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Former Oilers enforcer Dave Semenko dies at age 59


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Dave Semenko — maybe the fiercest National Hockey League fighter of them all, the personal on-ice bodyguard of Wayne Gretzky during the Edmonton Oilers’ glory days in the 1980s — has died after a short battle with pancreatic cancer.

 

“I’ve never seen a man that big taken down that fast,” said Oilers teammate Paul Coffey, who flew in from Toronto to see Semenko this week. “He won every fight (NHL) but, unfortunately, this wasn’t his battle to win.”

 

“He’s the first guy our group (the 1980s Oilers Cup teams) to pass away. You never would have thought it would be Dave. He was in incredible pain (before diagnosis). He said he’d get up in the middle of the night and go driving on the Henday to try to calm the pain.”

 

Semenko, who would have turned 60 July 12, played 454 NHL Oilers games and was part of their first two Stanley Cup teams in 1984 and 1985. He played 142 games over two seasons with the World Hockey Association Oilers before that, after head coach Glen Sather brought him in after his rough and tumble junior career with the Brandon Wheat Kings.

 

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http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/dave-semenko-death-oilers-1.4183578

 

Off the ice, Semenko once went three rounds with boxing legend Muhammad Ali in an exhibition bout in Edmonton on June 12, 1983. The match was judged a draw, though The Associated Press' report on the fight said Ali, a three-time world heavyweight champion, mostly toyed with Semenko.

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