Harry Steven "Mental Case" Durbano (December 12, 1951 in Toronto, Ontario – November 16, 2002 in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories) was a professional ice hockey player noted for his villainous behavior on the ice and his larger-than-life persona off it.

[edit] Career

Born in Toronto, Durbano rose through minor hockey to a place on the Toronto Marlboros of the Ontario Hockey Association. He was drafted by the New York Rangers in the first round of the 1971 NHL Amateur Draft. He never played a game for the Rangers, though, and was traded to the St. Louis Blues where he began his career. Durbano quickly gained a reputation for being one of the toughest players in the league, amassing 1,411 major league-career penalty minutes, including an NHL-leading 370 PIM in the 1975–76 season.^[1]

He played 220 NHL games over the course of his career for St. Louis as well as the Pittsburgh Penguins, Kansas City Scouts and Colorado Rockies, along with 45 games in the World Hockey Association for the Birmingham Bulls.

[edit] Retirement

In 1983, shortly after he retired, Durbano was implicated in a scheme to import half a million dollars worth of cocaine into Canada and was sentenced to seven years in prison. After his release, Durbano still couldn't keep straight - he was arrested once for shoplifting, and, in 1995, he was sent back to prison after he attempted to recruit an undercover police officer into an escort service in Welland, Ontario.^[2] He moved to the Northwest Territories late in life in an effort to find peace, but died there of liver cancer in November 2002.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Willes, Ed (2004). The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association. Toronto, Ontario: McClelland and Stweart Ltd. ISBN 0–7710–8947–3

[edit] External links

• Steve Durbano on the HockeyDB.com