Nitzy's Hockey Den

From the Canadian Press: December 30, 1966 the headline reads "Newest Toronto game is naming the goalie." "Terry Sawchuk is still out with back trouble and Johnny Bower is acting as referee in practices until his broken right hand heals. Punch Imlach says he won't know until later today which of his far-flung goalies will be called up. Bower's replacement could be Gary Smith of Rochecter Red Wings or his teammate, Bobby Perrault. Al Smith of Victoria Maple Leafs is another consideration as is Al Millar of Tulsa Oilers and Bob Whidden of the Toronto Marlboros junior club." Johnny Bower's hand was broken a few days prior when he stopped a Frank Mahovlich slapshot in practice and Sawchuk had been sidelined since Dec. 8. Third goalie, Bruce Gamble was ruled out for the New Year's eve game against Chicago after taking a Jim Pappin shot in the face during practice a day after Bower was injured. Luckily Gamble was wearing a mask. Ultimately it was Al...

Twenty-one years ago today, Leaf call-up Kevin Maguire opened the scoring in Pittsburgh. Maguire, known more for his toughness notched the first goal of the game with an assist to Todd Gill. It was all downhill from there for the Leafs and goalie Grant Fuhr. Pittsburgh scored the next TWELVE goals to win 12-1. Fuhr was aerated for all 12 goals making only 20 saves on 32 shots in the worst game of his career. It was far from his fault alone. Daniel Marois and ex-Pen, Mike Bullard were minus six on the evening and Peter Zezel clocked a minus five. As for Pittsburgh, the usual suspects were doing most of the damage as Mario Lemieux had 2 goals and 7 points. Joe Mullen potted 4 goals for the second consecutive game and also had 2 helpers, Kevin Stevens tallied 2 goals and 6 points as well. Second-year Jaromir Jagr chipped in a pair of goals to the onslaught. The debacle in Pttsburgh may have been the final straw, and the catalyst for a major trade for Toronto. After losses to De...

No NHL hockey until at least mid-January means pumped up rosters for not only the World Juniors, but also the prestigous Spengler Cup tournament. Canada will be sending perhaps it's best sqauad ever to to Davos, Switzerland. The NHL stars that will be wearing the maple leaf starting December 26 are as follows: (current Euro league stats GP-G-A-P) Tyler Seguin (Biel)    27-24-14-38 John Tavares (Bern)    23-16-22-38 Patrice Bergeron (Lugano) 19-11-17-28 Jason Spezza (Rapperswil)   26-9-17-26 Jason Williams (Ambri-Piotta) 29-11-12-23 Jason Demers (Karpat FIN)   30-5-16-21 Matt Duchene (Frolunda FIN)  20-4-10-14 Sam Gagner (Klagenfurter) 18-10-8-18 Cam Barker (Texas AHL) 23-3-5-8 Also playing are Ryan Smyth and Carlo Colaiacovo who have not played anywhere this season. The goaltenders for Canada are Jonathan Bernier who has played 13 games for Heilbronner Falken of the German Seco...

  Sick of waiting for the asses of the NHL and PA to solve their seemingly minuscule differences, I'm going to delve into a topic near and dear to my heart...the Toronto Maple Leafs of the 1980's. Why this time period? The Leafs of the 80's were awful. They never had more than 71 points in a season and won only two playoff series. But, this was my childhood and for some reason I still loved them. In lieu of looking at current NHL hockey, let's look at this day in 1980's Leaf history; a decade of crap. "No Joke-Leafs Now Worst Team" exclaimed the headline by the Canadian Press on December 12, 1984. The Vancouver Canucks had won their second in a row the previous night to climb ahead of Toronto and out of the NHL's basement. The Leafs 4-19-5 record was one point behind the Canucks. In an attempt to break their 10-game winless streak, Toronto called up their second new goaltender of the week. Rick St.Croix was summoned from St.Catherines of the ...

  Recently, in looking at the various seasons of nonsense that my Toronto Maple Leafs put forward during the 1980's, I realized their worst single year didn't actually take place in that decade. The worst season in Maple Leaf history wasn't suffered by a squad known as the Maple Leafs even. It came in 1918/19, the second year of the National Hockey League, when the Toronto franchise was known as the Arenas. Sure the 1980's gave us four of the five worst seasons in club history, but they were all slightly better percentage-wise than the 1918/19 campaign. In this season, Toronto won 5 games, lost 13 and things got so bad for the Arenas that by February of the 18/19 season, they offered to withdraw from the league to enable Ottawa and Montreal to start their playoff earlier. Ultimately, Toronto was so bad that the NHL ended it's season early. The Toronto Arenas of 1918 were coming off a year in which they finished tied atop the newly incorporated National Hockey ...

Sick of waiting for the asses of the NHL and PA to solve their seemingly minscule differences, I'm going to delve into a topic near and dear to my heart...the Toronto Maple Leafs of the 1980's. Why this time period? The Leafs of the 80's were awful. They never had more than 71 points in a season and won only two playoff series. But, this was my childhood and for some reason I still loved them. In lieu of looking at current NHL hockey, let's look at this day in 1980's Leaf history; a decade of crap. Thursday, December 1, 1988; Bernie Nicholls goes off. In front of 11,924 spectators at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles, the Kings dismantle the Leafs by a score of 9-3. Bernie Nicholls counts EIGHT points in this cakewalk to assume the leadership in NHL scoring ahead of Mario Lemieux and teammate Wayne Gretzky. Toronto came to the West Coast with a record of 11-13-1 and sat in second place of the Norris Division behind Detroit. The Kings, although they sat...

Check out what I found in this old hockey magazine (Sports Special Hockey, Spring 1980). It was published in the fall of 1979, just as Wayne Gretzky was beginning his NHL career after a season in the WHA. Conventional wisdom was that "The Kid" would have a difficult time adjusting to the rigors of the best league in the world. The Centreman rating chart from this magazine was probably fairly indicative of how many in the hockey world felt about the 18 year-old wunderkind. Very interesting rating system they came up with. I have no issue with Trottier being rated the NHL's best Centreman in the fall of 1979. Sittler, Dionne and Bobby Clarke in the top five work for me too...Ulf Nilsson ranked third though? Sure he'd scored 66 points in 59 games of his first NHL season the year prior after four straight years over 114 points in the WHA, but ranked higher than Dionne? The rankings give perfect 5.0's to Nilsson in Passing, Stick-handling, Back-Checking and S...

Sick of waiting for the asses of the NHL and PA to solve their seemingly minscule differences, I'm going to delve into a topic near and dear to my heart...the Toronto Maple Leafs of the 1980's. Why this time period? The Leafs of the 80's were awful. They never had more than 71 points in a season and won only two playoff series. But, this was my childhood and for some reason I still loved them. In lieu of looking at current NHL hockey, let's look at this day in 1980's Leaf history; a decade of crap. On Wednesday Nov. 25, 1987 Toronto lost 5-3 at the New York Rangers to fall back to .500 for the last time that season. With a 10-10-2 record, they were actually still tied atop the (S)Norris Division with Chicago. The Leafs had scored 95 goals to that point, third most in the entire league. Perhaps the biggest surprise for the Leafs was the play of 21 year old, fourth year defender Al Iafrate. Jumping to the NHL as an 18 year old and the fourth overall pick, ...

"It's not fair to the players who are working hard now to keep going if I can ice a better team by trading Paul." said Glen Sather, a few days before he actually did pull the trigger on a trade. New York Rangers, Detroit, St.Louis, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia were the teams making serious pitches at Slats. One report had the Red Wings ofering Adam Oates, two 1st-rounders and cash for Coffey. Detroit coach Jacques Demers was stunned by Edmonton's refusal. Another rumour was the Flyers offering Doug Crossman, Scott Mellanby and a 1st-round pick. Perhaps the craziest rumour was a three team trade involving Pittsburgh, Rangers and the Oilers wih the main players being James Patrick, Bob Froese and a Penguins 1st-rounder. In the meantime, Coffey himself stayed in shape by skating with a Junior B team in Toronto. He and his agent, Gus Badali had begun their holdout mere minutes after Canada's victory over Russia in the Canada Cup on Sept. 15. They wanted the Oilers ...

  I'm getting smarter by the week. I really believe that, and I have the NHL lockout to thank. With no hockey to dominate my television viewing, I have ample time for much more informative and educational programming. The three games per week that I would usually watch translate into a good nine hours of quality time spent elsewhere. Last week for instance, instead of watching the Leafs lose to St. Louis and Pittsburgh I engaged myself in Nova on PBS and CBC's The Nature of Things. On top of that, being Remembrance Day week, National Geographic had a fascinating program called "Inside World War II". So instead of lamenting another shoot-out defeat by the Leafs, David Suzuki informed me all about the lives and behaviours of urban squirrels. Rather than ruminating on why Randy Carlyle has not turned around the Penalty-Killing, I learned the intricacies of how NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars. Instead of wondering aloud about the "James van Riemsd...

Sick of waiting for the asses of the NHL and PA to solve their seemingly minscule differences, I'm going to delve into a topic near and dear to my heart...the Toronto Maple Leafs of the 1980's. Why this time period? The Leafs of the 80's were awful. They never had more than 71 points in a season and won only two playoff series. But, this was my childhood and for some reason I still loved them. In lieu of looking at current NHL hockey, let's look at this day in 1980's Leaf history; a decade of crap. Wedsneday, November 18, 1981. Toronto rolls into the Hartford Civic Centre with a record of 5-9-3, last place in the Norris Division. The Leafs had however just beaten the Philadelphia Flyers at Maple Leaf Gardens by the score of 4-0 in their previous outing. The Whale was faring even worse than the Blue and White as they languished in the basement of the Adams Division at 2-8-7, a full 10 points behind fourth place Quebec. Despite their record, Toronto had surrendere...

With Hall of Fame week just wrapping up, the same old debates on who should or should not be included in the Hall resurface. One of the go-to names as an example of Hall of Famers who are undeserving of inclusion is Bob Pulford. The question is; Is it fair to use Pulford as a Hall of Fame "whipping boy" or is he truly worthy of inclusion? Pulford's raw stats (1079 Games, 281 Goals and 643 Points) don't exactly scream Hall of Famer, however, he was much more than the raw numbers. In his prime, Pulford was possibly the greatest defensive forward in the game. He was Bob Gainey before Bob Gainey...with more scoring punch. During the first five years the NHL counted Shorthanded Goals as an official stat, Pulford had the most. If the Selke Trophy for defensive forward was around in the 1960's, he undoubtedly would have won it on multiple occaisons.  In the  Weekend Magazine supplement of Canadian newspapers on Jan. 15, 1966 there is a three page article abo...

  Sick of waiting for the asses of the NHL and PA to solve their seemingly minscule differences, I'm going to delve into a topic near and dear to my heart...the Toronto Maple Leafs of the 1980's. Why this time period? The Leafs of the 80's were awful. They never had more than 71 points in a season and won only two playoff series. But, this was my childhood and for some reason I still loved them. In lieu of looking at current NHL hockey, let's look at this day in 1980's Leaf history; a decade of crap.   Saturday Nov. 9, 1985. The Leafs collect their first home point of the season. After six straight losses at Maple Leaf Gardens, they tied St. Louis 2-2. The point gave them a grand total of 4 on the season with a record of 1-11-2. Coach Dan Maloney said afterward, "We're not barnstorming, but we're making some progress. A point each night - that's progress to me. It's a hell of a lot more than we were doing before."   Tim Bernhar...

  The living legend Johnny Bower turns 88 years old today (or 89). Check out the link below for a clip from Showdown 1978 featuring a 54 year old Bower in net against Andy Bathgate and George Armstrong, awesome footage!   http://www.cbc.ca/archives/discover/programs/s/showdown/andy-bathgate-vs-george-armstrong-vs-johnny-bower.html   Bower now sits second overall in all-time North American professional hockey wins, counting his AHL and WHL totals.    Happy Birthday China Wall!  

  Sick of waiting for the asses of the NHL and PA to solve their seemingly minscule differences, I'm going to delve into a topic near and dear to my heart...the Toronto Maple Leafs of the 1980's. Why this time period? The Leafs of the 80's were awful. They never had more than 71 points in a season and won only two playoff series. But, this was my childhood and for some reason I still loved them. In lieu of looking at current NHL hockey, let's look at this day in 1980's Leaf history; a decade of crap.   Thirty years ago today, Sunday November 7, 1982. The Maple Leafs lost in Chicago to the Blackhawks by a score of 7-3. The Hawks peppered Leaf goalie Michel "Bunny" Laroucque with 22 shots in the first period and held a 4-0 lead in the twelfth minute of the game. John Anderson would make it 4-1 with just over four minutes left in the first and rookie Peter Ihnacak brought them withen two with four seconds remaining.   The Leaf comeback stalled ho...

I've started another blog dealing solely with my quest to collect a Leafs program from every year they've been around. It can be found here; http://theprogramproject.blogspot.ca/ OK, maybe not EVERY season in Leafs history. My first one is from 1930, the last season at The Mutual Street Arena, finding any ones before that will be extremely difficult and expensive. I'm happy trying to find a program of every season from 1930 to perhaps the mid-1980's. I don't really have a desire for anything more recently issued. Anyway, I'm about half finished. Follow along as I post new (old) programs and if anyone has a lead on ones I need, let me know! Anyway, I'm about halfway finished. Follow along as I post new (old) programs. If you have a lead on anyones I need, let me know!

  The Abbotsford Heat of the American Hockey League equalled a professional hockey record by scoring two goals in three seconds last night. The victim of the goals was goalie Ben Scrivens of the Toronto Marlies in the 3-0 Abbotsford victory.   With the score tied 0-0 in the third period, veteran defenceman Steve McCarthy scored a beautiful shorthanded goal on Scivens. On the ensuing faceoff Abbotsford centreman Ben Street went forward with the puck, "I tried to go forward myself and got pretty good wood on it. I got it high enough that he didn’t pick up on it. I picked the right club, I guess.” Apparently Scrivens somehow lost the puck in the air, it happened so fast there is no video evidence of it.   The record of two goals by one team in three seconds beats the NHL record accomplished five times, last by Winnipeg Jets on Dec. 15, 1995. The record does however equal the record in the ECHL set by Roanoke Valley vs. Hampton Roads on Jan. 22, 1993.   ...

  I picked up these vintage photos recently. They're glossy, about 5"x7" and most of them are autographed by the old Western Hockey League Victoria Maple Leafs. The team-issued pics are from the 1965/66 season when they finished in 2nd place with 84 points in 72 games. Victoria went on to win the WHL's President Cup over the Portland Buckaroos.   Victoria was the middle team in the Maple Leafs farm-system along with the Tulsa Oilers and the Rochester Americans. Steve Witiuk had played 33 games for Chicago Blackhawks in 51/52 and totalled 1228 games and 950 points in his WHL career. Sandy Hucul was one of the all-time great minor league defencemen notching 502 points in 1256 WHL games.    Defenceman, Claude Labrosse totalled 988 games in the minors. Larry Keenan had played two games with Toronto in 61/62 and would be selected in the expansion draft by St.Louis in 1967.  Bill Shvetz's minor league career totalled 1095 games, 497 points...

 I picked up this beauty recently, a full LP record album from 1964 featuring the Toronto Maple Leafs. I haven't tried playing it, but it looks to be in fine shape. The record came with a cool insert booklet outlining all the lessons learned. Some cool shots of old Leaf greats.  Leafs were coming off their third consecutive Stanley Cup victory, so people did indeed want to know a few of their training secrets. However, this album could have just as easily been titled, "How to Win One More Cup in the Next 50 Years". Ouch, a self-zinger.  Johnny Bower showing how to play your angles and displaying his famous poke-check.  Tim Horton giving Dave Keon his attention as well as showing the "old-fashion" way to block a shot. No laying down on the ice back in the '60's, they'd rather take a puck to the face. Andy Bathgate demonstrating the all important art of "stick-gripping". This one must have been for the introductory...

J.C. Lipon is on a fair bit of a roll. Back-to-back player of the week awards in the Western Hockey League will attest to that. In the month of October, Lipon has ripped off 11 goals and 11 assists in only 7 games for the undefeated Kamloops Blazers. Overall Lipon has 27 points in 11 games, 4 points ahead of his linemate Colin Smith. Pretty heady stuff for a guy who went undrafted in the WHL Bantam Draft and was passed over in the last two NHL drafts. Who could really blame the scouts? In each of his first two WHL seasons, Lipon scored only 3 goals before breaking out for 19 last season. The smallish (6ft, 181lbs) Lipon also had 65 points in 69 last year, but who saw this year's outburst coming? Perhaps the Colorado Avalanche saw this coming. Prior to the lockout, Lipon was invited to the Av's training camp along with Smith who was drafted in the 7th round of the 2012 draft. Of course the lockout put an end to that. If he continues at anything close to his current pace it...

In lieu of showing NHL hockey, TSN in Canada is showing the movie Slap Shot this evening. I for one think it's a great idea although, if you don't own your own copy of the movie you're not a real hockey fan. There is however something about the "collective experience" of watching a broadcast of a movie. So, in honour of this and the fact that the movie is celebrating it's 35th anniversary this year, we look at what happened to the characters of Slap Shot, post 1977. Reg Dunlop Player/coach Dunlop did indeed take the same job in with the Minnesota Fighting Saints of the WHA. Unfortunately for Reg, the team ceased operations before he could even unpack his moving truck. He would however sign with the Indianapolis Racers and ended up playing Right Wing with a 17 year-old Wayne Gretzky for 8 games in 1978 before that franchise folded a month later. Dunlop would then move to suburban New York City where he invested in his ex-wife Francine's beauty salon. T...

A look around the European leagues at how some of the locked out NHL players are doing. Stats are as of  Oct 11, 2012 (GP-G-A-Pts) Czech League Tomas Plekanec, Kladno 8-7-7-14 Jaromir Jagr, Kladno 8-4-8-12 Jiri Tlusty, Kladno 8-6-4-10 Jagr returns to his hometown squad of Kladno which he originally joined all the way back in 1984/85. Plekanec sits in 3rd place in league scoring and Tlusty may be primed for a breakout season. Or, maybe he's just playing with two stars on his line. Ales Hemsky, HC Pardubice 7-2-3-5 David Krejci, HC Pardubice 3-2-0-2 A couple of other Czech natives not having quite the start they would have liked. Michal Neuvirth, HC Sparta Praha 6gp-3.58GAA Tuukka Rask,  HC Plzen 3gp-2.87GAA  Ondrej Pavelec, Bili Tygri Liberec 6gp-4.62GAA Seems the goalies are having a fairly rough beginning to the season as well. Kontinental Hockey League Evgeni Malkin , Metallurg Magnitogorsk 4-1-6-7 Sergei Gonchar, Metallurg Magnitogorsk 4-0-5-5...

It's hockey draft time...and there is no hockey. Well, no NHL hockey that is. Many stars have been sent to the AHL as happened in 2005 with Eric Staal, Jason Spezza and Dustin Brown. I've created my own AHL box pool, where you pick one player from each group of four. They are yours for the entire season, regardless of whether or not the NHL comes back. For instance, I included Jeff Skinner even though he may not start with Charlotte of the AHL. He has the option to go if and when he wants to start playing and if the NHL comes back, you get his NHL stats too. Check it out. All are welcomed to join. http://ahlpool.blogspot.ca/

  Esposito and Howe, ceremonial face off conducted by Ed Kea  January 25, 1985. Friday night at Maple Leaf Gardens. I was lucky enough to attend the first reunion of Team Canada 1972. They played a team of All-Star Oldtimers before a sold-out crowd at Maple Leaf Gardens to raise money for the Phil Esposito Foundation. $130,000 was made to help former NHL players in need of assistance. Former St.Louis Blue Ed Kea represented the players after recovering from a career-ending head injury two years before. Tony Esposito The game itself was won by Team All-Star by the familiar score of 6-5 on a winning goal by Gordie Howe. Phil Esposito said afterwards,"It was terrific. I'm really, really excited that it was a sellout. You can't turn back the hands of time and you can't do the things you did 12 and a half years ago, but people don't forget." He added, "Team Canada '72 was one of the best things that happened to us, as players, an...