Ronald “Obie” O’Brien: Pure Magic

Given the passage of time, it’s understandable that Ronald “Obie” O’Brien, Class of 1957, is better known as a magician than as one of the finest hockey players ever to don St. Lawrence livery. But long-time Saint fans remember O’Brien very well indeed; with linemates Joe McLean and Lee Fournier, he burst onto the national scene in 1954-55 as a sophomore, leading the team in scoring –– one third of a legendary line that many consider St. Lawrence’s best-ever. And at least a few might favor the word magic to describe Obie’s on-ice deeds.

Ronald J. O’Brien grew up in Ottawa, not far from the banks of the Rideau Canal, and by his late teens had emerged as one of the capital area’s best young hockey players. A year out of secondary school and playing with the Ottawa Montagnards, he came home one day to find an application for admission to St. Lawrence University. The friend who left it was Brian McFarlane, by then a brilliant star in SLU’s hockey firmament. Obie followed through on the application, entering college in Canton in the fall of 1953.

After a year at right wing on the Freshman team in which he and his centerman, fellow Ottawa native Joe McLean, scored goals in dizzying numbers, Obie moved up to the 1954-55 varsity. Here, Coach Ollie Kollevol teamed him once more with McLean and installed yet another Ottawa sophomore, Lee Fournier, at the left wing slot. The trio knew one another from games at home, but had all played on different teams.

The decision to unite Fournier, O’’Brien, and McLean –– they would wear numbers 17, 18, and 19, respectively –– was not just a good idea; it was a positively inspired one. An already-fine St. Lawrence team led by McFarlane, Mickey Walker, Chuck Lundberg, Ed Zifcak, and the peerless netminder Bill Sloan was elevated to the superb with the addition of the sophomore line. The team played 19-5-1 (17-2 against Eastern opponents) for the season, competing in the NCAA Championship Tournament at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs –– a vintage year by any standards.

The sophomore line was the season’s sensation, racking up 155 scoring points on 69 goals and 86 assists –– nearly half of the team total. O’Brien topped all scorers with 58 points (27 goals, 31 assists), followed by Fournier (20-31-51). McLean’’s 46 points were good for fourth, just behind McFarlane’s 47. The 58 points credited to O’Brien made him St. Lawrence’s top single-season point-getter, a mark not exceeded until Terry Slater amassed 72 in 1959-60.

During the next two seasons the McLean-O’Brien-Fournier line provided the lion’s share of team scoring, with all three players finishing in the 40-point range. As seniors they were rated as the nation’s top line with 61 goals and 81 assists in 20 games, bringing their three-year total to a staggering 433 points. O’Brien finished his college career with 69 goals and 84 assists, which still ranks second only to Terry Slater among three-year career players. In addition to his single-season point mark, he set a record for most consecutive games scored in (34), and became a co-holder of most goals scored in a game (5); both of these records still stand. In addition to the above, Obie was accorded All-American Honorable Mention at the conclusion of the 1956-57 season.

Given the fact that three excellent hockey players do not always guarantee a great line, what made the McLean-O’Brien-Fournier trio so wildly successful? The answer, according to O’Brien, is that each performed the varied tasks requisite to a line’s success: “McLean carried the puck, and Fournier went into the corners and dug it out for us,”” he says.

And Obie’s part? He couches his answer in a modest “I was fortunate enough to . . . ” Fact is, he was the guy who arrived at the goalmouth at just the right time, in just the right place. And he made it look easy, effortless, as if –– yes, by magic. He excelled at a role that, years later, a Sault Ste. Marie native named Phil Esposito would play right into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Obie was The Finisher on a line whose color -- born of distinctive personalities and incredible deeds -- has made it a Saint legend. But not all of his points came from goals; he is particularly proud of a four-goal, four-assist game he had against Boston College –– a game that SLU dominated, 9-1. To Obie, St. Lawrence was a very happy chapter in his life, “a great experience,” as he puts it.
There was also Obie the recruiter. During his years in Canton O’Brien prevailed upon other young Canadian hockey players to bring their skills to SLU, among them Ted Card (’58), Harold (“Rip”) Riopelle (also ’58), and a burly, sublimely-talented defenseman who lived around the corner at home, Pat Presley (’59).

The O’Brien hockey career did not end at St. Lawrence. Assaying new peaks to scale, Obie joined the Lake Placid Roamers in 1959, playing on that team until 1984. He also played a couple of seasons in the early sixties with the Senior “A” Morrisburg Combines; in one of those years the team competed in playdowns leading to the Allan Cup, emblematic of Senior “A” supremacy in Canada.

Off the ice, after brief stints in local industry and public school teaching, O’Brien became a mathematics professor at Canton Agricultural and Technical College, a position he held from 1961 until his 1992 retirement. Advanced degrees were earned at SLU and New Mexico State. In 1964 he started hockey at ATC and coached the team until 1974, annexing two National Junior College Championships along the way. And remember the famed “Miracle on Ice” hockey game between the USA and the Soviet Union during the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics? Did you know that the official scorer for that game was Ronald O’Brien.

And today’s performing magician, “Majic Obie?” For him, magic has grown from a fascinating hobby –– discovered, by the way as a freshman at St. Lawrence -- into a full-blown profession. In recent years he has performed his feats of legerdemain all over the world –– Aruba, England, Germany, Tahiti, Japan, among others -- and earned the respect of peers such as David Copperfield. In 1993-94 he served as President of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

As that smart Frenchman said: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” For Ronald “Obie” O’’Brien, the talent displayed in his journey from Appleton ice to world stage can be summarized in two words:

Pure magic.