Nitzy's Hockey Den

Next we have “Poor concepts that just didn’t work" The Georgetown Raider appears to be humping another Georgetown Raider in their logo. I know this simplistic “stick figure” style was popular in the 70’s and early 80’s, but as a hockey logo it just fails. The Mario Lemieux era Laval Voisins of the QMJHL had this MC Escher-ish sideways letter ”L”. Apparently a “voisin” is a neighbour, so not only does the logo suck, the name itself does too. The Merritt Centennials transferred from White Rock midway through the 73-74 season. I’m not sure which centennial they are attempting to honour, it’s not the country, not the province and not the town of either White Rock or Merritt. And why would you recognize any centennial with a logo of a turntable record player. In fact the centennial that the team may have been honouring was of the invention of the electric phonograph in 1877. Back to the “Q” we go for the Montreal Red White and Blue. I understand it is an homage to the “bleu, blanc...

We here at Nitzy’s Hockey Den, (by ‘we’, I mean ‘me’) enjoy concentrating on the stats and history of the great game of hockey. However for this entry, I am staying away from numbers and delving into the artistic side of the game. Myself being a designer in the animation industry, I am perhaps a somewhat rare breed that has an insatiable need to talk, read, write about and play hockey in addition to having an artistic side. In fact, in my nearly twenty years of work and study in animation, I would say perhaps 2 to 3 percent of artistic colleagues even come close to having my passion for hockey. They would far rather discuss comic books, sci-fi movies or play delightful little dice games. I have another blog, http://www.nitzysnonsense.blogspot.com/ where I have posted mainly my own hockey related art, from t-shirts, homemade hockey cards and designs from my hockey themed children’s books. I digress, in this entry I will post my choices for worst hockey logos ever. I recently discovered...

The fantastic site www.hockey-reference.com allows one to analyze with stats pretty much any hockey related query you can have. And I have probably far too many hockey related queries floating around my underutilized brain. With that, I present my selections for all-time single season All-Star teams for players of 35 years or older. Johnny Bucyk makes each of the first two teams at Left Wing, while Niklas Lidstrom makes the First and Third squads. Ten of the eighteen overall selections are from seasons from the mid 90's or later. This is obviously a statement of how players are staying at the top of their game longer into their careers with the help of technology and training. Hal Winkler's NHL career of two seasons at age 34 and 35, came after starring for well over a decade in various Senior Leagues and Western Professional circuits. He really made up for lost time, in 75 career NHL games he posted a 1.60 GAA with 21 shutouts. Bill Cook actually led the league in goals in t...

Man, do I love the look of those old 1979-80 cards, glad O-Pee-Chee went back to it this year. Mr. Malkin currently has 44 assisits through 36 games, this pace translates to 100 assists exactly. I realize it's still early, but if he manages to keep up his pace, he will be the only gentleman NOT named Gretzky, Lemieux or Orr to achieve this. Gretzky topped 100 assists in eleven different seasons, consecutively of course, topping out at 163 in 1986. Lemieux had 114 in 1989, and Orr 102 in 1971...that's it. A few have come close, adam Oates with 97 in 84 games in 1993, Joe Thornton with 96 a few years back and Pat LaFontaine and Doug Gilmour both notching 95 in 1993. It seems improbable that Malkin can keep up this pace however. In averaging 1.22 assists/game this year, he is nearly doubling his two season career average of 0.694/game. One would think his pal Sidney Crosby would have been the one making a run at 100 assists, and he may very well do it one of these years. Crosby h...

This is Tony Hand, born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1967. He has been playing in the top hockey leagues in Britain since 1981...yes, he is still playing. Including regular and post season, mid-season club competitions and playoffs, Hand has played in 1,386 games and as of this writing just this month notched his 4,oooth point. According to the Ice Hockey Journalists UK website, he made the post season all star team NINETEEN of the twenty-three seasons from 1983-84 through 2005-06. Sure, the top league in Britain is not the NHL, it has been compared to the calibre of the ECHL. The league however has drawn a fair amount of top players over the years, including Garry Unger at the end of his career, goalie Frank Pietrangelo, Doug Smail for a season (named top player, of course), Jim Paek and WHA star Ron Plumb. Also, top flight minor leaguers such as, Ken Priestlay, Ed Courtenay, Mike Babcock (yes, that Mike Babcock), Fred Perlini and John Craighead. Tony Hand actually was drafted by the Edm...

While looking up CHL records for my last post, a few other records caught my eye. If you know who holds the CHL record for Powerplay Goals in a season you are either the record holder himself, or a member of his immediate family. Jason Krywulak of the 1992-93 Swift Current Broncos tallied FORTY-SEVEN (47!!) PPG of his 81 goals that year. Young Jason was never drafted, and soon attended the U. of Calgary where he played for three seasons, making the post season all-star squad each year. A few stints in Germany and the Roller Hockey circuit and he was done before turning thirty. The record for goals by a defenseman is another non-descipt gentleman. Larry Sacharuk notched FIFTY goals as a rear guard for Saskatoon in 1971-72. He was drafted the following summer by the Rangers 21st overall. Following two productive AHL seasons, including 27 goals in 42 games for the 1974 Providence Reds, he had a few cups of coffee with the big club. Apparently unimpressed, New York dealt him to St.Louis wh...

This past week, I went to my first Giants game in a few years at the old Pacific Coliseum. They beat Swift Current 8-1 to improve their record to a ridiculous 28-2-3 for an .894 winning percentage. If this were to hold up for the remainder of the season it will be the highest ever in CHL history. The '05 London Knights led by Corey Perry hold the record currently at .882 with the '71 Guy Lafleur led Quebec Remparts holding down second with an .879 Pct. Perhaps even more impressive for the Giants is their ratio of Goals For to Goals Against. With 163 goals for and 64 against they have a ratio of 2.55 to 1. London had an impressive ratio of 2.48 -1 with 310 GF and 125 GA. The 1979 Trois Rivieres Draveurs (whatever that is) scored 527 goals and allowed 233 for a ratio of 2.26-1. Obviously this Giants team is in unchartered waters of domination, and it is more impressive that they have been able to stay dominant after winning the Memorial Cup a few years ago. Click on the title...

This is the rare occaison for my blog where I post a photo of an item which is NOT in my real-life den. This is only the case because this card of course doesn't exist (a little photoshop on my part). I recently picked up an old hockey magazine from March 1974 with an article about how Sittler almost became a Toronto Toro of the WHA. Apparently, after his third NHL season of 1972-73 he was offered a $1,000,000, five year deal by John Bassett, owner of the Toros. The team was in the midst of transferring from Ottawa after the inaugural WHA season. Sittler was coming of a 77 point year in leading the Leafs in scoring. Bassett wanted to snag the 23 year old who was taking the city by storm. The Toros had traded a player to the Alberta Oilers just to obtain his WHA rights. Sittler had earned $30,000 the previous season and soon after the year ended had verbally agreed to a $70,000 yearly deal with the Leafs. Then came the Toros offer, mindblowing to all. Sittler's agent, the conv...

I thought this was kind of interesting, Kyle Wellwood is on pace to obliterate the single season record for shooting percentage. The current Canuck has 11 goals thru 24 games while firing a mere 30 shots on the net. His 36.67 percentage would be almost four points higher than the current record holder, Charlie Simmer. I have never really put too much stock in shooting percentage, as it's not a stat a player can really strive for. It seems more of an after the fact kind of thing, I mean, would a guy not take a shot on net in order to protect his shooting pct. Wellwood's number is however such an increase over the current record that it stands out as fairly noteworthy. The top ten list below consists of some pretty good players, yet only one Hall of Famer in Kurri. This perhaps reinforces the somewhat frivolity of the statistic. Shots on goal for players was not kept as an accurate stat until 1967-68, which explains the lack of oldtimers on the list. Incidentally, the career le...

As of this moment, (early Dec./08) Teemu Selanne has tallied 14 goals on the season for the Ducks. 13 of these goals have been notched on the powerplay for an astounding 93 percent. If continued for the season, this would be the highest percentage of one player's goals that were scored via the powerplay. The current record for players with at least 17 PPG in a season is 80.0% by The Roadrunner, Yvan Cournoyer. The top two single season PPG scorers, Tim Kerr (34) and Dave Andreychuk (32) notched percentages of 58.2 and 59.3 of their goal totals. Two defensemen check in at second and third place, with over 70% of their goals on the powerplay. Dave Andreychuk and Paul Gardner both have two seasons of over 58% powerplay goals. Paul Gardner is actually also the career leader in PPG Pct among forwards, and the only forward with over 50% of his career goals scored on the powerplay. In fact only twelve forwards have ever scored over 40% of their career goals on the powerplay. Gardner ha...

Keeping with the theme of my last post, I decided to determine all-time all star teams by province of birth. Six provinces have had enough NHL players to put together solid squads, right down to thirteenth forward, seventh defenseman and third goalie. I also attempted, (with limited success) to make US teams by state. No real suprise that Ontario ranks number one with almost 2,000 natives having played in the NHL. Ontario and Quebec are fairly even in their forwards, and Quebec may have a very slim edge in goaltending, but the overall strength of defensemen from Ontario gives Upper Canada the nod over Lower. There is of course a small drop off in calibre with the teams that follow, but Saskatchewan rises to third place on the backs of Howe, Shore and an impressive trio of goalies. The lack of third and fourth line excellence in Alberta keeps them in fourth. B.C. boasts a solid contingent of forwards but are kept in sixth spot by superior defense and stellar goaltending. Massachusetts...

Which town or city has produced the greatest collection of players ever? I decided to figure out which city has the greatest All-Star team of players hailing from it's boundries . I was unforgiving on borderlines and birthplaces, the player had to be born in the specific city. What follows is, in my opinion, the worldwide cities that produced the greatest all-time squad using career stats. Any current players' stats are accurate up until the end of Nov./08. There really can be no argument , the city of Montreal has produced the greatest collection of players of all-time. This squad has no room for forwards Mike Bossy, Nels Stewart, Henri Richard and Rod Gilbert or a plethora of goalies including Bernie Parent, Gump Worsely and Lorne Chabot . Ottawa places a strong second without finding room for, Aurel Joliat , King Clancy and Clint Benedict in net. Toronto leaves Rick Middleton and Bill Durnan on the sidelines. Sault Ste Marie finishes a perhaps surprising sixth place on...

I ordered these VHS tapes of the '87 Canada Cup back in the early '90's from an ad in the Hockey News. I think they cost something like 60 bucks back then which was alot for a young punk like me. The three tapes had each of the final three games in their entirety and were well worth the money. Watching these games back as they happened with my friends as bunch of 15 and 16 year old morons is still one of my favourite pre-adult memories. Anyway, I wanted to apply my player rating system used earlier (for 1972 and 1976 series) to the '87 version of Team Canada. I finally found the game boxscores and away I went. Below is a refresher on how the ratings points are awarded an estimated value to each goal scored in the tournament. Next is the Team Canada leaders. No suprise that Gretzky and Lemieux dominate, they were in on a majority of goals and most of the important ones. Perhaps a slight suprise is Larry Murphy, currently sporting a giant head and bad hair as an analyst ...

I recently picked up this gem, an original game program from the 1930/31 season. It was from a game in late December 1930, the last season that the Leafs played in The Mutual Street Arena before moving a few blocks north to Maple Leaf Gardens. This rink, also called the Arena Gardens was built in 1912 and stood until 1989. At the time it was built, it was the largest indoor arena in Canada and held 7,500 spectators for hockey. The rink lent it's name to the Toronto Arena hockey club which played the first two seasons of the NHL before changing their name to The St.Patricks and ultimately the Leafs. The squad this season featured many future Hall of Famers such as Charlie Conacher, Joe Primeau, King Clancy, Hap Day, Red Horner and Ace Bailey. The cover of the programme features a terrific drawing of the Leafs battling the Montreal Maroons. Pictured watching the action in the first row are each of the other teams in the NHL among them the Philadelphia Quakers, Detroit Falcons and Ot...

The 1980's. Not a great decade for goalies, probably the worst ever. Any other decade you can pretty much pick one or two goalies who dominated, 70's Dryden and Parent, 60's Bower and Hall, 50's Sawchuk and Plante...you get the picture. The 80's however provide at least five guys who can make an argument for goale of the decade. Here are the leaders in Wins, Goals Against Average and Win Percentage for the decade. As I did not have half season stats, I used full seasons from 1979/80 through 1989/90. Perhaps not suprisingly, Mike Liut leads in wins as he was one of the few who was a regular for the entire decade. His 3.50 GAA was a respectable twelfth overall, he was however only 18 games over .500 for the decade and under .500 for the playoffs. Pete Peeters is a similar case to Liut, as his raw numbers look terrific. Second in wins and average as well as fifth in win percentage. In fact, on these numbers alone he rates as one of the top five goalies of t...

I was talking hockey with a pal at work the other day, and for fun I asked him to name each of the players that has scored 70 goals in an NHL season. He, being a good hockey fan easily named all eight guys right down to Mogilny, Selanne and the often overlooked, Bernie Nicholls. Yes, Nicholls tallied 70 goals on the nose during the 1988-89 season no doubt aided by his new teammate the Great One. After naming all these players, I thought aloud that Nicholls, I believed never scored even 50 goals in any other season. Indeed, his next highest output was 46 in 84-85. This difference of 24 goals between his best and second best goal scoring years had to be one of the largest ever…off I went to check. It turns out that Nicholls is merely tied for the fifth highest differential from best to second best seasons. The chart that follows shows all the players with at least a twenty goal difference. There you have it, Scott Bjugstad is the biggest One-Hit Wonder in NHL ...

As an avid hockey fan, I recall hearing from afar the playoff scoring exploits of one Bill McDougall of the Cape Breton Oilers in 1993. Over a six week period, consisting of 16 games he fired 26 goals and 26 assists for an incredible 52 points. This very well could have been the greatest playoff performance ever. In addition, the Oilers won the Calder Cup AHL championship that season going 14 and 2 along the way. McDougall scored at least one point in each game of the playoffs, he scored at least two points in 14 of the 16 games and at least three points in 10 of the 16 games. Read that last line again. Using newspaper articles from The Halifax Daily News and The Edmonton Journal, I have managed to put together a game by game record of this amazing stretch of games. McDougall actually got better in each of the first three rounds, scoring 3.0 points per game in round one, 4.0 points per game in round two, and 4.5 points per game in the two game round three. Du...

In my last post, I reminisced about Ken Yaremchuk's great yet fleeting AHL playoff of 1989 and promised to find the best individual playoffs of all time. In order to find somewhat of an even measuring stick I decided to use a player's Points per Game average and the Percentage of his Team's goals scored. I multiplied the two and came up with a rating of how strong that individual's playoff was. I went through each year of NHL playoffs and came up with following list, click on the list to open a large view of it. It only stands to reason that The Great One has three of the top five playoff performances of all-time. Mario Lemieux barely edges out Gretzky after I adjusted his Percentage of Team Goals. Le Magnifique had his hand broken by an Adam Graves slash in game two of the second round and missed the next five matches. The Pens tallied 22 goals in those games, so in the games Mario played they scored 61 times meaning he was in on well over half the goals when he was i...