JR Ewing

I couldn't believe they didn't lock Pocklington up.....for his own good!

He was public enemy #1 in Edmonton in those days and still is, really. He sold Gretzky (that wasn't a hockey trade) so he could cover bad business deals with his meat packing company, Gainers. In just a few short years, he'd gone on to have stripped down the hockey team for parts, close down (perhaps) the largest employer in town and attempt to sell the team to interests in Texas. He ended up declaring bankruptcy and, in true rich guy fashion, ended up living at the Pebble Beach Golf Course, next to the other broke guys.

Later on, he was charged bankruptcy fraud, and settled on a plea deal which saw him receive probation and house arrest and, a few months ago, was ordered to pay out $5M in a securities fraud case. At every step of the way, he's had a laundry list of people to blame; it's never his fault.

But, as my Dad has always said, if the same type of stuff keeps happening to you, and you're the common denominator, you have to ask what's more likey: that it's always somebody else's fault, or your own?

JR

The WHA had its share of characters, one of my all time favorites to read about was Frank 'never' Beaton, who later in his career changed his nickname to 'seldom' and decided to retire when he was forced to change it to 'often.' Fun stories about a gas station attendant spilling drops of gas on his car so Beaton got into a fight and was charged. To avoid arrest he hid in an equipment bag which was tossed on the bus as the team left town. Funny guy who still pops up every now and then telling his stories...

JR

@JR Ewing

They were some violent SOBs back then for sure

That's what I always have to say when people talk about the 70s as being the most violent era of hockey ever. It was definitely violent, and you definitely needed to watch out for getting jumped, but not close to being as bad as it had been in the past.

Hockey sticks were half for playing the game, the other half for carving an opponent like a Christmas turkey.

JR

Billy Coutu was the first, and to date only, player banned from the NHL for life for violence in 1927; he assaulted referee Jerry Laflamme and tackled referee Billy Bell before starting a bench-clearing brawl during a Stanley Cup game between the Boston Bruins and Ottawa Senators, apparently on the orders of Bruins coach Art Ross. The NHL's first president, Frank Calder, expelled Coutu from the NHL for life; the ban was lifted after 2½ years, but Coutu never played in the NHL again.

I've always understood that it was even worse than that: the game was over, the Series won by the Senators, when he attacked LaFlamme. Either way...

JR

Cool JR! Wondered where our sport store branch name came from...never knew that history.

Now you know.

Though the game was sufficiently different that the numbers don't translate without heavy amounts of normalizing, it's clear that he's one of the all-time greats.

JR

This is Joe Hall. He was kind of the Chis Chelios of his day but, given the extreme levels of violence in the game during the 1910s, did things none of us would deem imagineable in a hockey game today... Sticks over the head, face, windpipe. Spearings, beatings, etc.

On February 16, 1917, Hall bit off more than he could chew, and got into it with Renfrew's Frank Patrick, who aside from being a great player, was an outstanding fighter. According to the Montreal Gazette "Patrick had pummeled Hall's face and nose into mallowy pulp." Hall was humiliated, so he turned around and beat the hell out of referee Rod Kennedy (this was not altogether unheard of in those days).

The repercussions? Hall was fined $100, which he refused to pay, nor was he willing to pay the $27.50 required to replace Kennedy's suit, which was tattered beyond repair and heavily soiled with blood.

JR

@goalnut3133

Hey you stole my Cyclone!! lol

No way. Tell the rest; there's way more to his story. I just got a kick out of him demanding a govt job in addition to a hockey paycheque.

JR

@flyercanuck

LOL

The guy took his time with that one.

JR

@JR Ewing Is that Josh Gibson in your avatar?

Sure is.

JR

Cyclone Taylor, hockeyist for the 1909 Ottawa Senators.

Professionalism was a brand new concept in the hockey world, and was pretty much a hated idea, especially by team owners. Coming off his first hockey paycheque playing Portage Lakes in the IHL, Taylor was in love with the idea. Taylor was the best player in the game, and like everybody else, the Senators wanted him to play for them. Finally, ownership and Taylor agreed on a deal: Taylor would be paid $500 for ten games, and the Senators ownership consortium would use their pull in the capital to get Taylor a secure government job, working for the Canadian Department of Immigration.

This was no little thing for Taylor. When ended up signing with the Patrick brothers to play in Vancouver in 1913, the same condition applied: in addition to a paycheque, he demanded they arrange for his off-season job to be transferred to from Ottawa to Vancouver. It was a job he never left, eventually being promoted to Commissioner of Immigration for BC and the Yukon.

JR

If you have a story you know, or an interesting tidbit about a player/ team/owner/coach/whatever, but you don't think it deserves its own thread, here's the place to do it. Share what you know.

JR

@jammer2

Billy Tibbetts

JR

@JR Ewing

So I take it you know Bushwakkers well?

Worst hangover of my life. Went there for lunch. Closed it. Never did eat. Had to fly the next morning.

LOL. Had a good night, did we?

I know where it is, but that's about it. I'm a non-drinker. Woke up with a brutal hangover one time when I was 20. Said "never again", and it's been that way for 20 years. Sometimes on a really hot day, I think about having a beer, but figure I can't break my streak now.

JR

Good ol' video games. Are you in the Toon? the big V? or elsewhere?

Yeah, I live in Regina. We moved here 6 years ago. Just another one of the many glamour spots I've Iived in across Canada.

Trenton, Peterborough, Edmonton, Regina...

It's almost like spending your life in Monte Carlo.

JR

Ales Hemsky has plenty of talent as we all know, but is he a third-line, two way winger? Not remotely. He's stuck with us until we can deal him. His contract might expire first before a deal happens.

In the comments section, Cloutier filled in more of his take on Hemsky:

Ales Hemsky is a talented player who belongs in a Top 6 group. He's not a hitter; he's a swift-skating creative playmaker that would be an upgrade offensively for several teams. The Oilers need big wingers who hit in the bottom 6. Two-way players. Hemsky doesn't bring that. So even though he's a talented guy who absolutely has value, he's not a fit for the Oilers Top 6 or Bottom 6.

I've been watching hockey my entire life, and ever since I reached the age of reason, I have never understood this line of thinking. Can we all agree that the best hockey players are the ones who drive play north, who get the puck moving in the right direction and create chances at the other end? Then, what is the obsession with trying to pigeon hole guys into a player type, and then engineering the team to attempt to fit this narrow description of what a player should be?

-Then, what the hell could be better than having a RW with a career CorsiRel of +9.5 in that role? Hemsky gets the puck, gets it out of his end, and creates chances at the opposite end of the ice.

-He's done this against tough opposition: every coach he had matched him against possession positive players, and Hemsk'ys come out on top.

-You know what "big wingers who hit" means? It means the opposition has the puck more often.

GMs who look for a player of a certain type, rather than a player of certain quality are the ones who wonder why they don't get bang for their bucks, and are constantly stuck spinning their wheels.

JR

There's parts of this article I couldn't disagree more with:

As much as I ripped on Shawn Horcoff constantly, Gordon is not a better center. He's a different type of center, and his cap hit is much lower...but better? Horcoff did a good job playing two-way hockey against some pretty good lines last season. He had value and Gordon has work to do to fill Horcoff's skates.

This doesn't even make sense. He begins by talking about how Gordon and Horcoff are different types of centers, and then identified their jobs: THE EXACT SAME ROLE. Each were used as tough-minute centers playing against good lines. So, does Gordon fill those shoes?

Zone Starts: Horcoff was given the 2nd toughest Zone Starts among Oilers centers last season, at 42.1%, while Gordon had (by far) the toughest on the Coyotes: 32.6%.

Gordon 1, Horcoff 0

Faceoffs: each were given tough starts, tasked by their coach to win the draw so they could get the puck moving out of their zone. In every situation which is measured, this is a massive advantage for Gordon.

Horcoff: http://stats.tabita....r/shawn_horcoff

Gordon: http://stats.tabita....yer/boyd_gordon

Gordon 2, Horcoff 0

Quality of Competition: Gordon saw exceptionally tough opposition: 9th toughest among NHL centers last season. Horcoff? 108th. This one is a no contest.

Gordon 3, Horcoff 0

Relative Corsi: this is our possession metric, which we can use to see who moved the puck out of their zone and away from their end. It's the primary role of the tough minutes center. Horcoff: -4.4, Gordon: +0.6. So, starting next to his own net most of the time, and against MUCH tougher opposition, Gordon's line still carried more of the play than their opponent. Horcoff had a tough minutes role against easier opposition, but was possession negative, surrendering more chances against.

Gordon 4, Horcoff 0

Offense: Horcoff scored 1.34 P/60, while Gordon scored at a clip of 1.18 P/60. That works out to around 22 ES points over 82 games for Horcoff and 19 for Gordon, which is a pretty small difference. The advantage goes to Horcoff here, but with a big qualifier: Horcoff's two most common wingers were Nail Yakupov and Taylor Hall, while Boyd Gordon's were David Moss and Robin Klinkhammer. I have to think that Horcoff's wingers account for more than a 3 point difference.

Gordon 4, Horcoff 1

I just don't get Cloutier here. He identified Horcoff's and Gordon's roles as the same and then talked about how Gordon has a long way to go in order to fill Horcoff's skates, but even a cursory glance shows you that it isn't the case. Based on recent history, and especially given their relative age and salary, Gordon is an upgrade in almost every conceivable way.

TLDR - Cloutier's point about Gordon and Horcoff was obtuse.

JR

Thanks to jammer for catching this one:

I'm of the opinion Oilers GM Craig MacTavish shouldn't be done making moves this summer. We're not talking about anything as dramatic as the Paajarvi for Perron deal, but almost just as important. The Oilers Bottom 6, which was terrible last season, hasn't been improved. Oh, it will look different, but be better?

Here's where we stand as of now:

Out - Shawn Horcoff, Lennart Petrell, Jerred Smithson, Eric Belanger, Teemu Hartikainen

In - Boyd Gordon, Jesse Joensuu

So who might be in the Bottom 6 this season? Gordon, Joensuu, Ryan Jones, Ryan Smyth, Mike Brown, Ben Eager, Anton Lander, and Ales Hemsky

Yick.

As much as I ripped on Shawn Horcoff constantly, Gordon is not a better center. He's a different type of center, and his cap hit is much lower...but better? Horcoff did a good job playing two-way hockey against some pretty good lines last season. He had value and Gordon has work to do to fill Horcoff's skates.

Ales Hemsky has plenty of talent as we all know, but is he a third-line, two way winger? Not remotely. He's stuck with us until we can deal him. His contract might expire first before a deal happens...

Rest of the article:

http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog.php?post_id=53137&blogger_id=131#.Uf872qzd4uc

JR

@jammer2 Wow that's pretty impressive, all the work that went into this....I'll bet there's 1 person on this forum that knows about this already: @JR Ewing LOL! Or if not, he'd be fascinated with the stat work..haha

Gonna try looking for some 'Nucks on there! lol

Yeah. I used it a few days ago, to get the date that Dave Brown took Stu Grimson apart brick by brick:

http://dropyourgloves.com/fights/GameEvents.aspx?Game=18250&Fight=2156#Fight2156

JR

Was blown away that Edmonton would do that to a city, to a province and to a country. I remember it transcended sports and was the lead topic for days on the news in the USA even. I remember hearing people blame Pocklington, blaming Bruce Mcnall and Janet Jones. I had returned from three and a half years in Germany just weeks before the trade and couldn't understand it. Still after all of this time it still makes no sense.

You should have seen what it was like living in Edmonton in those days. A sort of stunned disbelief, panic, and hatred washed over everybody. It was disbelief that somebody would trade the best player in the world during the prime of his career, panic that he wouldn't be the last, and hatred for Janet Jones.

JR

@JR Ewing When I was growing up, street hockey was all the rage. We would have tourny's set up to see which part of the city was had the dominant team. We played in school playgrounds, so there was no "car" but heard that growing up many, many times. It's actually a treasured part of my childhood that yelling of "car". Didn't know it at the time, it was just common occurance.

Our street games were violent. Full checking, hacking...all of it. We played with those orange balls that would damn near kill ya when they hit you square in the nuts. I few times, I thought I was gonna die from the pain...LOL!

I played with a bunch of Habs fans, they all wore Habs jersey's, I refused and wore a Clarke #16. We had set break out plays, set offensive plays to take andvante of our individual skill sets. I was never a big scorer, I patterned my game after Clarke, tireless worker retreiving pucks, setting up other...and my cardio was just superior, could fly up and down the playing surface and never seemed to tire. Nobody could hang with my cardio, and I took full advantage of it.

We won the mythical city championship 3 times, but then our left winger Charlie found a huge garbage bag full of weed, and well, other things took precedence....LOL!

LOL!!!

A whole garbage bag?

Yeah, I think I'd have had to retire from street hockey at that point, too.

JR

August 9...

In 1988, it was the day that Peter Pocklington kind of crushed my spirit. Our family was on vacation when we saw the news.

In 2004, it was the day that, tied with the birth of my son, was the greatest of my life: the birth of my daughter.

JR

My favourite position was always Goalie, I loved the challenge of it. But we mostly played in my friend's basement, so no getting socked with wet sopping tennis balls! It may have been due to the rainy weather days here,so we kept it inside. For some reason, we never thought to have any padding or mask, just a stick & glove worked. (Might have had knee pads).

When I was about 10, we moved from Ontario to Edmonton. Those balls, in that weather, achieve a kind of diamond-hard quality, and when they hit you, your ancestors felt it. I'm sure the NSA has satellite photos of prisoners in North Korean prison camps being tortured in this way.

JR

My sons had a goal made from pieces of lumber and chicken wire. They'd drag it out into the street, and like magic, the next thing you knew there'd be half a dozen kids with them.

I remember JR's ""CAR!!!"".

Those scenes are gone around here.

Not one kid on my block, growing up, was goalie, so there were no goal pads. And when tennis balls (or those orange stone which they call balls) get cold or wet, it's like being kicked in the shins with an ice pick. A friend and I scoured the neighbourhood and found some couch cushions, so we took them home, removed the covers, cut them into the shape of golie pads, and secured them to our legs with some athletic wrap. It was great! No pain; just a soft THUD when a save was made.

No mask or can, mind you. For some reason, we never thought about that until we got racked in the nuts.

Now, they sell street hockey pads. No need to take the steps we were forced into.

JR

When I grew up, practically every other street had a road hockey game going on. Now you see the odd one, but it's a real nostalgic feeling when you do. Drive through Toronto and you'll see more "It is unlawful to play road hockey on this street" signs than you will actual games.

I never see any kids playing street hockey here. None. Never. "CAR!!!" is dead and gone.

JR

Not related specifically to Derek Boogaard, but appropriate to the conversation:

Injuries from Teen Fighting Deal a Blow to IQ

A new Florida State University study has found that adolescent boys who are hurt in just two physical fights suffer a loss in IQ that is roughly equivalent to missing an entire year of school. Girls experience a similar loss of IQ after only a single fighting-related injury.

The findings are significant because decreases in IQ are associated with lower educational achievement and occupational performance, mental disorders, behavioral problems and even longevity, the researchers said.

... The researchers found that each fighting-related injury resulted in a loss of 1.62 IQ points for boys, while girls lost an average of 3.02 IQ points, even after controlling for changes in socio-economic status, age and race for both genders. Previous studies have indicated that missing a single year of school is associated with a loss of 2 to 4 IQ points.

The impact on IQ may be even greater when considering only head injuries, the researchers said. The data they studied took into account all fighting-related physical injuries.

http://www.universityherald.com/articles/4114/20130803/injuries-teen-fighting-deal-blow-iq.htm

For the sake of saying it, Derek Boogaard had 34 fights just when he was 16... Just think of the damage which was done to his brain during this period.

JR