykroyd, Jim, and John Goodman got together to form a new version of the Blues Brothers, including making a weak sequel film, Blues Brothers 2000.

Also in the 1990s, Chris Farley joined the cast of SNL. Also a Midwesterner, and so fat he made John Belushi look thin, he developed his own memorable characters. And he also developed into a movie star. But he also developed a drug problem, and he also died at age 33. He learned all the wrong lessons from Belushi.

They say there's a fine line between genius and madness. John Belushi passed out on it. We should still be laughing our asses off at things he's doing in 2022, at the age of 73. Instead, we're laughing at things he did from 1975 to 1980, and that's it.

But what he did in those 5 years.

*

March 5, 1982 was a Friday. This was also the day the movie Diner premiered. I have a separate entry for that event.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 6 games in the NBA that day:

* The New York Knicks beat the Boston Celtics, 105-98 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Detroit Pistons, 122-108 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Dallas Mavericks, 98-91 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* The Seattle SuperSonics beat the Houston Rockets, 126-103 at The Summit in Houston. (The arena has since been converted into the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Dr. Joel Osteen's "megachurch.")

* The Denver Nuggets beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 126-120 at the McNichols Arena in Denver. Kiki Vandeweghe scored 36 points.

* And the Golden State Warriors beat the Utah Jazz, 127-121 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. Joe Barry Carroll scored 52 points, and had 14 rebounds. Clearly, this was not a night when he earned the nickname "Joe Barely Cares."

And there were 2 games played in the NHL. The Washington Capitals beat the Calgary Flames, 8-6 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland. And the Winnipeg Jets beat the Detroit Red Wings, 2-0 at the Winnipeg Arena.