Miscellaneous
Nickname: "Tiny"
Post-Draft Teams: Richmond (AHL); Charlotte (EHL); Dallas (CHL); San Diego (WHL); Des Moines, Dayton (IHL); Calgary (WHA);
Kiruna (Sweden); Bad Nauheim, Freiburg (West Germany)
Career Beyond Hockey: Returned
to his native province of Alberta, living for many years in the small
town of Clyde (pop. 503), after his retirement.
Family: Older brother of
former minor-league player Bob Bilodeau.
The Medicine Hat Saga
Bilodeau was claimed by the new Medicine Hat
Tigers from Estevan in the WCHL
expansion draft on June 19, 1970. Initially, he said he was going to
attend the medicine Hat training camp, but when camp opened in September
1970, Bilodeau would not report and began to imply to management that wanted to be traded back
to Estevan. He did show up at camp for one day, but then returned to
Estevan, where he worked out with his old team. The situation was
finally resolved when Bilodeau was traded by Medicine Hat back to Estevan for the rights to a player
to be named from one of Estevan's Tier II teams in Chilliwack and
Weyburn (Boyd Anderson of Weyburn), one additional player from
Estevan's reserve list (later modified to an Oct. 1, 1971, deal in
which Estevan traded Craig Steele and Bob Bolicki to Medicine Hat
for Bob Craig), and the waiver of Bilodeau's $500 expansion draft
fee on Oct. 7, 1970.