Warren Zevon wrote a hockey song about a big farm boy from Saskatchewan. He called it "Hit Somebody," a title that pretty much sums up Fern Flaman’s career. A big, strong kid from Saskatchewan’s farm country, he was signed by the Boston organization and played his first game as an 18-year-old during the 1944-45 season. He made a second appearance the following season while playing the rest of the schedules with the Boston Olympics of the EAHL.

Moving up to the AHL he appeared in 38 games with the Hershey Bears and 23 with the Bruins in 1946-47 and finally stuck for good, beginning his NHL career in earnest the next season.

The 5-foot-10, 190-pounder joined a team that featured the kraut Line of Schmidt, Dumart and Bauer up front and was backstopped by Frank Brimsek in nets. Flaman’s role was a simple one. As a stay-at-home defenceman he was charged with defending his territory against invaders by whatever means necessary.

With both the physique and the attitude needed, he did the job for the next three complete seasons. Flaman flattened forwards coming too close to the Bruins net and laid others out in open ice with body checks that made many opponents reluctant to return to his side of the ice. When it was bare-knuckle time, Flaman administered more than a few thrashings to pugilistic foes, carving out a reputation as one of the NHL’s top brawlers that would follow him for the rest of his career.

Rarely an offensive threat, the rugged Flaman picked up a total of only 40 points in the 223 regular season games he played in his first go-round as a Bruin. He traded Boston colours for the blue and white of the Toronto Maple leafs early in the 1950-51 season, joining a team that was hoping that his toughness would take the team back to the heights it had enjoyed only a few years earlier, when they became the first NHL squad to three peat as Stanley Cup Champions.

Flaman’s robust approach was a major contribution to the Leafs success the next spring as they rolled over his old mates from Boston in five games, outscoring them 17-5 over the five-game semi-final. They then triumphed over the Montreal Canadiens, also in five games. Every match needed a few minutes of extra time to bring things to a conclusion and Toronto won it on Bill Barilko’s last goal. Somewhere along the way to having his name inscribed on hockey’s Holy Grail for the only time in his life, Fern Flaman scored the first of his four career postseason goals.

He stayed with the Leafs for three years, the last two spent alongside newcomer Leo Boivin, a stocky hard-hitting defenceman who approached his duties with the same mindset as Flaman did. Boivin established his credentials for toughness in very short order and the two formed the most-feared defensive pairing in the NHL.

In July, 1954, Flaman returned to Boston. Boivin followed shortly after the 19554-55 campaign got underway and the two played alongside each other for the next several years.

Back in black, Flaman showed that he had a few offensive skills, picking up 18 points in 1954-55, the most he had put on the score sheet as a big leaguer while continuing to be a guy opposing forwards kept an eye out for when they crossed the Boston blue line.

He was named to the second all-Star team at season’s end. Two years later he was named to it once again following a six-goal, 25-assist season, a career high for productivity for the now-veteran defenceman. A third nod came after the 1957-58 season.

Named captain upon Milt Schmidt’s retirement, Flaman kept the C for the rest of his Boston tenure, a forceful presence who led by example and took his somewhat underpowered team into the playoffs in three of the next six seasons. They made the finals in the spring of 1957 and again in 1958 but fell to the juggernaut Montreal Canadiens dynasty that owned the Stanley Cup for the latter half of the decade.

Upon retiring after the 1960-61 season Flaman returned to the minor leagues, taking a job as player/coach with the AHL’s Providence Reds, where he is credited with playing a big role in developing a young Eddie Giacomin, later a Rangers’ net minding legend.

After three years in the dual role and a fourth in a coaching capacity, Flaman returned to the Bruins organization as a scout, something that tided him over until a more permanent proposition came his way.

In 1970 Flaman was named head coach at Northeastern University, a post he held for almost two decades, building the school into a hockey contender and winning four Beanpot tournaments, symbol of hockey supremacy in the Boston area, a long-time hotbed of college he managed to win virtually every title up for grabs in the Boston area, one of America’s hottest college hockey hotbeds.

In an era when US universities were not producing a large number of NHLers, Flaman managed to send a few kids on to the big time. One NU alumnus to make the grade was Randy Bucyk, nephew of the man who took over the Boston captaincy when Flaman retired. Another was a local boy who approached the game with much of the same gusto that his kindly old coach had. Both Bucyk and Chris Nilan were members of the 1986 Habs Cup-winner.

After leaving the locker rooms of academia, Flaman rejoined an NHL organization. The now-eighty-year-old scouts for the New Jersey Devils and is a fixture with both the Bruins and Providence Reds Alumni organizations.