50 years ago, Rick Dudley bolted from the Sabres to the WHA after the Stanley Cup final, then wanted to come back

Rick Dudley never wanted to leave that special group of Sabres. He was loving life in Buffalo and living a dream that felt unreachable just a few years earlier. But the money – 10 times what he was earning in the NHL – and the security it offered him became too much to turn down. He couldn’t say no.

So early in what he called a “magical” 1974-75 season, Dudley agreed to a five-year, no-trade, no-cut contract – “Something that was unheard of at the time,” he told the Times Herald – with the Cincinnati Stingers, a team that would be joining the rival World Hockey Association in 1975.

Other than the Stingers, only his wife and agent knew of the massive deal. He played the rest of that campaign knowing his days in Buffalo would be ending.

When a front office member asked him about possibly having a contract with the Stingers, he tried to warn the Sabres, telling them, “These guys are very serious.”

Fifty years ago Wednesday, shortly after the Sabres lost Game 6 of the Stanley Cup final to the Philadelphia Flyers on May 27, 1975, word quickly spread Dudley was bolting town.

The news stunned the Sabres, who scrambled to re-sign the popular headband-wearing winger. A team still battling the emotions that accompany falling two wins short of a championship had lost one of its biggest assets.

“They just didn’t think I’d leave,” said Dudley, whose tenacity and passion endeared him to the Sabres’ rabid fan base.

General manager Punch Imlach desperately tried to keep the 26-year-old, upping the Sabres’ contract offer.

“But it didn’t go to the point where it was even a comparison,” Dudley said. “I had to at that point.”

Dudley’s heart was in Buffalo, but he refused to renege on what he had agreed to with Cincinnati.

He figured he would be able to jet out of town and collect his money. Not quite.

Media members descended on the house he rented on Grand Island. The phone never stopped ringing.

“At that point, there was just too much attention paid to that,” he said. “To be honest with you, I was overwhelmed by it. I didn’t think I was that important. I really didn’t.”

Finally, he sought some peace and quiet, retreating with his wife to a little motel across the border.

“So I stayed for a few days in Canada, and then I don’t know where we went after that,” he said. “I guess we went to Cincinnati.”

Dudley was gone but hardly forgotten. From the moment he departed, he said Imlach kept trying to pry him away from the Stingers.

It was easy to figure out why. In a gritty, fight-filled era, he was a fierce competitor and feared scrapper who scored goals. He ranked among the NHL’s most complete talents.

He tallied 31 times in 1974-75, one of a league-record six 30-goal scorers the Sabres boasted, and recorded 70 points. He finished ninth in the Hart Trophy voting for NHL MVP.

Dudley experienced a rapid and unlikely climb as a hockey player. He had been a lacrosse star who dabbled in the sport. As late as 1968, he was playing hockey in an industrial league in Ontario.

In the beginning, he earned his keep by fighting. In 1972-73, his first season with the Cincinnati Swords, the Sabres’ AHL affiliate, he compiled six goals and 272 penalty minutes in 51 games.

Then Swords coach Floyd Smith, who would later coach Dudley with the Sabres and Stingers, called the tough guy into his office before his second season.

“He said, ‘You know what? I know you’re a tough guy, but I think you can play,’” Dudley said. “First time ever I’d ever heard that from a coach.”

Smith told Dudley he did not have to fight every game. He backed up his strong words by promoting him to the top line alongside high-scoring center Billy Inglis.

“Billy Inglis was the best player in the American Hockey League,” Dudley said. “That was validation beyond anything I could ever expect.”

Dudley ran with the opportunity, scoring 40 goals in 64 games while his penalty minutes dropped to 159.

“It changed my life completely,” he said.

Smith’s belief infused Dudley with confidence. He said his coach transformed him “from a uni-dimensional tough guy to a guy who believed he could play.”

“Floyd had a knack for making you feel good about yourself, and he did it with me, and I know that he did it with many others,” said Dudley, who now works as a senior advisor to Florida Panthers GM Bill Zito. “But with me, he was the first person that actually talked to me like I was a hockey player, and he did it in the American League to start off with.”

When Dudley became a coach and general manager after his playing days – he coached the Sabres from 1989-90 until early in 1991-92 – Smith’s words stuck with him.

“It helped me as a coach and as a manager and all the other things I’ve been because I realized how powerful your words can be,” he said. “Truthfully.”

Imlach built the Sabres into one of the NHL’s premier teams remarkably fast by hitting on his draft picks and making shrewd trades. Dudley, having joined the organization after attending training camp on a tryout, was the only core member of the Cup final team Imlach did not select or acquire from another team.

Not long after Dudley left, Imlach asked to meet him at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. When they got together, Imlach told Dudley he wanted him back in Buffalo and that he was working to make it happen. He wanted to make sure he would return.

Dudley told him absolutely.

“You’re talking about Punch Imlach,” he said. “This isn’t just another guy; this is an icon in the sport. For him to talk like he did about how much he wanted me back and to admit that … that he didn’t put enough value on me, for all of that, it made me miss what I already missed anyway, even more.”

Dudley, of course, wasn’t going to shirk his responsibilities in Cincinnati. But after that meeting, he longed to wear the Blue and Gold again.

Five decades later, he sounds wistful as he rattles off the names of the close friendships he built with the Sabres. Larry Carriere. Danny Gare. Paul McIntosh. Gilbert Perreault. Craig Ramsay.

“You have people that you look forward to seeing,” he said. “… That team was special. Jerry Korab, when I see him, jeez, I look forward to seeing the big lug. …

“We went so far and we suffered the indignity of losing to the Philadelphia Flyers, but we played so hard for so long that special year that you don’t forget that. You just don’t.”

Buffalo has always held a special place in his heart. While his hockey life has taken him all over North America, he has kept a house in the Buffalo area for most of the last 50 years. These days, he makes his home in Lewiston.

“Success happened for me in Buffalo,” he said. “I also really enjoy the area. I played junior hockey in St. Catharines, so I was in this area much of my life, and it just became home. And I’ve grown to like Lewiston more than any place.”

Dudley loved his time in Cincinnati – “They were great to me, the people were great to me,” he said – but the Stingers weren’t on the same level as the Sabres.

“I enjoyed playing in an atmosphere where you were expected to win,” he said.

Dudley starred for the Stingers, scoring 43 goals in his first season and 41 goals in his second campaign. But they were going nowhere.

As it became apparent the Stingers wouldn’t be among the WHA teams the NHL would be absorbing in 1979, they gave Dudley’s contract back to the Sabres during the 1978-79 season for a “waiver price” of around $100,000, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.

On Feb. 14, 1979, he played his first game for the Sabres in nearly four years. Most of the teammates he had grown close to were still in Buffalo. It was an easy transition.

Inglis, who was Buffalo’s interim coach, put Dudley in the starting lineup that night against the New York Islanders in Memorial Auditorium.

“When they announced me, I’ll never forget that,” Dudley said. “It was amazing, it was truly amazing, the reception from the crowd. It was unreal.”

When Dudley scored 1:17 into the Sabres’ 2-1 win, the fans roared again.

“You couldn’t have written it better,” he said.