Height: 5-9
Weight: 170
Shoot: L
Born: 29 Sep 1943, Brandon MB
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Regular Season & Playoff Scoring Record (key)
| year | team | |||||||||||
| 1972-73 | Winnipeg | |||||||||||
| 1973-74 | Winnipeg | |||||||||||
| 1974-75 | Indianapolis | |||||||||||
| Totals: |
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Ash Takes Up Little Space But Casts Large Shadow • by Reyn Davis • Winnipeg Free Press • February 15, 1973
For a guy whose name will fit in any headline, Bob Ash has grown not to expect rave notices for his accomplishments as a professional hockey player. Publicity is something Ash never seeks, but few players today are as deserving as No. 3 of the Jets. The feeling on this club is that his daily contributions to this team are among the most paramount reasons why Winnipeg has enjoyed the lofty status as leader in the West since November 29. It could well be that the guy with the shorlest autograph in the World Hockey Association is also the most underrated. Annis Stukus thinks so, but Stukus is biased because he's one of the people who led a campaign last summer to trade the rights of Ted Hampson to Minnesota Fighting Saints for a chance to sign Ash. Yet you talk to the members of this team and the name of Bobby Ash is hallowed, indeed. Born small as defencemen go, Ash handles his 5-9, 170-pound frame with the expertise of a prima ballerina. Flashy he isn't, but graceful he is. His efficiency is undisputed. "I don't care who is handling the puck, but in a one-on-one situation I'll pick Bobby Ash every time," said the man the Jets contacted last summer for a better evaluation of this 29-year-old defenseman whose career had closely followed Jake Milford's movements ever since Milford left Brandon and the junior Wheat Kings for whom Ash apprenticed as a teenager. Despite Milford's obvious faith in Ash, it could never be accurately determined why Ash was never afforded at least one chance in play in the National Hockey League during eight good years in the minors. The suspicion is his lack of size — a notion that has since been dispelled a hundred times over as Ash excels among players who had established themselves in the NHL, then jumped to the WHA. Now there is talk that the Jets just might be carrying the two best defencemen in the Western Division. Larry Hornung is bone-tired, but he continues to be on a level of his own in a league that unanimously selected him and J.-C. Tremblay to the midseason all-star team. But the little guy they call Beaver when they are not calling him Squeak is beginning to finally open some eyes in the press gallery with his consistently excellent play this season on a team that has blended as a unit under the example and direction of Bobby Hull. Who the Jets chastise — an expression that has became most popular in their kibitzing sessions — is their business, but Ash has become a typically proud number of this team that has made winning a habit and losing a cause of grave concern — no matter how infrequent. The day he signed a contract for three seasons the Jets and their supporters didn't really know how lucky they were. Certainly it's been moaned that the Jets allowed Ted Harris' muscle to slip through their fingers or the surrender of Ray Clearwater to Cleveland Crusaders, but it should also be remembered that the men who put this team together made a series af excellent moves along the line and the club's No. 1 standing is mute testimony to that fact. Ash is typical of Winnipeg's defense. Like Hornung and Joe Zanussi, he's more adept at defrocking a player of possession of a puck than planting him on his seat. Bob Woytowich and Steve Cuddie do most of the hitting, and Duke Asmundson has improved immensely to the extent that he, too, can play defence quite adequately. If the Jets have a problem, it has to be their slight vulnerability in the vicious infighting of scrambles where brute strength is ruler. But men like Ash have the grace and speed and reflex action to keep the play moving — always ahead where skittish forwards are poised to do their thing. Only two phone calls were needed this summer to consummate the three-year coniract Ash signed with the Jets. He was found pumping gas in Brandon, where he is the busy proprietor of a service station on the outskirts of the city where the Trans-Canada Highway dissects a community of service stations and restaurants. Now he is close to his prize investment — certainly much closer than he was the last couple of years when he played in Omaha in the Central League. Business is good in Brandon — so good, in fact, the service station is one af Manitoba's three busiest in terms of volume at the pumps — while his hockey career in Winnipeg is booming as he and his teammates enjoy their major league status as season-long leaders in the West. If things get much better, he could be tempted to lend his name to the fluorescent lights above bis service station. Yes, Bobby Ash is beginning to be recognized beyond the cozy confines of the dressing room where the toughest hockey critics in the world gather every day. To them, he's a giant — a veritable star in his quiet, efficient way. |
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