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ScottM

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  1. ScottM
    Floral, Saskatchewan, is listed as a ghost town on Wikipedia. A local farmer maintains what is left of the town, which consists of now defunct church and school buildings. Much of the cemetery consists of unmarked graves, and it would surprise many to learn that many of the bodies in said graves bear a famous name. That name is one that is near and dear to all of us who call ourselves hockey fans. For, you see, although no one could have known it at the time, on this very date 88 years ago, the course of the sport of hockey was changed in that tiny, now abandoned village. That was the date that the world welcomed the great Gordie Howe.
     
    I always give my best effort to be open-minded when dealing with things such as player ranking lists. Like anyone else, I have my own opinions, and while it may be generally hard to sway me, I enjoy a good discussion centered around such lists. I can hear out a well-reasoned opinion even if I don't ultimately agree. There are few positions that I consider to be completely unassailable. However, there are only four skaters for which I could really consider any argument as the greatest ever. I would also find it very hard to stomach the idea of any one of those guys being ranked outside of the top four. It should go without saying that Mr. Hockey is one of those four players.
     
    No matter how you slice it, he is among the elite of the elite in the sport of hockey. If you want single-season performance, Gordie Howe is your man. Six times, he was named as the NHL's most valuable player six times and as the WHA's MVP once. He led the NHL in goals five times, assists three times, and points six times. He was named to the NHL's first or second all-star team a whopping 21 times and to the WHA's first all-star team twice. If you want longevity, the sheer number of all-star selections is a good starting point. Then, consider the fact that he played until he was 52 and was still effective right up until the end of his career. The second oldest player in NHL history retired at 48, and Jaromir Jagr, who is now the second-oldest forward in history is still eight years behind Howe. Is toughness important to you? Gordie Howe is still your man. The trifecta of a goal, assist, and a fight is called a "Gordie Howe hat trick." Scarcely has a player ever had such an impact on so many aspects of the sport.
     
    One man who testified to the complete, well-rounded nature of Mr. Hockey's game was a man who could probably fairly be called Howe's biggest rival: Maurice "Rocket" Richard. There were plenty of comparisons between the two. Both played right wing. Both wore jersey number #9. Both were known for their fiery tempers. If those things were not enough to permanently link the two to one another, an altercation during Howe's rookie season left it beyond any doubt. After being shoved by Richard during a game, Howe turned around and knocked the rocket out cold with a single punch. The Stanley Cup finals linker them further, with Howe's Red Wings and Richard's Canadiens squaring off four times in the 1950'sYet, despite the comparisons, the battles between their teams, and that run-in between the two, there was an immense respect. When Richard retired in 1960, he paid tribute to his former rival saying, "Gordie could do everything."
     
    Something that many are unaware of, however, is that Richard, and all of us almost did not get a chance to see what Mr. Hockey was capable of. In the 1950 playoffs, a failed attempt to check Toronto's Ted Kennedy sent Howe head first into the boards.The results were nearly fatal, not only to Howe's career, but to Howe himself. After the impact, he lay motionless on the ice, unconscious and bleeding. His skull was fractured, and surgery was required to relieve the pressure on his brain and save his life. As we now know, it took a lot more than a fractured skull to keep Gordie Howe down: the next season, he won his first scoring title and began to establish himself as -- at the very least -- the greatest player of his era.
     
    In 1971, Mr. Hockey retired, and the hockey world thought it had seen the last of its great superstar. His wrist was in bad enough shape that to continue to play would require surgery, and Howe found retirement preferable. He held nearly every offensive career record there was. There was nothing left to do, right? Wrong. Two years later, Mrs. Hockey, Colleen Howe came up with a plan to allow the Houston Aeros to choose 19-year old Marty Howe and 18-year-old Mark Howe in the WHA's professional draft, and then sign Gordie, allowing her husband to fulfill a lifelong dream of one day playing with his sons. Suddenly, the idea of the surgery seemed worth it, and Gordie returned to the ice. The WHA's MVP award was renamed in his honor, and he captured the trophy in the 1973-74 season.
     
    The trio of Howes would ultimately play together for seven seasons: four with the Aeros, two with the New England Whalers in the WHA, and one final season with the freshly renamed and now NHL member Harftford Whalers. The significance of that one final season in the NHL should not be overlooked. Since the season ended in 1980, it meant that Gordie Howe had played in the NHL for at leas part of each of five separate decades, establishing a legacy that looks untouchable.
     
    Sadly, I do not know how aware Mr. Hockey might be of the significance of this day. I do not know how sharp his memories of his career may now be. I had the privilege of personally corresponding with his son Marty several months ago, and I was sadly given the news that Gordie is unable to retain anything for more than about 30 seconds. The ravages of age, dementia, and a stroke have taken their toll on this once strong and proud man. Nonetheless, today, I wish you a happy birthday, Mr. Hockey. Even if you do not recall all of it, we do. We have not forgotten you or your accomplishments, and neither has the game. We never will.
  2. ScottM
    In the southern United States, where I live, football reigns supreme. In SEC country, you could make a strong argument that college football is THE sport. People down here eat, breathe, and sleep football. Thus, when a couple of teams from the region have a dominating run, it is a very big deal. When those two teams are bitter rivals, it is an even bigger deal.  That is exactly what has happened in my neighboring state of Alabama recently. Either the Alabama Crimson Tide (Roll Tide!) or the Auburn Tigers have played in six of the last seven National Championship games, with Alabama winning titles in 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2015, and Auburn winning the 2010 title and finishing as runner-up in 2013.
    Such accomplishments are rare, but the province of Alberta accomplished something very similar in the NHL back in the 1980s, when the Oilers won five Stanley Cups in 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, and 1990, and coming in as runners-up in 1983, and the Calgary Flames won the 1989 Cup while coming in as runners-up in 1986. In cases like these, the stakes are much higher than bragging rights merely within the borders of Alabama or Alberta, but for complete dominance of the sport itself. This then, is the story of how the Battle of Alberta became the battle for the sport of hockey.

    When the Edmonton Oilers reached the Finals in 1983, it marked the first time that one of the former WHA teams had advanced that far. The series certainly did not go the way Edmonton hoped, since the Islanders won their fourth consecutive Cup in a sweep, but it set up what would be a dramatic changing of the guard the next season. The teams rematched in 1984, and the Oilers' five game win marked the end of one dynasty and the beginning of another. In fact, the Oilers did not just win the series, they dominated, outscoring the Islanders 21-12, and picking up three wins of three goals or more. The Oilers picked up another dominating win in 1985 against the Philadelphia Flyers, but hit a road block in 1986: their arch-rivals, the Calgary Flames.

    The Oilers won their fifth consecutive Smythe Division title in 1985-86, in addition to winning the President's Trophy. So dominant was their performance on the season that they finished 30 points ahead of the Flames (who took second in the division). But of course, when the playoffs begin, the regular season no longer matters. When the rivals squared off in the postseason, the Flames took a hard-fought seven game win, and eventually made their way to the Stanley Cup Finals. Unfortunately for Calgary, they ran into the Montreal Canadiens and the rookie phenom goalie Patrick Roy and dropped the series in five games.

    The Oilers would return to the top in 1987, but it would not be easy. They breezed through the playoffs en route to the Finals, losing only two games in the first two rounds. The Finals, however, were a much different story. The Oilers once again met the Flyers, and this time, Philly would push them to the brink. Philadelphia fought back from a 3-1 series deficit to force a seventh game, and took an early lead in game seven. The Oilers, however, bounced back to win the game and the series. An unusual feature of the series was the fact that Ron Hextall, the Flyers goalie, won the Conn Smythe Trophy despite his team's losing the series.

    The 1988 Finals were fought between the Oilers and the Boston Bruins, and hold a unique distinction. The series is the only five game sweep in NHL history. The Oilers won the series 4-0 in five games. Yes, you read that correctly. With the Oilers leading the series 3-0, game four had to be called and rescheduled late in the second period with the score tied 3-3 because of a power failure in Boston Garden. Despite the cancellation, the game was still considered official, leading to the unusual distinction of the series.

    The Oilers had a rematch of their 1985 series against the Flyers in 1987 and would have a rematch of their 1988 series against the Bruins in 1990, but they were not the only Alberta team that faced repeat Finals opponents in the province's run of dominance. When the Flames returned to Finals in 1989, they once again faced the Montreal Canadiens. The storyline was much different than the first meeting, as the Flames won the series 4-2. It was the end of a storybook run for not only the Flames, but for one of their co-captains, Lanny McDonald. Having earned his 1,000th point and 500th goal during the regular season of his last campaign, he finally accomplished the one goal that trumps all others: winning the Stanley Cup. The image of McDonald holding the Cup over his head is still one of the sport's most enduring moments.

    Alberta had one more year of its stranglehold left. The Oilers made another trip to the Finals, but the former face of the franchise was gone. Having been traded to the Los Angeles Kings, Wayne Gretzky was no longer part of the team, and Mark Messier had taken over the captaincy. It made little difference however, as the Oilers won the series in five games. One feature of note for the series was that it was the last Finals appearance for Ray Bourque until he finally won the elusive trophy in 2001.

    Since that time, each of Alberta's NHL teams have made the Finals just once (in back-to-back series, incidentally). The province's control of the sport is now long gone, but the run that the Flames and Oilers combined to create is one for the ages. In fact, I am unaware of any similar run for any state or province until Alabama's recent run in college football. It is a memory now, but for just shy of a decade, the Battle of Alberta was more than just that. It was the Battle of the World.
  3. ScottM

    1972 Under the Microscope

    By ScottM,

    The 1972 Summit Series between the Canadian and Soviet national teams was one of the most monumental events in hockey history.  On top of that, the game-winning goal by Paul Henderson to complete the Canadian comeback is now considered one of the most iconic moments in the sport's history. Despite the fact that the Soviet team had already begun its impressive Olypmic gold medal run, it was still a coming out party of sorts for the "Big Red Machine." The Summit Series left no doubt that the best Soviet players could hold their own with the best Canadian players and that North America no longer had a stranglehold on the top levels of the sport. That said, in this post, I want to give a few reasons why I do not think that the Summit Series would have been quite as close as it was with all things being equal.
     
    Reason #1 Unreasonable Expectations
     
    Say what you want about the players being professionals. Having the weight of the expectations of a country -- or the weight of the Western world, in some respects -- is a tough load for anyone to carry. Thanks to the "us versus them" mentality of the Cold War, that is exactly where team Canada found themselves. While it is true that the Soviet team would have felt that pressure to some degree, there was something that added to the pressure on the Canadians: they were not only expected to win; they were expected to win big. After all, hockey was Canada's sport.
     
    In fact, no less of a name than goaltending legend Jacques Plante brashly predicted that the Canadians would sweep all eight games. So sure was he of that prediction and that Soviet goaltender Vladislav Tretiak would be embarrassed that he offered advice to Tretiak that he thought would help to temper that. Allan Eagleson agreed. "We gotta win in eight games. Anything less than an unblemished sweep of the Russians would bring shame down on the heads of the players and the national pride." I say all of that to say this: had the Summit Series been a true exhibition series with no pressure on, I believe that would have helped the Canadians a little.
     
    Reason #2 Soviet Gamesmanship
     
    This one took a lot of different forms. Perhaps there was some suggestion of what was to come when the Soviets downplayed their chances by stating they were playing merely to learn. During the course of the series, the Soviets practically threw a fit after game two, blaming the officials for their loss and demanding a change of officials for game four. Before game eight, they nearly reneged on an officiating agreement hoping to have two officials that had heavily favored them in game five. It took a threat of the Canadians pulling out to force a compromise. During games played in Moscow, the goal official sometimes refused to turn on the goal light after Canadian scores. In fact, Canadian coach Harry Sinden went as far as to send his entire team onto the ice to ensure that Henderson's goal in game seven would be counted.
     
    The gamesmanship was not restricted to the on the ice product. It reached as far as the players' wives. Originally, arrangements were made to house the Canadian players and their wives in separate hotels, nearly leading to a boycott by the Canadians. Even after new arrangements were made to house both the players and their wives in the Intourist, the poor treatment of the wives continued. They were fed substandard food and resorted to going to the dressing room looking for more food.
     
    Reason #3 Missing Players
     
    Part of this could be avoided; part of it could not. The team was without Bobby Orr, who was injured. Sinden wanted Bobby Hull on the roster, but the NHL insisted that WHA players be ruled ineligible, guaranteeing that Hull could not suit up for Canada. Before the tournament began, Gerry Cheevers, Derek Sanderson, and J.C. Tremblay all became inelligible for the same reason. Harold Ballard, the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and no fan of the WHA argued for the inclusion of WHA players. Hockey Canada governor Phil Reimer resigned over the controversy. No less of a name than Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau waded into the conversation, hoping to guarantee that Canada put out its very best, but it was all for naught as Hockey Canada refused to back away from its agreement with the NHL.
     
    There can be no doubt that if those involved could have moved past hurt feelings and grudges that names like Hull could have played. In no way could that be called unavoidable. As for Orr, injuries are definitely a part of hockey, but if we are going to consider a perfect environment for the series, he would have been there too. If the Summit had been held at the right time, under the right circumstances, Team Canada could have been a bit better.
     
    Reason #4 Poor Conditioning
     
    Consider the fact that after game five, Gilbert Perreault asked to return home in order to get into shape for the upcoming NHL season. That tells you all you need to know about
    the conditioning of the Canadian team. Several of the Canadian players commented on how poor their conditioning was compared to their Soviet counterparts. However, Bobby Clarke
    also commented on how the series changed as the physical shape of Team Canada improved. "Our conditioning was poor. But once we got into shape and were at the same level of
    physical conditioning as them, we were able to handle it. And once we got into the same condition as them and had some games under our belt, they couldn't handle us." Clarke's comment makes sense when the Canadian and Soviet portions of the series are compared. The Canadians went 1-2-1 in Canada and 3-0-0 in Moscow. Would they have fared better had they started the series in better shape? It seems highly likely.
     
    Reason #5 The Soviet Team
     
    The last word is the key word: team. Ostensibly, they were amateurs. Officially, many of them were in the army. In reality, they were hockey players. They were amateur in name only. In fact, the rosters of the Soviet National Team and the dominant Soviet League team, CSKA Moscow were largely the same. Therefore, in addition to training together as the national team, many of the players were familiar with one another as teammates on the club level. That fact was key in helping the Soviets establish their dominance in Olympic and World Championship competitions.
     
    There was, of course, no such set up for the Canadians. There were 14 teams in the NHL at the time, and the top players were spread out across those rosters. Since "professionals" were not allowed to play in the Olympics in those days, there was no "Canadian National Team" in the same sense as the Soviets had one. The Summit Series was then, a true team playing against a group of scattered all-stars.
     
    There can be no doubt that the Soviets proved their mettle. There can be no doubt that they outperformed expectaions, and they are certainly worthy of recognition for such. They certainly had some of the best players in the world. But, all things said, I think the Canadians were better than their record indicated. Then again, maybe we owe the Soviets some thanks. After all, they proved to us North Americans that we are not the only ones who can play great hockey.
  4. ScottM

    Away With You!

    By ScottM,

    The NHL traces its origin back to the 1917-18 season. Nearly universally, that season is considered to be the beginning of the league, and any league prior to that is considered to be an entirely separate entity. That idea is not entirely based in fact, however. While the legal entity known as the NHL did come into being that season, its roots go back farther, to the NHA -- to a league that was, for all intents and purposes, rebranded as the NHL, simply to get rid of one man. That man was Toronto Blueshirts owner Eddie Livingstone.
    The NHA formed in 1910 after the collapse of the East Coast Amateur Hockey Association. Surprisingly, in its earliest seasons, the league had no team based in Toronto. That changed prior to the 1912-13 season, when two teams, the Toronto Hockey Club and the Toronto Tecumsehs. Livingstone entered the league in 1914, when he purchased the Toronto Ontarios (the team previously known as the Tecumsehs), and renamed them the Shamrocks. Not long after, a feud would begin between Livingstone and Sam Lichtenhein, owner of the Montreal Wanderers that would begin the unraveling of Livingstone's team ownership and the NHA itself.
    On February 3, 1915, the Shamrocks and Wanderers were scheduled to play one another, but because George and Howard McNamara were away from the team due to their father's being ill, Livingstone informed the league that he was unable to put a full team on the ice, and asked for the game to be postponed. Instead, the NHA and Lichtenhein rejected the request and ruled that the game had been forfeited. Lichtenhein soon reversed course, and offered the Shamrocks another chance to play the game on March 6. Before long, however, he would change his mind once again, after his team became involved in a tight battle for the league title with the Ottawa Senators. Livingstone tried to force the rematch, but the league ruled that the original forfeit stood. They ordered the Wanderers to pay the Shamrocks $300, and the blood began to boil, with Lichtenhein going so far as to petition the NHA for the expulsion of Livingston. The league said no, but Lichtenhein would have the last laugh in the feud.
    The situation became further exacerbated the following offseason when Livingstone bought the Blueshirts (the team originally known as the Toronto Hockey Club). Despite purchasing the second team, Livingstone announced that he did not want to operate two teams in the same league and would sell the Shamrocks. That would never come to fruition because of Lester and Frank Patrick and the Pacific Coast Hockey Association. The PCHA had managed to lure the day's biggest star, Cyclone Taylor out west, and became infuriated over the NHA's attempts to draw him back east. The PCHA's response came in the form of a player raid which hit the Blueshirts hard. Livingstone did not attempt to retaliate since it helped him to achieve his goal of owning the Blueshirts alone. He simply transfered players from the Shamrocks to the Blueshirts, and allowed to former to fall dormant.
    In response to Livingstone's actions with the Shamrocks, the NHA seized the franchise. The next season, the awarded the slot to the Canadian military in the form of the Toronto 228th Battalion team. The arrangement did not last, however, as the team was ordered overseas mid-season, leaving the NHA with an odd number of teams. Desiring to keep an even number of teams, and with the owners wanting Livingstone out, the NHA had a meeting sans Livingstone and voted to suspend the Blueshirts for the remainder of the season, temporarily transferring its players to other teams. The league agreed to send the players back to Toronto before the next season and reinstated the franchise on the condition that Livingstone sell the team within 60 days. Livingstone responded by acquiring a court injunction to block the sale.
    But, as Calvin Coolidge once said, persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The other owners were determined to rid themselves of Livingstone, and they would demonstrate persistence in their efforts. The group banded together and voted to suspend NHA operations for a season, and founded the NHL. The new league included a team from Toronto that was largely composed of the same players, but without the official "Blueshirts" name, though it was still generally referred to as such by the nickname in the media. Finally, in 1918, Livingstone forced a shareholders meeting of the NHA, hoping to swing things his way once more, but the plan ultimately backfired, as not only did the league vote down Livingstone's attempt to regain control of his old team, but also voted to dissolve the NHA.
    Livingstone continued to battle in the courts looking for compensation for the loss of his franchise and players, taking the battle all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. The mounting court costs forced the Toronto Arena Company to suspend team operations 18 games into the 1918-19 season, and led to the creation of a new team, the Toronto Arenas, which was a separate legal entity, though it retained the players of the former team. Eventually, the Arena company went into bankruptcy as a result of the battle and sold the team to a group headed by Charle Querrie, who renamed the team the Toronto St. Pats. A few years later, he would sell the team to Conn Smythe, who changed the team's name to the now-familiar Toronto Maple Leafs.
    Thus, both the NHL and the Toronto Maple Leafs owe their existence to one man, though certainly not in a positive way. If not for Eddie Livingstone, we might not have either the team or the league as we now know it, though the events chronicled above have led to his infamy. One cannot help but think he would have been better served to sell the team and walk away quietly rather than having his fellow owners in effect tell him, "Away with you!"
  5. ScottM

    Midseason NHL Awards

    By ScottM,

    We are approximately halfway through the 2015-16 NHL season, and this is a point that we frequently see awards predictions given. As such, I want to make some predictions of my own, and tell you who I think would win the Hart, Norris, Vezina, Selke, and Calder Trophies if the season ended today. A couple of these are the same as what I predicted in the preseason, but others have changed. So, without further ado, here are the guys I think are worthy to pose with the trophies after the awards banquet this summer.
    Hart Trophy
    Winner: Patrick Kane; Finalists: Erki Karlsson and Alex Ovechkin
    Not long ago, I made the case as to why Karlsson should win the Hart. Truth be told, I still believe everything I said, but with Chicago holding up much better in the standings, and Ottawa currently just outside the playoff picture, I think the close battle goes to Kane. What both of those guys have done this season has been incredible, and I think they're head and shoulders above the field for now. As for Ovi, he seems to have gotten himself back on track from a fairly slow start, and now leads the league in goals. Somehow, I think another 50-goal season is a foregone conclusion.
    Norris Trophy
    Winner: Erik Karlsson; Finalists: Drew Doughty and Ryan Suter
    There's a reason these three guys lead the league in time on ice per game: they are highly effective, and their coaches trust them greatly. All three of these guys are quite deserving, but I think Karlsson is all but a lock here. He is having an offensive season for the ages from the blue line, still on pace for nearly 90 points, even after something of a dropoff in scoring by his team. Unless someone goes off in a way as obvious as a nuclear bomb, no one is dethroning the reigning Norris holder this season.
    Vezina Trophy
    Winner: Braden Holtby; Finalists: Corey Crawford and Roberto Luongo
    Right now, the Washington Capitals have the best record in the league. While he's not the only reason, Braden Holtby is a huge reason for that. I think this is a tossup between him and Luongo at this point, and Luongo has been gaining a lot of ground as of late during the Panthers' recent tear. If the vote were held today, I would not really be shocked or offended by either of these guys winning. I think Crawford is a bit behind, but his six shutouts are a league high, and he has helped keep the Blackhawks in the contender category.
    Selke Trophy
    Winner: Patrice Bergeron; Finalists: Anze Kopitar and Jonathan Toews
    Honestly, this trophy is a lot harder to call, because the kinds of contributions that win it do not show up on a score sheet. I still feel pretty comfortable going with these three guys, however, because they have established a reputation for defensive excellence, and their teams are outperforming expectations. Bergeron's reputation is the highest, and it is well-deserved. I think he will give Bob Gainey company with his fourth Selke.
    Calder Trophy
    Winner: Artemi Panarin; Finalists: Jack Eichel and Dylan Larkin
    Last season's rookie class received a lot of hype, and rightfully so. This year's group can still give them a run for their money. I believe Panarin will win it because he is running away with the rookie scoring race, but he is certainly not the only quality newcomer in the NHL. Larkin has the best plus-minus rating in the league and looks like a future Selke winner. Eichel is proving that the excitement over his arrival was justified.
    It probably goes without saying that a lot of this will change in the second half of the season, but as of this moment, that is the way I see it playing out. How close or far will I end up being? Time will tell.
  6. ScottM

    “An iron curtain has fallen across the continent.” Those words from Winston Churchill's “Sinews of Peace” speech introduced one of the most well-known terms of the Cold War era. The former British Prime Minister – then leader of the Opposition – spoke accurately of the iron curtain. In some ways, the curtain could be looked at as an actual physical object because of the border defenses set up between the nations of the Western and Eastern blocs.
    The curtain was a symbol of oppression for those in Eastern Europe and prevented escape to the West and to freedom. Border zones sometimes extended several kilometers from the actual borders, and were guarded by patrols with machine guns and filled with landmines. Needless to say, hockey players did not leave Eastern Europe to play in the NHL; generally speaking, no one left Eastern Europe.
    Thus, it was a highly unusual event when the Quebec Nordiques used their fourth round draft pick to select Czechoslovakia native Anton Stastny. It was not the first time that an Eastern bloc player had been drafted – in fact, Stastny himself had been chosen by the Philadelphia Flyers in the 12th round of the 1978 draft – but such a selection in such an early round was very bizarre. The chances of Anton ever joining the team were virtually nil, so why bother? After all, at that time, very few Eastern bloc players had successfully defected and made it to the North American game.
    There was something different about the Stastny family, however. Anton and his older brothers, Marian and Peter never walked in lock-step with the communist authorities in their homeland. In fact, they resented and hated the repressive regime. In 1976, Marian and Peter were members of the Czechoslovakian team that participated in that year’s Canada Cup tournament. Having experienced a taste of the west and NHL hockey only served to make the brothers more eager to escape.
    It would be four years before any of the Stastnys would have that opportunity. In 1980, the club team that all three Stastny brothers played for, Slovan Bratislava, qualified for the IIHF European Cup final held in Innsbruck, Austria. Discussions about defection began before they even left Czechoslovakia. After talking the idea over, Peter and Anton decided to attempt the defection.
    Not long after the team made the trip to Austria, Peter and Anton slipped away from the Slovan Bratislava hotel at night. They found a phone booth, and Anton stood watch while Peter dialed the contact number for the Quebec Nordiques that he had found in an NHL media guide. Once connected, he asked for Marcel Aubut, a name he had seen in the media guide.
    Upon hearing that the Stastnys were calling, Aubut, who was the President and CEO of the Nordiques, eagerly took the call. Peter told Aubut that he and Anton wanted to defect, and Aubut told them that he and a team representative would fly to Austria to meet them the next day. When Aubut and Nordiques director of player development Gilles Leger arrived in Innsbruck, Peter and Anton secretly met with the two executives after their games. Arrangements were made for the defection, and following the final game of the tournament, an 11-1 loss to CSKA Moscow, Peter, Anton, and Peter’s eight-months pregnant wife Darina, who had accompanied her husband to the tournament slipped away from the rest of the team to join the Nordiques officials.
    All was not yet well, however. There were intense moments before the group even left Innsbruck. During what Peter describes as “the scariest moments of my life,” Anton was separated from his brother and was lost for about an hour in downtown Innsbruck. Shortly after midnight a frantic search for him took place. When he was finally reunited with the others, Aubut, Leger, and the Stastnys made their way to the Canadian embassy in Vienna to finalize the move to Canada. In the following weeks, Aubut managed to arrange the defection of Anton’s girlfriend Galina, whom he soon married.
    Still, all was not perfect in the Stastnys’ world. Marian, who was told by his brothers about their defection only hours before it took place was trapped in Czechoslovakia. Government officials were suspicious of him because of his brothers’ actions and made life completely miserable for him and his family. He was stripped of his opportunity to play hockey. He was followed everywhere he went. Finally, he decided that his only chance of having any kind of a normal life was to escape the country himself.
    Marian’s escape would not be as easy as that of his brothers. He did not have a convenient hockey tournament to provide the opportunity. His brothers had not been tailed by government officials. His escape would take some detailed planning. After an incident free vacation to Hungary, Marian began to feel that his own defection might be possible. He devised a plan to go to Hungary, cross into Yugoslavia, visit the Austrian consulate to try to get a three-day visa into Austria, and then contact the Nordiques.
    After being briefly stopped at the Hungary-Yugoslavia border, Marian and his wife Eva successfully crossed into Yugoslavia. After a couple of failed attempts to get a visa, he finally decided to tell a consulate worker about his situation. The consulate worker then told him that she would not give him a three day visa; rather, she would give him a seven day visa. His plan finally succeeding, Marian and his wife were finally able to rejoin their family in Canada in 1981.
    The Stastny brothers made a major impact on the ice for the Nordiques. They helped turn a floundering franchise into a contender, leading the team to the Prince of Wales conference championship series in 1982 and 1985. Their impact was much bigger than what happened on the ice, though. The courage they displayed helped to inspire others living under the oppression of communist Eastern Europe to follow in their footsteps. If not for the Stastnys, we might not have Sergei Federov, Alexander Mogilny, or Petr Nedved. The Stastnys helped to turn a trickle into a flood. They put the first crack in the iron curtain.
  7. ScottM

    A Night with the Stars

    By ScottM,


    The annual NHL All-Star Game is a favorite event for many fans. The festivities span an entire weekend and include the Skills Competition, and in years past, a young stars game. The format has changed over the years – it began as a matchup between the reigning Stanley Cup champions and all-stars from the other teams, turned into a matchup between conferences, went through a stage when it was North America against the world, and now has the flavor of a pickup game where team captains choose their players – but it has remained immensely popular over the decades.
    The All-Star game became an officially sanctioned annual NHL event in 1947, but that was not the first time NHL players took part in an All-Star game. To find the first such event, we must jump into our time machines and travel back to 1934. Before we do that, however, let us see why the game was played.
    The date is December 12, 1933. The Toronto Maple Leafs are riding high in the world of ice hockey. They are on their way to posting the best regular season record in the league. Last season, they advanced to the Stanley Cup finals, and the season before that, they won the Stanley Cup. The man that scored the Cup clinching goal for the Leafs was Irvine “Ace” Bailey. At the beginning of the game between the Maple Leafs and the Boston Bruins, no one could have known what fate held for Ace Bailey.
    During the game that night, Boston’s Eddie Shore was violently checked by Toronto’s King Clancy as he skated into the Toronto zone, pushing Shore into a rage. Intent on getting revenge, Shore spun around to see what he believed to be Clancy, charged at him from behind and tripped him. Shore had not found his intended target, however. Rather, it was Ace Bailey whose head slammed into the ice, fracturing his skull. Bailey was knocked unconscious and began bleeding from his head. In retaliation, Bailey’s teammate Red Horner knocked Shore out with a punch to the head.
    When he regained consciousness and learned of Bailey’s condition, Shore went to the locker room where Bailey was to apologize. By now, Ace had also come to, and despite believing that he was going to die, upon receiving Shore’s apology gave a remarkable display of grace and forgiveness in his response: “It’s all part of the game.” Bailey then lost consciousness once again.
    By the next morning, that Bailey would die seemed all but certain because of cerebral hemorrhaging. Shore, meanwhile, was interviewed by homicide detectives who announced that should Bailey die, Shore would be charged with manslaughter. Shore was indefinitely suspended by league president Frank Calder (he ended up missing 16 games). Shore was devastated by the guilt – enough so that he took a three week convalescence to Bermuda – and was not allowed to visit Bailey in the hospital. Boston manager Art Ross was able to do so, however, and when he did, Bailey once again said that Shore had not intentionally injured him.
    Miraculously, Bailey survived, and eventually recovered to live a normal life, but his hockey career was over. On January 24, 1934, the NHL Board of Directors decided to schedule a game between Bailey’s Maple Leafs and a team of All-Stars from the other teams in the league to raise money to benefit Ace and his family. The game was scheduled for Valentine’s Day, and would be played in Toronto’s Maple Leafs Gardens. Two players were selected from each of the other teams in the league, and Lester Patrick, the coach of the defending Stanley Cup champion Rangers was selected as the coach.
    During the festivities, the Maple Leafs retired Bailey’s number six jersey, making it the first jersey to be retired by an NHL team. Bailey presented a trophy to Calder which he hoped would be awarded at an annual All-Star game held to benefit the families of injured players. But, the most dramatic moment of the night took place while Bailey, Patrick, and Calder presented jerseys to the All-Stars. Black Hawks goalie Charlie Gardiner (who died, sadly, only four months later) was first, and after him came Eddie Shore.
    The crowd of over 14,000 fans became totally silent as Shore skated toward Bailey. The mood of the building changed entirely when Bailey extended his hand to Shore. As the two men shook hands, the crowd roared its approval.
    During the game, Shore, who was extremely nervous about how he would be received was cheered by the crowd. At the end of the game, the scoreboard showed a 7-3 win for the Maple Leafs. The event raised $20,909, and the Bruins organization added another $6,000. Bailey’s desire for an annual benefit game did not come to fruition, but similar events were held in 1937 and 1939 to benefit the families of Howie Morenz and Babe Siebert.
    Even if the tradition was not immediately established, that night with the stars set a precedent, and achieved a lot of good for the Bailey family. The first NHL All-Star Game is an excellent demonstration of the sportsmanship that those of us who call ourselves hockey fans so greatly value in the athletes that we cheer for.
  8. ScottM

    Most great players have at least one signature moment they are remembered for. Maurice Richard is remembered for his 50 goals in 50 games. Ray Bourque is remembered for jubilantly hoisting the Stanley Cup at the very end of his Hall of Fame career. Ken Dryden will always be remembered for leading his team to the Stanley Cup title and winning the Conn Smythe Trophy before his Calder winning rookie campaign. It is most unusual to find a case in which one of the greatest players in history is most remembered for his role in a loss. Yet, that is exactly what happened to Vladislav Tretiak.
    It is easy for those of us who have lived most – if not all – of our entire lives in North America to forget that hockey exists outside of the NHL other than World Championship and Olympic tournaments. Yet, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, many of the best players in the world were trapped in Eastern Europe and had no chance to play in the NHL even if they so desired. Unfortunately for Tretiak, that also means that he is best known to many North American fans for being pulled late in the first period of the “Miracle on Ice.”
    In the 1970's, many in North America – particularly in Canada – refused to believe that Soviet players could compete with top NHL players. Those critics were proven wrong by the Summit Series tournaments in 1972. While some predicted a Canadian sweep of the USSR in 1972, the Soviets stunned the Canadian all-stars by winning the first game. In fact, after a 3-1-1 start for the Soviets, the Canadian team had to scramble to win the last three games to salvage the contest. Even then, the Soviets nearly managed to salvage a win or a tie in the series before a final game three-goal third period for Canada capped off by Paul Henderson’s famous goal with 34 seconds remaining. Tretiak later called Henderson’s goal, “the most maddening of all goals scored on me in hockey.” In the rematch tournament in 1974, Tretiak and the Soviet team got their revenge, demolishing Canada 4-1-3.
    One Soviet player that was thrust into the limelight by those two tournaments was Vladislav Tretiak. Tretiak’s stellar play was a one of the biggest reasons for the success of the USSR team, which, while a surprise to many in North America, was expected by some who were familiar with Tretiak. Billy Harris, a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs Stanley Cup three-peat of 1962-64 was the coach of the Swedish national team in 1972 predicted that the Soviets would win the tournament, based largely his impression of Tretiak. Ironically, while his prediction was incorrect in 1972, he was the Coach of Team Canada in the 1974 edition of the tournament.
    While the Summit Series performances may have been the best of Tretiak’s career, simply due to the level of competition, by no means do they represent the entirety of his international achievements. Over the course of his career, Tretiak backstopped the Soviet Union to a win the 1979 NHL Challenge Cup, a gold medal in the 1981 Canada Cup, thirteen World Championship medals (ten gold, two silver, one bronze), as well as three gold and one silver Olympic medals.
    With such a record, it is no surprise than NHL teams were desirous to have Tretiak. Knowing that bringing Tretiak to North America would be a difficult task, however, no NHL team chose to spend a draft pick on him until 1983. That year, the Montreal Canadiens selected him with the 138th overall pick. Montreal GM Serge Savard worked aggressively to strike a deal with Soviet officials to allow Tretiak to make a move to Canada, but was unsuccessful. Tretiak regrets that he was never able to play in the NHL. “I would have loved to play in the Forum. I was hoping to one day play in the NHL. I would have liked to do it even for just one season. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. I regret not having the chance.”
    One cannot help but wonder how the history of the NHL might have changed had Savard been successful. Tretiak was only 31 in 1983. It is not inconceivable that he could have played through 1986 and 1993 when the Canadiens hoisted the Stanley Cup. Would the Canadiens have still won those Cups? Would they have won more? What would that have meant for Patrick Roy?
    The next year, having been denied his chance to fulfill his dream of playing in the NHL, and exhausted by the grueling schedule of the Soviet National Team, Tretiak retired from hockey. While not as well known in North America as he might have been, Vladislav Tretiak had established himself as one of the greatest netminders in the history of the sport. In 1989, he became the first Soviet player elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. In 2008, he was selected as the goaltender of the International Ice Hockey Federation’s Centennial Team.
    To many on this continent, Vladislav Tretiak is either unknown or little known. As such, he may often be left out of discussions on hockey history. Whether he is ever acknowledged by the masses or not, Tretiak’s talent is still undeniable. Where the NHL is concerned, he may well be “The Best That Never Was.”
  9. ScottM

    Some players seem to spend more time in the penalty box than on the ice. Sometimes called enforcers, goons, or thugs, these players are generally known more for their physicality and fighting than for their scoring touch. However, there are exceptions to this, of which the most extreme may be Dave "Tiger" Williams. The all-time NHL career leader in penalty minutes, Williams led the league in PIM three times, and six times eclipsed 300 penalty minutes in a season. In 962 career games, he amassed an incredible 3,966 penalty minutes, an average of over four PIM per game.
    Williams came about being a tough guy naturally. His father boxed, and shared his knowledge o fighting with his sons. Tiger once said, “I'm the only boy in the six Williamses that didn't win an amateur boxing championship.” It is doubtful that fact gave any comfort to his opponents on the ice, however, especially when considering how Williams received his nickname. Dave once played in a youth hockey game that was officiated by his older brother. After a disagreement over a call his brother made, Dave punched his older sibling, and became known as “Tiger” from that day forward.
    Nine players in NHL history have racked up at least 3,000 infraction minutes. Of those nine, it is probably fair to say that seven earned their keep entirely or nearly entirely as enforcers. Two, however – Williams and Dale Hunter – proved to be quite capable goal-scorers. Hunter scored 323 career goals and Williams lit the lamp 241 times. Because Hunter played more games, Williams’ goals per game average is slightly higher, and “Tiger” accomplished a scoring feat that Hunter never reached – a 30-goal season. In fact, Williams did not only do that once, he did it twice. Fittingly, Williams had a habit of infuriating his opponents after scoring by riding his stick down the ice.
    Williams spent his first five-plus seasons in Toronto. During his tenure with the Maple Leafs he twice led the league in penalty minutes, but it was his last season with the Maple Leafs, the 1979-80 season, during which he was traded to the Vancouver Canucks that could be considered his “breakout” season. Before the trade, Williams scored 22 goals in 55 games. Only Darryl Sittler scored goals at a faster pace for the Leafs that season. After the trade, Williams notched eight more tallies to post his first 30-goal campaign.
    The trade would prove to be beneficial to the Canucks. In his first full season with Vancouver, Williams found the net 35 times – a career high. In addition to once again leading the league in penalty minutes, he led his team in goals – not an accomplishment expected from an enforcer. For his efforts that season, he was named an all-star, and played on a line with Wayne Gretzky and Mike Bossy in the all-star game. Imagine this: the two men who share the NHL records for most 50 and 60-goal seasons on the ice at the same time with the man who holds the record for penalty minutes – as teammates, no less.
    The next season, Williams’ goal production would drop again, and the 1980-81 season would prove to be his final season with 30 goals, but it was not his final season as a productive player. Though he scored only 17 goals in the 1981-82 season, Tiger was still an instrumental member of the Canucks team, which made its first Stanley Cup Finals appearance in team history. Even though Vancouver was swept out of the Finals by the defending champions, the New York Islanders, the season could only be considered a success. The Canucks were not expected to fare as well as they did, and the outcome was a vast improvement over the previous season, when the Canucks were swept out of the first round of the playoffs.
    Williams remained with the Canucks through the end of the 1983-84 season. After his departure from Vancouver, he spent four more seasons in the NHL, playing for the Red Wings, Kings, and Whalers during those years. After leaving the Canucks, Williams never led the league in penalty minutes, although he did post two more seasons with over 300 PIM. Ironically, he did not lead the league in penalty minutes in the year he posted his career high. In the 1986-87 season, Williams earned 358 infraction minutes, but was edged out for the penalties “title” by Calgary’s Tim Hunter, who edged him out with 361 minutes.
    Tiger Wiiliams was the type of player that could make his opponents think twice in multiple ways. If someone wanted to get rough with one of his teammates, they had to fear the wrath of his iron fists. However, to write him off as “only” a goon was a major risk as well, since he was more than capable of slipping the puck past the goalie. Hockey has seen few players in the mold of Williams, and it seems safe to say will see few more. The case of Tiger Williams is a strange one indeed.
  10. ScottM

     
    There have been many clever and – ahem – interesting franchise proposals across the map of professional sports. Memphis once campaigned for an NFL team to be named the Hound Dogs in honor of its most famous resident. The Miami Marlins were almost named the Flamingos. And, would you believe that the NBA almost had a member franchise known as the Boston Unicorns? As creative and bizarre as some franchise proposals have been over the years, few can lay claim to having been as colorful as a proposal for an NHL expansion team in the mid-1990’s – The Hampton Roads Rhinos.
    Southeast Virginia is certainly not the first place that one would normally think of as a hockey hotbed. Even so, talk of an NHL franchise began in the early 1990’s, before the NHL began to rapidly expand in the Sunbelt. By 1994, the Hampton Roads Sports Authority had conducted a study on the viability of a team in the region. An NHL franchise seemed most likely because of the lower expansion fee charged by the NHL compared to other major professional sports leagues, and the group concluded that such a franchise could be successful thanks to the success of the ECHL’s Hampton Roads Admirals. Of course, there could be no team without an arena, and the Sports Authority recommended the construction of a 20,000 seat facility to host the team since then-existing buildings were too small.
    Such a study is a long way from an actual proposal, but a formal proposal was not far away. Enter, George Shinn. In 1988, the North Carolina native successfully brought the NBA to Charlotte with the birth of the Hornets. In 1996, he turned his attention to the NHL, considering Raleigh and the Hampton Roads region as potential locations for an expansion team. Eventually, Shinn decided to make a bid to the NHL team to be located in Norfolk. The selection seemed logical since, at the time, the Hampton Roads metropolitan area was the largest MSA in the United States without a team in any of the four major leagues, but the bid was no lock. The NHL had plans of adding four teams, but competition such as Atlanta, Columbus, Hamilton, Houston, Nashville, Oklahoma City, and St. Paul made the bid a long shot.
    Shinn submitted his application on November 1, 1996. He announced that the team would be named the Rhinos, and would have the rather unusual color scheme of blue, purple, and teal. He began a season ticked drive in hopes of improving the chances of his bid, with a goal of selling 10,000 by January 1, 1997. Despite a less than stellar result, Shinn and the Rhinos’ ownership team remained optimistic about their chances, no doubt buoyed by an agreement in principle with the localities in the region to build an arena to host the team.
    With an agreement in hand, Shinn and his partners met with NHL officials, including commissioner Gary Bettman to pitch their idea. The presentation seemed to be successful, as some that were in attendance stated that the Rhinos had moved into fourth place alongside Columbus. Shinn had previously stated that if he were not awarded an expansion franchise that he would consider purchasing another team and moving it into the region. After his presentation, he was not the only person that considered Norfolk as a potential relocation site, as Hartford Whalers owner Peter Karmanos, Jr. said that he would consider moving his team to the area if Shinn were unsuccessful.
    As bright as things now looked for the Rhinos, the roof caved in as quickly as their hopes were raised. In February, the league turned down Shinn’s bid, citing the East Coast location, the relative small size of the market, and the metropolitan area’s lack of political unity. If any hopes of a Norfolk-based team survived, they now existed only in relocation. Those chances soon dissipated when the Whalers moved to Raleigh to become the Carolina Hurricanes. With the two cities separated by a drive of less than three hours, there was now no chance of a franchise moving to the area, and the Rhinos disappeared from hockey’s radar once and for all.
    In spite of the disappointing result for hockey fans in southern Virginia, the memory of the Rhinos lives on. The credit for that no doubt belongs to Shinn who in spite of overwhelming odds gave the concept a fighting chance thanks to a clever idea and an outstanding job of marketing. It is amazing how well a team that never stepped onto the ice can be remembered.
  11. ScottM

    We hockey fans remember all too well the last time the Stanley Cup was not awarded. A decade later, the feelings of anger and betrayal are still very real to many. It is much less likely that the average fan could name the only other year since the inception of the trophy that no Stanley Cup champion was crowned. If you find yourself unable to do so, do not feel bad, because it was nearly a century ago, and the reason it happened makes the importance of the 2004-05 lockout pale by comparison.
    1919
    MONTREAL CANADIENS
    SEATTLE METROPOLITANS
    SERIES NOT COMPLETED
    The inscription on the Cup does not seem so eerie when one does not know the story behind it, but the seemingly innocuous etching tells the story of a tragic scenario. Before we go into the details, let us set the scene at the time of the cancellation. Prior to 1927, the Cup was awarded to the winner of a series between the NHL champion and the Pacific Coast Hockey Association champion. The series was a best-of-five match held in Seattle, and was contested between the Montreal Canadiens and the Seattle Metropolitans. Since the two leagues had differing rules, the series alternated between NHL and PCHA rules.
     
    Seattle won games one and three under PCHA rules, and Montreal won game two under NHL rules. Game four, held under NHL rules ended in a scoreless tie after a twenty minute overtime period. After a debate about which league’s rules to use, it was finally decided that game five would be played with NHL rules and that any future game which saw regulation end in a tie would feature continuous overtime until a winner was determined. That tie would later loom large, and the overtime decision was too little, too late.
     
    The Canadiens tied the series in another overtime contest in game five. The Metropolitans carried only one extra player and their players were exhausted because of the consecutive games with extra time. On the last play of the game, an exhausted Cully Wilson went to the bench, with the intention being for Frank Foyston to replace him. Foyston, however, was too exhausted to move, and the shorthanded Seattle squad surrended the game-winning goal. Following the game, some Seattle players had to be taken to the hospital, and others had to be carried home. Things probably looked very grim for the PCHA champs at that point, but a much more serious issue would soon rear its ugly head for Montreal.
     
    Game six was to be held on April 1, two days after game five, but the game was cancelled just hours before the scheduled start time. The influenza pandemic struck and devastated the Habs’ roster. Louis Berlinguette, Billy Coutu, Joe Hall, Newsy Lalonde, and Jack McDonald were all hospitalized or bed-ridden. Montreal owner and manager George Kennedy, who also became ill, decided he had no option but to concede the series to the Metropolitans. Considering that the two Seattle wins under PCHA rules were by a combined 14-2 score, and Montreal’s wins under NHL rules were by a combined 8-5 score, the concession could have been considered fair, but Pete Muldoon, the Seattle player-manager, refused to accept the forfeit, since the reason that the Canadiens were short-handed was an unavoidable illness. Kennedy then requested permission to use players from the PCHA’s Victoria Aristocrats, but was denied permission by league president Frank Calder.
     
    With Montreal unable to continue, and Seattle unwilling to accept a win they had not earned on the ice, the only option remaining was the cancellation of the series. The failure of the series to crown a series was, sadly, not the worst part of the outcome. On April 5, Joe Hall succumbed to the illness and became one of the many victims of the outbreak. George Kennedy appeared to recover, but his health remained poor, and he died from flu-related complications on October 19, 1921. Worldwide, the tragedy was magnified exponentially. Total infections numbered 500 million – over one-fourth of the world’s population – and reached the most remote points of the earth. The death toll was massive, falling in the 50 million to 100 million range, making it one of the most devastating natural disasters in world history.
     
    There are times that the study of sports can teach us about life. It is difficult to relate to numbers as large as those we see associated with the overall pandemic, but when we are given names, it becomes personal. It is even more personal when the names are those of people with whom we have come to know through our love of the sport. This tragedy also reminds us that there are things that are more important than sports. They can give us a relief from the daily grind, and they are certainly fun to watch and discuss, but let us never forget the personal side of it. The pox be on us if we do.
  12. ScottM

    All in the Family

    By ScottM,


    Every summer, NHL teams take their picks of the top prospects in the game. Today, the entry age is 18, but until 1979, the lower limit was 20. The reduction in the eligibility age resulted from the NHL-WHA merger since the WHA did not have a minimum draft age. The upstart league’s draft policy led to one of the most famous and unlikely examples of family member teammates.
     
    Following the 1970-71 Gordie Howe retired after a stellar 25-year NHL career. At the time of his retirement, he was the NHL’s all-time leader in goals, assists, points, and games played. In one respect, however, his career was incomplete. For years, Mr. Hockey had dreamed of one day having the opportunity to play alongside his sons, but a wrist injury had seen to it that his dream would never come true.
     
    There was one person who was unwilling to let the dream die. Mrs. Hockey – Gordie’s wife Colleen – had a thought. While it was true that the NHL had a rule that forbad the drafting of teenage players, she was not sure if the WHA had such a rule in place. If not, she saw a potential opening to bring her husband’s dream to life. Colleen had her secretary put in a call to WHA president Gary Davidson and asked him if there was an arrangement in place between the WHA and the U.S. and Canadian amateur associations that would prevent 19-year-old Marty and 18-year-old Mark from being drafted. The answer was no. She then placed a call to her husband’s former teammate Bill Dineen, who was coaching the Houston Aeros and told him her idea.
     
    Dineen and his assistant Doug Harvey both liked the idea and decided to follow up on it. They also called Davidson, and upon receiving the same answer, they decided to act. The Aeros plan was to sign Goride and draft Mark and Marty in the 1973 Professional Draft on the technicality of their receiving $60 per week as members of the Toronto Marlboros junior squad. When Mark was chosen, there was an uproar, but Davidson ruled that no rules had been broken. However, Colleen Howe was not the only one that had the idea of the Howe family playing together.
     
    Bobby Hull, who had signed with the Winnipeg Jets upon the creation of the WHA suspected something was up after Mark was chosen. He tried to convince Jets officials to draft Gordie. Hull’s idea was that if the Aeros really wanted to get all three Howes on their squad, they would at least have to pay the Jets for Gordie’s rights. Jets officials, however, did not take Hull’s concerns seriously. After the dust cleared, the Aeros had selected Mark in the first round, Marty in the third, and Gordie went unchosen. Part one of Mrs. Hockey’s plan was complete.
     
    Next, Colleen moved on to convincing her husband that this was his chance to fulfill his dream. In order to make a comeback, Gordie would have to undergo surgery on his wrist and overcome the rust that would have developed from two years away from the game. On top of that, he was now 45 years old. Would Mr. Hockey seriously consider such an outrageous idea? Absolutely.
    Gordie underwent the wrist surgery and signed a contract with the Aeros. It was time to live the dream. For a while, however, it all seemed too good to be true. Gordie felt the effects of his age, his time away from the game, and his previous injuries. For a while, it appeared that the dream would end in training camp. However, as training camp progressed, Gordie started feeling better and better, and before long, he was back into full playing form.
     
    The Howe family’s first year in the WHA was a highly successful season. Mark won the Lou Kaplan Award as the WHA’s rookie of the year and Gordie won the newly renamed Gordie Howe award as league MVP. The Aeros as a team won the Avco Cup as league champions. As we know from history, Mr. Hockey and his boys had a few more seasons together, but the Boston Bruins made an offer that could have ended it after one year.
     
    In the 1974 NHL Draft, the Boston Bruins selected Mark in the second round. They offered him a contract of $225,000 a year, which was a 40% increase over his WHA salary. Some things, though, are more important than money, and there was no question in Mark Howe’s mind as to what he should do. He declined the offer, deciding that playing with his father and brother was more important. The family unit would remain together.
     
    The Howes spent three more years with the Aeros and won another Avco Cup. By the end of their stint with the Aeros, the Detroit Red Wings had developed an interest in Mark and Marty. They did not, however want Gordie as an active player. Once again, blood proved to be the most valuable asset, and the three signed with the New England Whalers. The Howes spent the last two years of the WHA’s existence with the Whalers, and then had one final season together in the NHL with the now Hartford Whalers.
     
    In 1980, Gordie Howe retired again, this time permanently. In the last seven seasons of his career, he not only extended his legend with his still very skilled play, but fulfilled a longtime dream. Without the vision of his beloved wife, it might never have happened. Even with all the records he set and the four Stanley Cups he won, Gordie felt that the greatest part of his career was the opportunity to play with his sons. And why not? After all, blood is thicker than water.
  13. ScottM

    The St. Louis Blues made three consecutive trips to the Stanley Cup Finals from 1968-1970, making them the first post-Original Six era expansion team to make it to the Finals. While the feat is impressive, it seems a little less so when considering that the six expansion teams were put into their own division, and one of them had to make the Finals. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Blues’ combined record in those three series was 0-12. Prior to the 1970-71 season, there was a realignment in the NHL, and for a few years, the Finals were once again matchups between Original Six teams. In 1974, however, one of the new teams made a breakthrough – the Broad Street Bullies.
     
    The Philadelphia Flyers won the regular season crown of the Western Division of the NHL in their first season, 1967-68, albeit with a losing record. The gap between the existing teams and the expansion teams was so great that all of the Original Six teams, save the Detroit Red Wings, posted a winning record. Other than the afore mentioned St. Louis Blues, no non-Original Six squad managed to post an above-.500 record through the 1971-72 season.
     
    A change took place in 1972-73 when the Buffalo Sabres, Minnesota North Stars, Philadelphia Flyers all finished the season with more wins than losses. That season, one of those three teams – the Flyers – began to set themselves apart from their fellow newcomers. They were the only non-Original Six team to make it to the NHL semi-finals, and they earned themselves their now famous nickname from their hardnosed play. The “Broad Street Bullies” name came from Jack Chevalier and Pete Cafone of the Philadelphia Bulletin following a 3-1 win on January 3, 1973 over the Atlanta Flames. In his recap of the game, Chevalier wrote “They're the Mean Machine, the Bullies of Broad Street and Freddy's Philistines.” In the accompanying headline, Cafone wrote, “Broad Street Bullies Muscle Atlanta.”
     
    The biggest bully of the bunch was left wing enforcer Dave “The Hammer” Schultz. Schultz’s 259 PIM were the most on a team with six players that amassed 100 or more penalty minutes. However, it was not only enforcers like Schultz delivering punishing play to Philly’s opponents. Right winger Gary Dornhoefer posted 79 points in 77 games, but also racked up 168 penalty minutes. Even star center Bobby Clarke, who excelled as a two-way forward was well known for his gritty, grinding style of play. Clarke won the first of his three Hart Trophies in 1973. He and his team put the league on notice in 1973, but that season was only a hint of what was ahead.
     
    In 1973-74, the Flyers made a huge jump in the standings, improving from 85 to 112 points. Only the Bruins (with 113 points) had a better regular season record. All the while, the Bullies were still at their game. Seven players reached 100 PIM, this time including Clarke, and once again led by Schultz, who posted an NHL record 348. A key addition to the team for the 1973-74 season was Bernie Parent, an original member of the Flyers. Parent was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the middle of the 1970-71 season. After spending a season and a half with the Leafs, and spending the 1972-73 season with the Philadelphia Blazers of the WHA.
     
    After his stint in the WHA, Parent wished to return to the NHL, but did not want to return to Toronto. A trade was worked out to send Parent’s NHL rights back to the Flyers, and Parent posted one of the best single seasons for a goalie in the history of the NHL. His 47 wins set an NHL record that stood for 33 years, and his 1.89 GAA, 12 shutouts, and 4,314 minutes played also led the league. Parent’s play reduced the Flyers’ goals allowed from 256 to 164, helping the Flyers establish themselves as one of the best squads in the NHL.
     
    In the playoffs, the Flyers swept the Flames in the first round, followed by a seven game series against the New York Rangers. Finally, they met the Boston Bruins in the Finals. It seems fair to say that the Bruins were at the strongest point in their history. They had won the Cup in 1970 and 1972, and had the likes of Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, and Johnny Bucyk on their roster. The Flyers, however, were more than up to the task, and took down the B’s in six games. Parent, with a playoff GAA of 2.02, took home the Conn Smythe, as the Flyers became the first expansion era franchise to win the Cup.
     
    The 1974-75 season was more of the same for Philadelphia. Bobby Clarke won his second Hart Trophy, while Parent once again led the league in wins (44), GAA (2.03), and shutouts (12). The Flyers 51 wins were the most in the league, and their 113 points tied with the Sabres and the Montreal Canadiens for the most in the league. Reggie Leach joined the Flyers in 1974, and the now famous LCB line was created. Once again, six Flyers eclipsed 100 penalty minutes, and Dave Schultz smashed his NHL record from the previous season posting an amazing 472 PIM – a single season record which still stands and has hardly been threatened.
     
    The 1975 playoffs even looked similar to the playoffs from the year before. Once again, the Flyers won in a sweep in the first round (this time against the Maple Leafs), before a hard-fought seven game series against a New York team in the second round (this time the Islanders). For the second straight year, the Stanley Cup Finals presented a first. The year after the Flyers became the first expansion team to win the Cup, they and the Sabres gave the hockey world its first Finals matchup between expansion teams.
     
    In the series, the home team won each of the first five games, but in game six, the Flyers broke the streak and won their second consecutive Cup. Parent, who posted a 1.89 GAA and four shutouts in the playoffs won his second Conn Smythe Trophy. An interesting side note about that particular Flyers team is that it is the last team to win the Stanley Cup with an all-Canadian roster.
     
    The 1975-76 season was another great season for the Flyers. Bobby Clarke won his third Hart Trophy in four years, and they improved on their record from the year before with 118 points, but they were denied dynasty status when they became the first of four consecutive victims of the Canadiens dynasty of the late 1970s.
     
    They say that nice guys finish last. Well, the Broad Street Bullies were not “nice guys” and did not finish last. They ushered in a new era for the NHL. Even without the third Cup, the Flyers still marked a shift in the balance of power in the NHL, and will always be remembered for such. Sometimes, it does pay to be a “Bully.”
  14. ScottM

    We're All Human

    By ScottM,


    Today’s edition of Annals of the Ice is different. Everything in hockey history is not positive. I think we do ourselves, the sport, and those who participate in it no favors if we ignore the sadder moments. The events I write about in this post may be the saddest events in the history of the NHL, but I hope it will make us all think about the human side of the game we love so much.
     
    It seemed like a routine play. Columbus Blue Jackets forward Espen Knutsen fired a shot that deflected off of the stick of Calgary Flames defenseman Derek Morris. The puck sailed into the stands, a new puck was brought in, and after the faceoff, the game continued. It had happened countless time before, and the game always continued.
     
    It was March 16, 2002. Brittanie Cecil was four days away from her 14th birthday. Brittanie was a big sports fan, and her father bought the tickets as a birthday present. By all accounts, Brittanie was extremely excited about the game. Her parents were divorced, and she lived with her mother and stepfather. The family was moving on the day of the game, and her mother was sick from food poisoning, but her stepfather decided to let her go to the game anyway. Despite the busyness of the household and her younger sister Kristina Sergent’s begging her to stay home, Brittanie went to the game with her stepmother.
     
    The fateful moment came about halfway through the second period. The Blue Jackets led the game 1-0 when Knutsen fired the shot. Unable to reach Knutsen in time to make a play against his body, Morris used his stick to deflect the puck. Once over the glass, the puck struck Brittanie in the head before deflecting off of another fan. With the players, coaches, and officials unaware that anything serious had happened, the game continued.
     
    Those at ice level were not the only ones of the severity of Brittanie’s injuries. After realizing she was bleeding from where the puck had hit her, Brittanie turned to her stepmother. Other than the gash above her nose she seemed fine. She walked to a first aid station located inside Nationwide Arena under her own power. The only suggestion to those around that anything was amiss was the jacket that she held against her forehead to control the bleeding. The truth was far different. Brittanie had more than a gash. The impact of the puck when it struck her forehead had fractured her skull and torn a vertebral artery.
     
    Britannie was taken to the hospital for examination and stitches. Later that night, she suffered a seizure, but by the time her family arrived at the hospital, she seemed to be her normal self. When her grandfather walked in, she held up the puck that had hit her and said smiling, “I got a souvenir.” By the next day, she seemed to be well on her way to recovery, but a CT scan failed to find the tear in her vertebral artery. On March 18, 2002, two days after the hockey game she attended, and two days before turning 14, Brittanie Cecil died from bleeding on her brain. She developed a high fever and slipped into a coma from which she would never awaken.
     
    The next morning, Espen Knutsen walked into the locker room at Nationwide Arena expecting to begin preparation for that night’s game against the Minnesota Wild. He was unprepared for the mood that he found, much less the news he received, when he entered. Teammate Ray Whitney took him aside and told Knutsen about Brittanie’s death. Knutsen immediately broke into tears. Kevin Dineen, who occupied the locker next to Knutsen’s put his arm around Knutsen, trying to console him and reminded him that it was an accident. There was no consoling Knutsen. Even though he knew it was an accident, he could not help but feel responsible. Blue Jackets Coach Dave King met privately with Knutsen later in the day, but fared no better in his attempts to comfort him.
     
    Blue Jackets general manager Doug MacLean attended Cecil’s funeral and spoke on behalf of the team. Brittanie’s mother, Jody, hoped Knutsen would attend the funeral so that she could tell him that she did not hold him responsible, but only MacLean attended. He made the decision to attend the funeral instead of his players to shield them from the inevitable media circus.
     
    Brittanie’s family, however, could not escape said circus. They were hounded by media at the funeral, with one media member going so far as to fake offering condolences to Brittanie’s stepfather in an effort to get an interview. The family was unable to live in their new house for a week following the funeral because of the constant attempts by the media to contact them. Even after the immediate aftermath of Brittanie’s death passed, complete relief from the pressure of the media did not subside. For months and years after Brittanie’s death, the requests continued.
     
    Following Brittanie’s death, MacLean saw to it that nets were installed at the ends of the ice in Nationwide Arena. At first, the nets met with angry reactions from fans, but MacLean was insistent that they remain. Brittanie Cecil was the first (and to date only) fan to receive fatal injuries at an NHL game, and MacLean had no intention of seeing the number increase on his watch. Within a few months, every other NHL arena would follow suit, and the NHL would mandate such nets. As a tribute to Brittanie, the Blue Jackets and Detroit Red Wings observed a moment of silence before their game the following Thursday, and the Blue Jackets wore the initials “BNC” on their helmets for the rest of the season in her honor.
     
    Knutsen’s career quickly went off track after the incident, and he never was able to return to form after the incident. For years, he struggled with feelings of guilt and responsibility for what happened. The 2003-04 season was his final season playing in North America, after which he returned to Norway. It was years before he returned to the United States or met with Brittanie’s family, but the day that Brittanie’s mother long dreamed about finally took place nearly nine years later. In December of 2010, Britannie’s mother, her grandparents, her sister, and her sister’s stepsister had a private meeting with Knutsen in Nationwide Arena. Brittanie’s family told Knutsen about her, and her mother was finally able to tell him that she did not blame him and never had. She told Knutsen about how her family was hounded by the media following her daughter’s death. Knutsen shared his feelings about the incident and what it was like to be vilified after the incident. After the meeting, Brittanie’s mother visited the seat where her daughter was sitting during the incident.
     
    Such a meeting could never erase the pain that anyone involved felt following the tragedy, but one can hope that it provided some degree of closure for Brittanie’s family and for Knutsen. It is easy to forget while watching a hockey game that all involved are just as human as we are. The players on the ice have the same emotions as we do, and they all fight their own battles just like we do. The same can be said for everyone of the thousands of fans at each and every game. Espen Knutsen, Brittanie Cecil, and her family are no different.
  15. ScottM

    With a population of less than 3,000, Hanna, Alberta is not a town one would expect to produce a large amount of famous residents. This small town on the Canadian prairies proves just how wrong first impressions can be. Hanna can lay claim to being the birthplace of the multi-platinum recording artists Nickleback. Of greater interest to hockey fans, however, is the fact that hockey hall-of-famer Lanny McDonald is among the town’s natives.
     
    McDonald was never difficult to spot thanks to his trademark red, bushy mustache, and his heart was just as prominent. A crowd favorite everywhere he played, McDonald won over fans across the league because of his hard work and commitment to the game. If there was ever a player that people wanted to see meet with success, it was Lanny McDonald.
     
    Growing up, McDonald was a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and dreamed of one day suiting up in a Leafs jersey. While playing junior hockey with the Medicine Hat Tigers, McDonald proved quite capable of playing at the highest levels of hockey, scoring 114 points in 68 games and 139 points in 68 games in the 1971-72 and 1972-73 seasons respectively. Thanks to such impressive performances, he caught the attention of NHL teams, including his childhood favorite Toronto, who chose him with the fourth overall draft pick in the 1973 NHL draft.
     
    McDonald made an instant impact in his Maple Leafs debut, registering two assists. He also received the first injury of his NHL career following a check by Rick Martin. Playing without a helmet for the only time in his professional career, McDonald received a concussion and a cut requiring stitches. Feeling that the injury affected his performance in the early part of his career, he chose to wear a helmet for the remainder of his career despite the fact that he was not required to, and despite the macho attitude of the era.
     
    Whether it was the concussion, the step up in the level of competition, something else, or some combination of factors, McDonald’s first two seasons in the NHL were not up to the standard he or the fans expected. In 1973-74, he managed only 14 goals and 30 points in 70 games, and the next season posted 17 goals and 44 points in 64 games. Patience paid off, however, and in his third season, McDonald had a breakout year with 93 points. The next season, he posted his first 40 goal season, which would be the first of four consecutive and six total such seasons.
     
    In the years before McDonald joined the Maple Leafs, the team had struggled. Following their 1967 Stanley Cup championship, Toronto did not win a playoff series until the 1974-75 season, and missed the playoffs completely in some of those seasons. For a franchise with a history as proud as that of the Maple Leafs, results like those were not acceptable, but McDonald appeared to be a large part of what the Maple Leafs were missing. Three years before drafting McDonald, Toronto drafted Darryl Sittler with their first round draft choice. The season before McDonald came along, Sittler began to hit his stride. Once McDonald began to develop, the Maple Leafs not only had two legitimate star scoring threats, but two threats with good chemistry, as the two became great friends.
     
    From the 1974-75 season through the 1978-79 season, the Maple Leafs won at least one playoff series every year, advancing to the NHL semi-finals in 1978. After a decade of limited success, Toronto appeared to be on the verge making a breakthrough, but the return of a Maple Leafs legend would put a stop to that. In 1979, Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard brought back for Leafs coach Punch Imlach as general manager. Ballard and Imlach were both staunchly anti-union, and Sittler was prominent in the NHLPA. Because of this, Ballard and Imlach both butted heads with Sittler, something that would prove to be the downfall of the Leafs.
     
    Imlach immediately announced that Toronto only had five or six good players, and that the rest of the team needed to improve. The pair at the helm of the Toronto ship made a series of controversial decisions during the 1979-80 season. Head Coach Roger Nielson was highly popular with the players, but with the team finding less success in the 1978-79 season as in the previous campaign, Ballard and Imlach chose to fire him. Both desired to trade Sittler, but were unable to because he had a no-trade clause and asked for $500,000 to waive it. As such, they decided to do the next best thing, and traded McDonald – Sittler’s best friend on the team – to the Colorado Rockies, a move that was unpopular among the fans and the team. The decisions made seemed to set the Maple Leafs back, and the team would not win another playoff series until 1986.
     
    McDonald, meanwhile had been traded to a dreadful team on which he was one of the few bright spots. The Rockies missed the playoffs in both 1980 and 1981, but he would not languish in the wilderness for long. Midway through the 1981-82 season, McDonald was traded to the Calgary Flames. It was a homecoming of sorts, since Calgary is just over 200 kilometers from Hanna.
     
    McDonald would make a nice hockey home for himself in Calgary as well, and the Flames are the team with which most fans associate him. His most successful personal season took place in Calgary when he scored 66 goals and 98 points in the 1982-83 season. He was awarded a captains’ “C” in 1983, which he would share with Doug Risebrough and Jim Peplinski until his 1989 retirement.
     
    Thanks in no small part to McDonald, the Flames were one of the top teams of the 1980s, and their battles with their provincial rivals, the Edmonton Oilers, are now legendary. In 1986, the Flames advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals, but fell to the Montreal Canadiens in a five game series.
     
    As the 1988-89 season approached, a couple of significant milestones also approached. McDonald was only 12 points shy of 1,000 career points, and eleven goals shy of 500 career goals. Unfortunately, because of injuries suffered over the two previous seasons, and with many believing it would be his final NHL season, neither was a sure thing.
     
    Despite being limited to only 51 games, he reached both milestones, collecting his 1,000th point on March 7, 1989, and his 500th goal on March 21, with just four regular season games ahead of him. Even with those accomplishments, McDonald’s career was not complete. He still lacked the greatest accomplishment of any player: winning the Stanley Cup.
     
    In 1989, the Flames once again made their way to the Stanley Cup Finals. Once again, they faced the Montreal Canadiens. The series was hard-fought, with every game being decided by one or two goals. The Flames won the first game, and then dropped the next two games, losing game three in double overtime. Calgary then stormed back to win three consecutive games, and became the only visiting team to win the Stanley Cup on Montreal ice. McDonald finished his career on a high note personally, scoring a goal in the final game of the series – the last in his career. After the final whistle, McDonald was the first player to hoist the Cup, fulfilling the greatest dream of every player.
     
    Few players have been as loved by the fans or respected by other players as Lanny McDonald. He lived out the dream of many a small-town Canadian boy, and did it with heart matched by few and exceeded by none. The Man from Hanna deserves his revered spot in hockey history.
  16. ScottM

    Anytime there is a discussion about the greatest players in history, or the greatest player at this or that position, the conversation always starts with and is dominated by the guys with the most awards in their trophy cases. It makes sense. After all, the awards demonstrate the level of excellence that they have managed to attain. Sometimes, though, a guy who has performed well enough to merit recognition is overlooked, simply because someone else played at a level too high to be matched. The guys in this post are some of the ones who were overlooked. Today, I will count down (in my opinion) the five best defensemen to never win the Norris Trophy.
     
    First, let me give a couple of rules. I did not include players who had their primes (or entire careers) before the introduction of the Norris. Therefore, you will not find Eddie Shore on this list. Active players that have not won the Norris, but still have a reasonable shot to do so were also excluded, meaning you will not find Shea Weber on the list. Lastly, players who did not play in the NHL, or at least did not play in the NHL in their prime are not in the list, meaning, no Slava Fetisov. That said, on to the list!
     
    Honorable Mention (in alphabetical order)
    Tim Horton, Phil Housley, Guy Lapointe, Larry Murphy, Marcel Pronovost, Serge Savard, Sergei Zubov
     
    #5 Borje Salming
     
    Salming played 17 seasons in the NHL, spending 16 of them with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Seven times he scored double digit goals, reached the 50 point plateau five times, and was a key part of the Toronto power play. He was one of the first European to make an impact in the NHL, and dealt a major blow to the idea that European players were too soft for the North American game, reaching 100 penalty minutes in three consecutive seasons from 1981-82 to 1983-84. In each of his first seven NHL seasons, he finished in the top five in Norris voting, and he even had a fourth place finish in Hart Trophy voting in 1977. His highest finishes in Norris Trophy voting were runner-up tallies in 1977 and 1980, losing to Larry Robinson on each occasion. He was voted a first team all-star once and second team all-star five times, and played in three all-star games.
     
    #4 Bill Gadsby
     
    Gadsby played 20 seasons in the NHL with the Chicago Blackhawks, New York Rangers, and Detroit Red Wings. He was a star before the introduction of the Norris, and continued to be among the league's top blueliners throughout his career. His offensive numbers look pedestrian by today's standards, but when he entered the league in the 1940s, defensemen were expected to focus on defense. Even so, he set the record for most assists in a season in 1958-59 by a defensemen with 46, and scored 10 or more goals in a season four times. He is not one of the all-time leaders in PIM, but he was a hard-nosed player that toughed his way through injuries, and played a physical style that saw him hit triple digits in penalty minutes four times. Six times in his career he finished in the top five of Norris voting, and was a three time runner-up in 1956, 1958, and 1959, losing to Doug Harvey on the first two occasions and Tom Johnson on the third. He was voted first team all-star three times and second team four times. Over the course of his career, he played in eight all-star games.
     
    #3 Mark Howe
     
    Second and third places on this list were a close call. Mark Howe began his professional career in the WHA with the Houston Aeros and New England Whalers, moving to the NHL when the Whalers did. He did not have his father's famous mean streak, but was a highly effective two-way player, and strong on special teams, scoring 58 power play and 28 shorthanded goals during his NHL years. Twice he reached or eclipsed the 80 point mark, and is one of only a handful of players to register a plus/minus rating of +80 or more in a season, posting a +85 in the 1985-86 season. That season, he finished third in Hart Trophy voting. He was voted to the NHL's first team all-star team three times, and played in four all-star games. He was a top-five finisher in Norris Trophy voting four times, with three of those (1983, 1986, and 1987) being second place finishes. In those seasons, he was topped by Doug Wilson, Rod Langway, and Ray Bourque.
     
    #2 Scott Stevens
     
    In the later years of his career, Scott Stevens' penalty minutes dropped dramatically, but in his first 12 seasons, he broke the 100 PIM mark, breaking the 200 barrier four times. Those stats and his 2,875 total career penalty minutes show that he was not a man to toy with on the ice. He is probably best remembered as a shutdown, stay at home defenseman, but he made significant offensive contributions early in his career while playing for the Washington Capitals. In the 1984-85 season, he scored 16 goals on the power play alone. Most fans will probably always think of him as the anchor of the New Jersey Devils defense that, along with goaltender Martin Brodeur, led the team to three Stanley Cup championships. On seven occasions, he finished among the top five vote-getters in the Norris Trophy race. In 1988 and 1994, he finished second to Ray Bourque. On two occasions, he was on the league's first all-star team, and three times was on the second. He played in an impressive 13 all-star games.
     
    #1 Brad Park
     
    Brad Park's career is filled with irony. I personally think he is the best player in Rangers history, but while Brian Leetch won two Norris Trophies with the Rangers, Park has none. Bobby Orr is the main reason he has none, and the two of them were teammates during the 1975-76 season. If it had not been for Orr, Park likely would have been the guy to popularize the concept of the rushing defenseman. Later in his career, he shifted styles and excelled as a defensive defenseman. Park finished fifth in Hart Trophy voting three times in his career. Seven times, he had seven top five Norris finishes (all of them top three), and six of those were runner-up finishes. On four of those occasions (1970, 1971, 1972, and 1974), Bobby Orr was the man that beat him, and in 1976 and 1978, Denis Potvin topped him. He was on the NHL first all-star team five times, the second all-star team twice, and played in nine all-star games.
     
    I do not expect everyone to agree with my list, as I know opinions as to who the top five are and what order they should be in will vary, but my hope is that this post will serve to bring some added awareness about some players that, while the voters passed them over, had great careers. They may have missed the Norris by that much, but these men all earned their place in hockey history and in the Hall of Fame.
  17. ScottM

    How Low Can You Go?

    By ScottM,


    The 1974-75 NHL season was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The Philadelphia Flyers, who were the only expansion team to have won the Stanley Cup at the time, hoisted the coveted trophy for the second consecutive season. Their star center, Bobby Clarke, won the second of three Hart Trophies of his career, and their goaltender, Bernie Parent capped off one of the best two-year runs of any goalie in NHL history. Phil Esposito, who was the only player in NHL history to that point to score 60 goals in a season, led the league – with his fourth such season – with 61 goals. Bobby Orr, the only defenseman to win the Art Ross to this day, won his second scoring title with a remarkable 135 points.
     
    While those mentioned in the paragraph above were on top of the hockey world, there was a famine in other cities. The Kansas City Scouts and Washington Capitals joined the league that season, and as would be expected, both floundered as expansion teams. The Kansas City Scouts posted an abysmal 15-54-11 record, but compared to their fellow freshman, they looked strong. That season, the Washington Capitals had the worst season of any team in NHL history with a beyond dreadful 8-67-5 record. For the Capitals, 1974-75 was definitely the worst of times.
     
    While every expansion team is expected to struggle, the Capitals seemed to have a few things working in their favor. Their owner, Abe Pollin, also owned the NBA’s Washington Bullets, and had built them into a successful franchise. He had built the Capital Center in 1973 for the explicit purpose of housing his two Beltway teams. Upon winning his expansion bid, Pollin immediately hired hall-of-famer Milt Schmidt as general manager. Schmidt’s playing career with the Boston Bruins was highly successful, with the team winning two Stanley Cups and Schmidt himself winning the 1951 Hart Trophy. Following his playing days, he coached the team, and despite the generally bad teams that Boston put on the ice during the Original Six era, coached them to two Stanley Cup Finals.
     
    With an owner who knew how to run a business, a brand new building to play in, and a general manager with a history of success in the league, what could go wrong? Plenty, as it turned out. As bad as the team’s overall record was, even that masked how bad the team was in some areas. The Capitals’ road record that season was a jaw-dropping 1-39-0. Their 181 goals scored was the fewest in the league that season, and their 446 goals allowed is an NHL single season record. On four occasions, they lost a game by 10 or 11 goals, though ironically, all but one of their wins came by a multiple goal margin.
     
    Statistically, their best goaltender was Michel Belhumeur, with his 5.36 goals against average, but that wasn’t good enough to win him any games, and he went 0-24-3. John Adams went 0-7-0 with a 6.30 GAA. Only Ron Low managed to win even a single game in net, and his stats were a paltry 8-36-2 record with a 5.45 GAA. The offense was no better. Tommy Williams’s 22 goals, 36 assists, and 58 points were all enough to lead the team in an era during which offense was beginning to skyrocket. Besides Williams, only Denis Dupere was able to manage 20 goals, and no one else exceeded 35 points.
     
    Over the course of the season, the Capitals were led by three head coaches. Jim Anderson, a career AHL left winger who played seven games with the Los Angeles Kings during their inaugural season began the season behind the bench, but was fired after a 4-45-5 start. Next up was Red Sullivan, who had played over 500 games in the NHL and had coaching stints with the New York Rangers and Pittsburgh Penguins. He was also shown the door after winning only two of 18 games as team boss. Finally, Schmidt himself took over coaching duties, and by the Capitals standards that year, was relatively successful, going 2-6-0.
     
    The fact that they were bad was not lost on the players, and some of them look back on the season and laugh. The team celebrated their lone road win of the season by signing a trash can in the locker room and hoisting it as though they had won the Stanley Cup. One person who still does not laugh about the disastrous season is the now 97-year-old Schmidt. When contacted for a recent Bleacher Report article, his response made very clear that it is a period he would prefer to forget. “I don’t wish to discuss that, thank you. It’s still too painful to think about.”
     
    The futility of some teams is remarkable, and few teams in NHL history have even approached the depths of the first edition of the Washington Capitals. In fact, few professional sports teams have period. It seems highly unlikely that that Capitals squad will be erased from the history books anytime soon. Even if the potential expansion to Las Vegas and Quebec City proceeds, it would be a stretch for those teams to “top” the Capitals’ record. It truly makes me wonder, just how low can a team go?
  18. ScottM

    From Russia with Love

    By ScottM,


    The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s created a seismic shift in international politics. The Cold War ended, and the United States was the world’s only surviving superpower. The post-1991 world was a far different place than the pre-1991 world. The threat of nuclear war subsided, maps looked different, and the world of sports changed as well. Athletes that were previously forced to defect or get permission from communist governments to play in the West were now free to leave their native countries. Of the four major North American sports, hockey was affected the most.
     
    Eastern Europeans were not unknown in the NHL before the fall of the Iron Curtain, but they were somewhat uncommon. Only one Russian-born player spent any time in the NHL in the 1988-89 season – Sergei Pryakhin – and he played in only two games. Five years later, the number of Russians playing in the world’s top league had surpassed 50. Similar (those less extreme) increases in the number of Czech and Slovak players also took place.
     
    The Detroit Red Wings were one team that took full advantage of the influx of new players, though they had already begun to do so before the fall of the USSR. In the 1989 entry draft, Detroit chose Sergei Fedorov with their fourth round draft pick. Fedorov was not immediately able to join his NHL squad because of Soviet restrictions, but an opportunity presented itself only a year later. Fedorov played for the famed CSKA Moscow, and the team travelled to Seattle to play in the Goodwill Games in 1990. While there, Fedorov slipped away from his hotel and boarded a plane bound for Detroit, and the Red Wings had their first Russian star.
     
    The Red Wings drafted two other high profile Soviets, before the fall of the Iron Curtain, though they were unable to acquire the services of their other selections until after the 1991 collapse. In the 11th round of the draft in which they chose Fedorov, the Wings chose Vladimir Konstantinov, and the next year, they selected Slava Kozlov. After a delay, those two men were finally able to join the Red Wings for the 1991-92 NHL season.
     
    Fedorov, Konstantinov, and Kozlov soon met with success in their new home, and Detroit continued to add Russian talent to their roster. During the 1994-95 season, the Red Wings acquired Slava Fetisov via trade from the New Jersey Devils, and worked out a deal with the San Jose Sharks the next year for the services of Igor Larionov.
     
    After the addition of Larionov, Scottie Bowman had an idea to play the five Russians together. While NHL teams dress 18 skaters, many European teams would dress 20 skaters and group them into five man units. Since the Red Wings had Russian players that played each position in such a unit, Larionov proposed that the Red Wings create such a unit with Konstantinov and Fetisov on the blue line, Fedorov at center, Kozlov at left wing, and Larionov at right wing. The concept was novel for the NHL, but the execution was flawless, and Bowman came out looking like a genius.
     
    The new group played together well, and soon became well known for their chemistry on the ice. The so-called “Russian Five” was a vital part of the Red Wings’ success in the 1996-97 season. That year, Detroit had a respectable regular season, placing second in the Central Division, behind only the Dallas Stars, and earning 94 points in the standings, the fifth-most in the league. In the playoffs, the team took their act to another level entirely, and the Russian Five was largely responsible.
    The 1997 Stanley Cup was the first of three that the Red Wings would win over the course of a six season span. In the first round of the playoffs, Detroit defeated the St. Louis Blues in six games, swept the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in the second round, downed the defending champion Colorado Avalanche in six games in the Western Conference Finals, and finally swept the Philadelphia Flyers in the Stanley Cup Finals for a combined playoff record of 16-4. Remarkably, the team was 16-0 when at least one member of the Russian Five scored a point, and was 0-4 when the unit was held scoreless. The five Russians combined for 53 points in the team’s 20 playoff games.
     
    Sadly, the 1997 Finals proved to be the last hurrah for the Russian Five. Less than a week after the Red Wings won hockey’s Holy Grail, Konstatinov was involved in a serious limousine accident which left him paralyzed, and nearly took his life. In his honor, the Red Wings wore a patch on their jerseys with the word “believe” in English and Russian during the 1997-98 season, and successfully defended their title, but the days of the Russian Five were tragically over.
     
    Today, Fedorov, Fetisov, and Larionov are members of the Hockey Hall of Fame, and all five players have made their mark on the sport both individually and as a unit. The concept of the Russian Five was unusual, but no one can question Bowman’s wisdom. Their time together was short, but the Russian Five deserve to be remembered. Some lines can claim similar impacts on their teams, but none represent as drastic a change in the world of hockey as the Wizards of Ov.
  19. ScottM

    Public Enemy Number One

    By ScottM,


    Hard feelings from a fan base toward a player that leaves a team on bad terms is not rare in hockey or in sports generally speaking. What is somewhat uncommon is when said player's new team's fan base soon feels animosity toward said player. One such case is that of Alexei Yashin, whose contract holdout poisoned his relationship with the fans of the Ottawa Senators, and whose later lack of production and eventual buyout embittered New York Islanders' fans. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let us look back over the details of "The People v. Alexei Yashin."
     
    To say that relations between the Senators and Yashin were always strained would not be fair, nor would it be true. Yashin was the first draft pick in the history of the modern Senators, with Ottawa taking him with the number two overall pick in 1992. After playing for Dynamo Russia during the 1992-93 season, Yashin joined the Senators for the 1993-94 season, and led the team in scoring as a rookie, with 30 goals and 79 points, and finished fourth in Calder Trophy voting. After one more season in which he led the team in scoring, the first signs of trouble appeared. In 1995, unhappy with his pay, Yashin held out until December. Eventually, a deal was worked out, and though some fans were less than thrilled with Yashin's actions, things appeared to be back to normal. In fact, the Senators finally began to gain some traction, making the playoffs for the first time in franchise history in Yashin's first full season back with the team.
     
    The 1996-97 season began a streak of three consecutive years in which Yashin led the Senators in scoring, and the Senators made the playoffs in each of those three years. In 1998, he was named team captain, and his 44 goal, 94 point season made him runner-up in Hart Trophy balloting after the ensuing season. The Senators won their first division title, and the future looked bright in Ottawa.
     
    Appearances can be deceiving, and the sunshine and roses look in Ottawa certainly was. Yashin was slated to earn $3.6 million the next season, and feeling his market value was much higher demanded another contract, threatening to sit out if he did not receive one. The Senators refused a trade demand, and stripped Yashin of the captaincy, giving it to Daniel Alfredsson. With Yashin still refusing to report, the Senators, with the backing of the NHL chose to suspend him for the 1999-2000 season. Yashin then attempted to sign with a Swiss team, but was barred from doing so, pending the resolution of his North American status.
     
    Not willing to allow Yashin out of the last year of his contract after the holdout, the and without a clause in the CBA addressing such a situation, the Senators took Yashin to arbitration, arguing that he still owed the team the final year of the contract. The arbiter agreed, and Yashin had no choice left but to rejoin the team. On the ice, Yashin was successful in the regular season, with 40 goals and 88 points, but was not well received by fans at any stop. Further exacerbating the situation was his poor performance in the playoffs. Yashin managed only one assist in a four game sweep at the hands of the Maple Leafs, and the damage was done.
     
    The Senators made the most of the situation on Draft Day, 2001, the Senators dealt Yashin to the New York Islanders for forward Bill Muckalt, then little known defenseman Zdeno Chara, and the number two overall pick, which they used to select Jason Spezza. With the eventual production of Spezza and the extremely rapid development of Chara, the trade is now considered to be one of the most lopsided ever. For their part, the Islanders quickly signed Yashin to a 10-year, $87.5 million contract. The price tag was reduced by the 2005 CBA, but the Islanders soon had reason to regret the deal.
     
    In New York, Yashin's point production began to decline, and he was still ineffective in the playoffs. In four playoff appearances with Yashin on the roster, the Islanders never managed to advance past the first round. By the beginning of the 2006-07 season, there were rumblings concerning a potential buyout of Yashin's contract. During the season, he suffered a knee injury, and was less effective after his return. As a result, Islanders head coach Ted Nolan announced that he would rest Yashin until his knee was completely healed, prompting more speculation. Once he did finally return to the lineup, he contributed 13 points in 16 games, but another lackluster playoff performance was the final nail in the coffin. In 2007, the Islanders chose to buy out the contract, paying out $2.2 million per year each season, which ended just this off-season.
     
    Shockingly, after the buyout, Yashin's agent, Mark Gandler, announced Yashin's desire to return to the Senators and said that he would "be calling Ottawa for sure." Not surprisingly, the Senators had no interest in bringing Yashin back to the team, and disappointed with offers received from other NHL teams, Yashin elected to continue his career in the Russian Super League with Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. There were talks of his return to the Islanders for the 2011-12 season, but they came to nothing in the end, and Yashin retired in 2012.
     
    For Ottawa, the Yashin drama and trade were a blessing in disguise. Chara and Spezza played key roles in the team's run to the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals. The Islanders learned the hard way that all that glitters is not gold. Immense natural talent does little good if not accompanied with the proper attitude. With 20/20 hindsight, we can easily see that Yashin's attitude probably cost him dearly. One can only wonder, if he had it to do all over again, would he do it differently?
  20. ScottM

    Human nature seems to dictate that when two cultures try to coexist, there will be clashes. No matter how strong the similarities may be, the differences always seem to rise to the top at some point or another. For instance, despite over a century of being a part of Canada, the primarily French-speaking province of Quebec nearly voted for independence in 1995, and from 1993 through 2008, the separatist Bloc Quebecois won a sizable percentage of the vote and a majotiry of that province's ridings in every federal election.
     
    Relations between the Francophone and Anglophone populations within the province have not always been sterling either, and we can see an example of that in the history of Montreal hockey. Though the entire city rallies around the Canadiens today, in the early 20th century, the two demographics could not agree on something as simple as which hockey team to support. The Canadiens were the team for the city's French speakers, while first the Wanderers, and later the Maroons were the English-speaking population's team.
     
    Interestingly, some historians trace the root of the previously mentioned separatist movement to an event strongly tied to hockey: the Richard Riot of 1955. Maurice "The Rocket" Richard was a cultural icon in Quebec in the 1950s, and his fans defended him rabidly. So strong were the passions of the fans that during that time, one of the quickest ways to start an argument among hockey enthusiasts was to begin a debate about who was better: Richard or Gordie Howe. In many respects, that debate became a part of the French-English "battle." As such, while the modern consensus gives the nod to Howe, that would have been an afront to Richard's supporters during his career.
     
    The incident in question began on March 13, 1955, during a game in Boston between the home standing Bruins and the Canadiens. In the third period, while the Bruins led 4-1, Richard took a blow to the head by the stick of Hal Laycoe which created a cut that required five stitches. Play was not immediately whistled dead because the Canadiens had possession of the puck, and the ill-tempered Richard decided to take matters into his own hands. Making a beeline for his assailant, Richard began to pummel Laycoe with his fists and stick. On ice officials attempted to restrain him, but he repeatedly escaped their clutches and continued his assault. In the fracas, Richard punched linesman Cliff Thompson, knocking him out.
     
    Richard was ejected from the game. Boston police attempted to arrest him, but were barred from the Montreal locker room by other Habs players. Though he escaped legal punishment because thanks to the protection of his teammates, he would not escape league punishment. On March 16, after a meeting with the game's on ice officials, Richard, Laycoe, Montreal assistant general manager Ken Reardon, Boston general manager Lynn Patrick, Montreal coach Dick Irvin, and NHL referee-in-chief Carl Voss, NHL President Clarence Campbell suspended Richard for the remainder of the season, playoffs included.
     
    The general opinion around the league was that Richard had gotten off lightly, with Ted Lindsey going so far as to say that he thought Richard was lucky not to be banned for life. That sentiment was not shared by Montrealers, however, who felt that the punishment was excessive, and Campbell's office was flooded by calls from angry Canadiens fans.
     
    Some feel that the now famous riot that began after the next Montreal home game might not have occurred, but for one thing. Against the advice of the Montreal police, Campbell chose to attend the St. Patrick's Day game when the Detroit Red Wings visited the Montreal Forum. Immediately after his arrival was noticed, fans began pelting the League President with food, trash, and even shoes. One fan, claiming to be a friend of Campbell's made it past security, and after appearing to offer a handshake, punched him in the face.
     
    Sadly, that was not the height of the mischief, as at some point during the uproar, a tear gas bomb was triggered. The game was forfeited to Detroit, and the Forum evacuated. The clearing of the building did not end the chaos. On the streets outside the arena, protesters attacked bystanders, looted stores, and set fires to newsstands. Thirty-seven injuries and 100 arrests were reported in addition to $100,000 in monetary damage to property. The tension did not subside until the next evening when Richard himself took to the radio waves to urge for peace.
     
    The emotions stirred up by the Richard suspension and riot continued to be felt throughout the season. Richard never won a league scoring title, and the 1954-55 season was the closest he ever came. On the last day of the season, when fellow Canadien Bernie Geoffrion passed Richard in the points standings, he was booed by his own fans. Montreal advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals that season, but Richard's absence loomed large when they lost to the Red Wings (appropriately) in seven games.
     
    The Richard Riot was a moment of major historical importance not only for hockey, but for the nation of Canada. Perhaps the 2011 decimation of the Bloc Quebecois caucus signals some level of subsidence of the separatist movement, but even if so, assuming the historians are correct about the role the riot played in its creation, the incident with Richard impacted the nation for over half of a century. I would not advice tugging on Superman's cape, but even that might be smarter than messing with Maurice Richard in 1950s Quebec.
  21. ScottM

    Farewell, Coach Arbour

    By ScottM,


    Some players and coaches become fan favorites despite not being the most successful or skilled. Others do have the success and skills, but a poor attitude or a dirty streak prevent them from becoming as beloved as their talent might otherwise dictate. When you find someone that faultlessly bridges the gap between a fan favorite and a high level of success, you know you have found someone special. The hockey world lost such a person last week with the passing of long-time New York Islanders head coach Al Arbour.
     
    Arbour is now viewed nearly exclusively in the light of his coaching career, and the fact that he played is thus often overlooked or forgotten. Despite the fact that he was never a star on the ice, he cobbled together a lengthy career during which he won two Stanley Cups. At the age of 36, he was picked up by the expansion St. Louis Blues and managed to finish fifth in Norris Trophy voting. Partly through his fourth season with the Blues, he retired as a player to replace the now-legendary Scotty Bowman as head coach.
     
    In 1973, after being fired by the Blues Arbour was presented with the opportunity to Coach the New York Islanders. The Isles were coming off of a season in which they posted a paltry 12-60-6 record, then the worst in NHL history, and GM Bill Torrey believed Arbour was the man to build the team. Arbour took the job despite a comment Bowman made to him. Bowman is rarely wrong about anything to do with coaching, but in this case, he was very wrong. "You'll be in last place for ten years."
     
    The Islanders did finish last in the division in 1973-74 after a modest improvement to 19-41-18, but it would never happen again. In his second year with the team, Arbour coached the Islanders all the way to the NHL semifinals, a feat the franchise would accomplish for three consecutive seasons.
     
    Being among hockey's "final four" three years in a row is no small achievement, but it was nowhere near the peak that Arbour and the Islanders would achieve. The Islanders built a highly impressive roster during Arbour's years with the team, and they had the perfect coach to get production from those players. A team with the likes of Mike Bossy, Clark Gillies, Denis Potvin, Billy Smith, and Bryan Trottier was a force to be reckoned with, and in 1980, the Isles reached the Promised Land.
     
    In 1980, the Islanders won their first Stanley Cup after defeating the Philadelphia Flyers in six games. It had taken the team less than a decade after its founding to reach the top of the sport. The Islanders were not to be one and done, however, as in 1981, the beat the Minnesota North Stars in five, and swept the Vancouver Canucks and Edmonton Oilers in 1982 and 1983 respectively to capture four consecutive titles. In 1984, the reached the Finals for a fifth straight year, to give them a chance to mathc the Montreal Canadiens' record of five straight Cups, but fell to the Oilers in a rematch of the previous year's Final.
     
    Arbour retired from coaching in 1986, only to return to the Islanders bench after a rocky start to the 1988-89 season. In his first full season back, he had the flailing Isles back into the playoffs, and in 1993, took them all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals. In the 1993-94 season, he coached the team back from being 13 points out of a playoff spot into the postseason, a record that stood until just last season when the Ottawa Senators overcame a 14 point deficit. Arbour retired again in 1994, this time "permanently." In 1996, he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in the Builder category.
     
    I placed the word permanently in quotes in the last paragraph because Arbour made one more brief comeback in 2007. Ted Nolan, who was then the Islanders head coach one day realized that Arbour had coached the Islanders in 1,499 games. After receiving the permission of team management, he invited Arbour to come back and coach one more game to get to 1,500. Arbour accepted. In a ceremony held at the Nassau Colliseum that night, the "739" banner that hung in the rafters to honor his wins with the team was lowered and replaced with one that read 1500. Not only did he get game number 1,500 behind the New York bench, but win number 740 as well, as the Isles downed the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-2.
     
    Over the course of his lengthy coaching career, Arbour coached 1607 games between the Islanders and Blues, compiling a 782-577-248 record. His games and wins totals are second only to Scottie Bowman. But ultimately, those numbers are not what made him great. The thing that made him so revered was the respect he commanded from players and fans alike. In fact, respected may not describe him as well as the word loved does. Last Friday was a hard day for the hockey world, since we lost not only a great coach, but a great man. But, as long as the sport survives, Al Arbour will always have a place of honor. He may be gone, but he is truly not forgotten.
  22. ScottM

    The Darkest of Days

    By ScottM,


    None of us will ever forget where we were on this date 14 years ago. Nearly 3,000 people dies in the largest act of terrorism in United States history. Despite being the direct victim of the attacks, the United States was not the only nation affected, as the dead came from 61 distinct nationalities. Though the targets of the attack were financial, military, and political (assuming Flight 93 was intended to strike the White House or Capital as many believe), no segment of society was untouched. Even those of us who had no acquaintances among the injured or dead felt the gut punch of that infamous day. Though sports pale in comparison to the events of that day, the world of hockey was affected that day, and a look at that might bring us closer to the tragedy. This post is in honor of Garnet "Ace" Bailey, Mark Bavis, and all those who were affected by the evil acts of the perpetrators.
     
    Garnet "Ace" Bailey (no relation to the former Maple Leafs star) was born in Lloyminster, Saskatchewan on Jun 14, 1948. Though not a superstar, Bailey put together a successful career, playing 10 seasons with the Bruins, Capitals, Red Wings, and Blues, and one season with the Edmonton Oilers in the WHA. He was a member of the Bruins teams that won the Stanley Cup in 1970 and 1972, and worked for the Oilers as a scout during their dynasty period, having his name engraved on the Cup three times in that position. Eventually he was hired by the Los Angeles Kings and rose to the position of director of pro scouting, a title he held at the time of his death.
     
    Mark Bavis was born in Roslindale, Massachusetts on March 13, 1970. He was drafted by the New York Rangers in the ninth round of the 1989 entry draft. After four seasons playing for the Boston University team, he spent three seasons playing professional hockey with the Fredericton Canadiens and Providence Bruins of the AHL and the South Carolina Stingrays of the ECHL. Following a couple of stints as an assistant coach with Harvard University and the Chicago Freeze of the NAHL, he took a job as a scout with the Los Angeles Kings, which would prove to be his final job.
     
    On September 11, 2001, Bailey and Bavis boarded United Airlines Flight 175 to fly from Boston to Los Angeles to attend the Kings' organizational meeting. Little did any of the innocents aboard the flight know the evil that boarded with them, or the fate ahead of them. Among the 65 people on board the plane were Marwan al-Shehhi, Fayez Banihammad, Hamza al-Ghamdi, Ahmed al-Ghamdi, and Mohand al-Shehri.
     
    At 8:14 AM, Flight 175 took off from runway nine of Logan International Airport. Due to suspicions about the ill-fated American Airlines Flight 11, Flight 175 was ordered to turn to avoid the other plane at 8:37. Minutes later, at some time between 8:42 and 8:46, shortly before Flight 11 slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, the terrorists stormed the cockpit and took control of the plane. En route to its own target, the plane nearly collided with two other planes, forcing an air traffic controller to issue orders to a Delta Airlines pilot to take "any evasive action necessary."
     
    The passengers of the flight would soon meet their tragic end as the terrorists aimed their projectile at the remaining unscathed tower in lower Manhattan. Many people on the ground were focused on the World Trade Center site because of the smoke already pouring out of the North Tower. At 9:01, those witnesses saw a heart-wrenching sight, when Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower. The video of the collision and explosion is now etched in stone in many of our memories.
     
    Sometimes good things can arise from tragedy. Determined not to see their loved ones deaths be in vain from the tragedy they experienced, the families of Bavis and Bailey saw to it that something good did come. Bavis's family began the Mark Bavis Leadership Foundation to provide tuition grants for young people "allow deserving young men and women to enjoy opportunities and experiences similar to those which contributed to Mark the person that he was." Bailey's family started the Ace Bailey Children's Foundation "to honor his memory and to perpetuate his deep caring for the happiness of children through our work," by "[reducing] the stress of pediatric hospitalization by creating environments that are less clinical in appearance and more comforting and soothing for children and their families."
     
    Eleven years later, in 2012, the Los Angeles Kings made a miracle late season run to squeak into the playoffs with the eighth seed. A second miracle run followed, and against all odds, the team that formerly employed Bailey and Bavis hoisted the Cup. Not willing to see their former colleagues be forgotten, the team saw to it that the Stanley Cup was taken to the 9/11 memorial in New York, and placed on top of their names "so that the families of Bailey and Bavis could [have] their day with the Stanley Cup."
     
    The victims of United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 11, American Airlines Flight 77, United Airlines Flight 93, as well as those on the ground or in buildings at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon should never be forgotten. I hope that in remembering the stories of Ace Bailey and Mark Bavis we will remember all of the victims of that darkest of days. May we never forget...
  23. ScottM

    Back from the Brink

    By ScottM,


    Some drafts have one player that stands out above all others. In those years, the advantage of a poor season is obvious, and teams that have bad records down the stretch are often criticized for tanking. Regardless of how one feels about the subject, it is impossible not to recognize that the "strategy" sometimes has its advantages. In the 1983-84 season, the Pittsburgh Penguins lost 12 of their last 14 games -- including their last six -- just bad enough to finish three points below the New Jersey Devils for the league's worst record. Their futility was handsomely rewarded. Their prize? Mario Lemieux.
     
    Some immediate improvement took place. The Penguins managed only 38 points in the standings in their last season before Lemieux, a total they increased to 53 points in his rookie season and 76 in his second season. The team did not go without struggles in the early years of the Lemieux era, but their new superstar had brought the team back from the edge of irrelevancy. Being on the brink is something Mario Lemieux is no stranger to.
     
    Personally, I find it hard to entertain arguments for anyone one other than four players as the greatest of all-time. Lemieux is one of those players. A look at his career statistics explain why. Only three players have ever scored 80+ goals in a season. He is one of them. Only Wayne Gretzky has ever scored 200+ points in a season, but of everyone else, Lemieux came the closest, once posting a 199 point season. He led the league in goals three times, scoring at least 50 six times and at least 60 four times. He lead the league in assists three times, and in points six times. He was a great goal-scorer, a great playmaker, and a big,strong body who could impose his will on the opponents.
     
    I would argue, however, that the true measure of Mario Lemieux's greatness was not his accolades on the ice. Those made him a great player, but what made him an inspiration is his resiliency and literal "never say die" attitude.In 1992, the Penguins won their second consecutive Stanley Cup with a Finals sweep of the Chicago Blackhawks. It would have been easy to conclude they were headed for a dynasty. They were on top of the hockey world, and they had the world's greatest player at the time. The dynasty did not happen, but that was nearly the least of their concerns.
     
    The good news for Mario Lemieux in January of 1993 was that his condition had been caught early, and did not appear to be life-threatening. The bad news was that he had been diagnosed with cancer. Anyone who has ever heard the word spoken to themselves or a loved one knows how devastating it is. Sadly, many also know how tragically wrong things can go. While generally optimistic about the situation, one of the oncologists that treated Lemieux still offered a word of caution. "It is a cancer, and all types of cancer are very serious. As a cancer, it can become life-threatening," said Dennis Meisner of Shady-side Hospital. Meisner also warned that the cancer could always move to other parts of the body, and said that the radiation treatments given to Lemieux could cause weight loss and fatigue -- two things a hockey player certainly could not afford if he wanted to compete.
     
    The 1992-93 season was the end of an era in some respects. From the mid-to-late 70s through that season, scoring in the NHL had been at a historically high level. Nine players ecclipsed the 125 point mark, while 21 reached at least 100. Those numbers make what Mario Lemieux did that season even more mind-boggling. The fact that Super Mario missed only 24 games that season is amazing enough. The fact that he led the league in scoring, even more so. Pat LaFontaine and Adam Oates both had MVP-caliber seasons, with each scoring career highs in points with 148 and 142, respectively, yet their 84-game totals fell well short of Lemieux's 60-game total of 160 points. Alexander Mogilny and Teemu Selanne led the league in goals that season with 76, but no one else topped Lemieux's total of 69.
     
    If those numbers are not impressive enough for you, consider these: Had he played a full 84-game schedule, Le Magnifique set a pace that would have set NHL single season records with 97 goals, and 224 points. Incredible as it seems, a strong case can be made that the greatest single season in NHL history was posted by a guy who had cancer. One cannot help but wonder what his stats would have been without the effects of the disease and the treatment.
     
    Mario Lemieux is a fighter. He fought back from cancer. Later, he fought back from injuries to make a limited, but still fairly successful comeback. He fought off all the problems that life could throw at him. Mario Lemieux was a winner on the ice, but he is more than that. As a man who fought back from the brink, he is an inspiration for us all.
  24. ScottM

    No place in the world exports more potash and uranium as the Canadian province Saskatchewan. Minerals, however, are not the only product that comes from the land of “Easy to Draw, Hard to Spell,” as the center Prairie province also leads the world in the production of NHL players per capita.
     
    Despite the number of players that come from Saskatchewan, the province has never been home to an NHL team. While its population is not that much lower than that of its neighbor, Manitoba, Saskatchewan lacks something that Manitoba has – a city like Winnipeg which is home to a majority of its population. Rather, Saskatoon (metro population 260,000) and Regina (metro population 210,000) are its largest cities. Incredibly, despite those comparatively small urban centers, had one NHL owner had his way years ago, the NHL would have set up shop in the rectangular province.
     
    The year is 1976. Emile Francis, a native of, you guessed it, Saskatchewan is hired as the GM of the St. Louis Blues. The team is in poor financial shape, and Francis successfully appealed to the St. Louis-based Ralston Purina company to purchase the team. Ralston Purina’s chairman, R. Hal Dean agreed to the purchase only because it appeared that it was the only way to keep the team in the city, so the purchase was more viewed as a civic duty than a business decision.
     
    When Dean retired in 1982, his replacement, William Stiritz had a far different view of the team. Stiritz saw a division of a company that was hemorrhaging cash, and decided to put the team up for sale. It appeared that the team would be leaving St. Louis, but I doubt anyone could have expected the destination their new prospective owners would choose: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
     
    A group led by Bill Hunter, one of the founders of the WHA, and a former owner of the Edmonton Oilers reached an agreement to purchase the team from Ralston Purina. An arrangement was in place to break ground for an 18,000 seat arena, and everything seemed primed for the hockey world to meet the Saskatoon Blues.
     
    The news that the team had been sold came as a shock to the team’s fan base in St. Louis on January 12, 1983, but it might have been a bigger shock to the team. The Blues were, appropriately enough, in Edmonton on a road trip when they received word of the pending sale on December 7. It was a devastating shock wave to the team, who collapsed down the stretch to post one of the worst records in team history.
     
    The idea of moving the team to Saskatoon was widely mocked. Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard poked fun at the idea and the city by quipping, “I don’t want to be taking dogleds to get around. Francis requested to be released from his contract and his desire was granted. Despite the resistance and mockery offered by many, however, the deal was close. It was only one hurdle away from Hunter’s dream coming true. All that was left was approval by the NHL Board of Governors.
     
    That approval would be denied in emphatic fashion. The vote against the sale was an overwhelming 15-3. No doubt the city’s small population played a role in the denial, but Hunter was also persona non grata in the NHL because of his earlier association and involvement with the WHA. Speaking of being told no, Hunter said, “I was braced for it, even half expecting it. Still I was unprepared for the weight that tiny little syllable would drop on my shoulders.”
     
    The drama was not over for the Blues. They still had an unwilling owner – one that had become angry, at that. On May 24, Ralston Purina filed a $60 million anti-trust lawsuit against the league, NHL President John Zeigler, and the owners that voted against the sale or abstained. On June 3, the company announced that they would not remain in hockey and had no intention to continue operating the team, and said they would leave it to the NHL to “remit any proceeds from a dissolution or sale to the company.”
     
    Further, Ralston Purina refused to authorize team personnel to participate in the 1983 draft. Some team executives went to Montreal on their own dime, believing that permission would eventually be granted, but it was not to be. The Blues did not participate in the draft and forfeited their draft picks. To this day, no team has ever boycotted another NHL draft. In response to the move, the NHL filed a $78 million counter claim against Ralston Purina, claiming that the company wrongly damaged “the league by willfully, wantonly and maliciously collapsing its St. Louis Blues hockey operation.” Soon the owners named in Ralston Purina’s suit filed a similar lawsuit. For its part, the company threatened to dissolve the team and sell off assets and players, which brought the threat of a lawsuit from the NHLPA if the players positions were lost.
     
    To avoid losing a team and another lawsuit, the NHL took ownership of the Blues from Ralston Purina for violations of the league constitution. It was announced that the league would try to keep the team in St. Louis, but with such a fluid situation, no guarantee could be given. Zeigler said the league would likely not operate the franchise itself, meaning the team was not out of the woods. However, an ownership bid from a group led by businessman Harry Ornest was accepted just before the team was to be disbanded. Ornest bought the team for $12 million (a sum that would eventually be transferred to Ralston Purina after a settlement of the lawsuits), and the Checkerdome from Ralston Purina for $5 million. After the confusion, stunningly, the team was ready for opening day of the 1983-84 season.
     
    The Blues saga was quite dramatic to say the least. It nearly saw the team move to the most unlikely of cities, then nearly saw the collapse of the team. Nearly forgotten today, the Saskatoon Blues nearly changed the landscape of the NHL as we know it. Now we are left only with the “what if’s.”
  25. ScottM

    Pucks and Politics

    By ScottM,


    On Monday, Canadians will go to the polls to elect the nation's 42nd Parliament. As a result, it is impossible to watch a Canadian broadcast of an NHL game without being exposed to a barrage of related ads. In honor of the upcoming election, I thought it might be appropriate to take a look at five former NHL stars who ended up (nearly) entering politics in the Great White North.
     
    The most recent member of this club is none other than Montreal Canadiens legend Ken Dryden. Dryden was chosen by none other than then-Prime Minister Paul Martin to run as a star candidate in the Toronto area riding of York Centre. Dryden was elected handily with nearly 55% of the vote and a margin of over 11,000 votes. Following his election, Dryden was named Minister of Social Development and even ran for the leadership of the Liberal party after Martin's resignation.
     
    In 2006 and 2008, Dryden won re-election, but by a reduced margin each time, winning by barely 2,000 votes on the latter occasion. Following that campaign, Dryden's luck ran out. When the Greater Toronto Area was washed in blue for the first time in he history of the modern Conservative Party, Dryden was one of the victims of the surge.
     
    Can you imageine the schedule that would result from being an NHL player and an MP at the same time? Red Kelly can. He maintained that schedule through two minority governments during the 1960's, representing the riding of York West from 1963-65.
     
    As is the case with any politician, Kelly had opponents. Ironically, at one point, Conn Smythe, the owner of the Maple Leafs (whom Kelly played for at the time), was one of those opponents. During the Great Flag Debate of 1963-64, Kelly was a supporter of Prime Minister Lester Pearson's campaign to adopt the Maple Leaf flag as Canada's official standard, while Conn Smythe was utterly opposed to the move as a strict monarchist. Kelly likely would have won a third term as an MP in 1965, but chose to stand down rather than run for the 27th Parliament.
     
    If we take a step further back into history, we come across a man who participated in politics at both the provincial and Federal levels, Hall of Fame defenseman Lionel Conacher. In 1937, Conacher was elected to the Ontario Provincial Parliament as the member for the Bracondale riding. He lost the riding nomination for the 1943 election to a Toronto city alderman, E.C. Bogart. That might have been just as well for Conacher, as Bogart lost the election to the CCF candidate.
     
    Two years later, Conacher made his first attempt to enter the federal parliament, but was defeated in Trinity. In 1949, on his second attempt, he was successful and was re-elected in 1953. Conacher died in office not long into his second term, however, while playing in a sotball game pitting MP's against the parliamentary press gallery. After hitting a triple, he collapsed, and despite the efforts of a fellow MP who was also a doctor, Conacher was pronounced dead within minutes, only one day before he was to attend his daughter's university graduation.
     
    Our next member of the political gallery was not an MP but a Senator. Frank Mahovlich was appointed to the Senate by Prime Minister Jean Chretien, where he served for over 14 years. "The Big M" was probably known as much for his silence as anything during his time in the Upper Chamber, as he spoke on few occasions, and those speeches were often short.
     
    Mahovlich retired from the body in December of 2012, with the mandatory retirement date of his 75th birthday just around the corner. Not surprisingly, his farewell speech was also short.
     
    Jacques Demers never played in the NHL, but he coached in both that league and the WHA. He is also a current Senator and a former colleague of Mahovlich. Demers was appointed to the Senate by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2009. Interestingly enough, Demers credited Mahovlich for making it possible for him to reach the Senate. At the time of Mahovlich's retirement, he credited Frank's jump to the WHA for making it possible, as such stars gave the upstart league, and Demers himself by extension, credibility.
     
    The final subject of our glance into politics is at a man who never entered the fray, but he had multiple opportunites, both as a Senator and as the Crown's representative in the government, "Le Gros Bill," Jean Beliveau.
     
    On two occasions, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney offered to appoint Believeau to the Senate, but the hockey legend declined. Beliveau was a firm believer that all members of the legislature shuold be elected, and as such, an appointment to the Parliament at any level was unacceptable.
     
    Prime Minister Chretien summoned Beliveau to 24 Sussex in 1994, and offered him the position of Governor General of Canada. Since Beliveau is as good as hockey royalty anyway, the offer seemed approprate. Beliveau declined, but his reason was nothing less than honorable. Beliveau was more interested in spending time with his daughter and granddaughters as his son-in-law, a former Quebec City police officer had committed suicide a few years earlier. Showing the quality of his character, Beliveau said, “I strongly believe it is my duty to be the father those girls need for the next five years or so. What I told Mr. Chrétien was that to take my wife and move to Ottawa would be deserting my family.” His state funeral, where the above photo was taken was well-deserved.
     
    Hockey and politics are both full contact sports and can engender deep emotions, so these crossovers seem appropriate. Full honor is due to those who serve their nation, so long as the service is rendered faithfullly and for the right reasons. Maybe even more honorable is the attitude of men like Jean Beliveau who put family above all else.
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