‘Hammer’ his own boss — and bouncer, if needed

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Three guys walk into a hockey bar in Henderson and ...

Full disclosure. When I walked into Hammers Grill and Bar at 777 East Horizon Drive around 12:30 p.m. Monday, four guys were in the bar, and they already were there when I arrived, and one of the guys had his wife with him. And Hammers only is a hockey bar in non-labor dispute seasons when there's a game on. Otherwise, it reverts to being a football bar with 12 big screens and plenty of ice-cold beer on tap and delicious marinated chicken sandwiches served with french fries sliced from real potatoes - you know, like the kind your mom used to make.

But Hammers is owned by a former pro hockey player. So that makes it a hockey bar.

Bob Fleming spent 15 seasons pounding hockey's bush leagues in outposts such as Medicine Hat and Peoria and Danville and Flint and Rochester and Erie. You couldn't see the Montreal Forum, or Maple Leaf Gardens, or even the Pittsburgh Igloo from those places.

But Fleming did get to see Chicago Stadium once; made his NHL debut there, in fact, for the Buffalo Sabres against the Blackhawks, though it was only an exhibition game.

But that didn't stop Fleming from getting into not one but two fights with Stu Grimson, who stood 6 feet 6 inches, weighed 240 pounds and seldom played hockey with his gloves on, because he had anvils for fists. The Grim Reaper had a fearsome reputation as a fighter, having once compiled 397 penalty minutes in a single season.

The most penalty minutes Bob Fleming ever amassed in one season was 219. But he was a fearsome enforcer in his own right, and that is why he is missing six teeth. And that is also why people call him The Hammer, those three 20-goal seasons notwithstanding.

(It doesn't, however, explain why he calls his grill and bar Hammers, without the apostrophe. The only thing I can figure out is that enforcers usually aren't too well versed in punctuation. But if you think I am going to tell him that the next time I see him, your elevator doesn't go all the way to the Blue Seats.)

Bob "The Hammer" Fleming, a former steer wrestler from Calgary, Alberta, isn't the first former hockey player to get into the grill and bar business after his playing days. A quick Google search uncovered Cheli's (Chris Chelios) Chili Bar in Detroit; Wayne Gretzky's in Toronto; Wendel Clark's in the Toronto suburb of Oakville; Kirk McLean's in Vancouver; and a Tim Hortons donut shop on every street corner from Prince Edward Island to the Northwest Territories.

(A guy at the Wranglers game Saturday night told me he once had a knuckle sandwich at Tie Domi's Fish and Chips, but this was in the third period after lots of beers.)

When I asked The Hammer why he had gotten into the grill and bar business in Henderson, he said he used to be a salesman for Jack Daniel's in Peoria, Ill., which led to putting coin-operated dart and cigarette machines in bars, which led to setting aside enough money to open the original Hammers in Peoria. Which he later sold to a guy who had played for the Brandon Wheat Kings.

Then Fleming moved to Southern Nevada to be close to other Flemings. He opened this Hammers about 3½ years ago. His wife, Julie, who keeps the books, says if The Hammer can keep telling hockey stories and the economy keeps turning around like the L.A. Kings' power play (during a non-labor dispute season), Hammers just might make it. Maybe it can be like Tim Hortons, only smaller, and without the apple fritters and honey crullers and the stores in the Northwest Territories.

"Believe it or not, I went into a few bars when I was in the minor leagues," said The Hammer, whose two-fight rumble with former Las Vegas Thunder tough guy Kirk Tomlinson (when they were putting up dukes in the American Hockey League) still can be seen on YouTube via HockeyFights.com.

(Fleming will be the one in the blue uniform with the porn-star mustache throwing like 12 left hooks in a row, then a series of right-hand haymakers after taking Tomlinson down.)

Said the Hammer: "I always sort of liked (hanging out in bars) and thought I could (run one)."

He said his new bar is known for its family atmosphere and its good food. And maybe for the hundreds of ballcaps, and his grandpa's old hockey skates that hang from the walls. Sometimes, one of the old Thunder - Rod Buskas or Darcy "Chainsaw" Loewen or Jeff Sharples (but not Kirk Tomlinson) - will stop in for a cold one. Or several cold ones.

The Hammer, who is 52 and now sort of looks like Jesse Ventura when Ventura was governor of Minnesota, is by and large a friendly Hammer. He has had just one fight since his last game misconduct: One night a guy started throwing wooden stakes at passing cars out on Horizon Drive, and so The Hammer went out there and pulled the guy's shirt over his head, because old habits die hard.

After the cops sent the wooden stake guy to the penalty box, The Hammer went back inside, perhaps to tell three guys who had walked into his bar about the time he fought Mark Messier in juniors, or called the coach of the Regina Pats a !@#$% vacuum salesman, or fought both Salvucci brothers on the same night, back in '85, when they were with the Fort Wayne Komets.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.