Joe Contini

Joe Contini was a major factor in the Hamilton Fincups winning the Memorial Cup. Courtesy of the Hamilton Spectator.

After he finished playing, Contini coached the Guelph Platers in the early 1980s. Courtesy of the Hamilton Spectator.

Contini set Memorial Cup records while playing with the Fincups

One of the stars of the 1976 Memorial Cup winning Hamilton Fincups was told he wouldn’t be fast enough to play hockey.

“I wasn’t the quickest guy and they always said I’d never play Junior and I’d never play pro because I wasn’t fast enough, but I scored every place I went,” said Galt-born Joe Contini in a recent interview with the Hockey News.

But the Fincup center was an important part of the 1976 Hamilton championship team, even though he was not enthusiastic about playing for the Fincups when he was drafted by the team in 1974.

“I wasn’t happy about coming to Hamilton,” he said in a February 1976 Hamilton Spectator interview. “Any other place would have been fine. I changed my mind, though, when I found out how well the players were treated under the new set-up.”

Born in 1957, Contini started with the Guelph Biltmore Mad Hatters in 1972, and was the league scoring champ in the Ontario Minor Hockey Association’s Bantam division.
In his first year with Hamilton, he scored 27 goals with line-mates Ric Seiling and Joe Kowal.

He set a Memorial Cup record with six points (three goals, three assists) in a playoff game with Hamilton, and previous to that considered his Junior A career highlight a seven-point effort, including two goals, against the Kitchener Rangers in a 12-2 Hamilton win over the Rangers in October of 1975.

“I don’t get too many so I feel good when I score.”

After playing in Hamilton, Contini continued with the Fincups, who moved to Saint Catharines for the 1976-77 season. In 1977 he was the eighth-round draft pick for the Colorado Rockies of the NHL, playing 37 games for the season and scoring 12 goals.
He was now playing left wing, but he said at the time he didn’t mind the change.

“It’s different because you have to stay on your own side and you have to forecheck two men,” he said. “But it doesn’t bother me.”

Contini stayed in Denver for the 1978-79 season, and was looking forward to a promising career in the NHL.

“I’m very happy – I can’t complain. They’ve treated me very well and I hope I’m here to stay.”
During this time, Contini did play with the Phoenix Roadrunners of the CHL and the Flint Generals of the IHL, farm teams of Colorado.

His contract with the team was up, and although Contini signed with the Minnesota North Stars late in the 1979-80 season, he played only a single game before going to Oklahoma City, Hershey, and then the Muskegon Mohawks of the IHL in the 1981-82 season before retiring from playing.

In his 68 games in the majors, Contini had 17 goals and 21 assists.

By 1982, Contini was named coach of the Guelph Platers, the youngest coach in the OHL at the time.

He stressed that discipline, fundamentals, and hard work would be his priorities for the Platers B team of the Midwestern League.

“Look at the successful coaches around the league, guys like Joe Crozier and Templeton,” Contini noted in a Kitchener-Waterloo Record interview at the time. “Sure they have good players, but they also have excellent systems because they work hard at perfecting them. There just isn’t any other way.”

With Contini at the helm, the Platers went from a seven-game win season to 20 victories in his first year with the team.

“We like to stress fundamentals,” he said at the time in a Spectator interview. “I’m no great new coach. I’m no philosopher. We just play the basics.”

Contini coached the Platers for two seasons, and today operates a dry cleaning service in Guelph.

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