Nitzy's Hockey Den

No fewer than 11 Hall of Famers have laced up their skates for both the Maple Leaf and Red Wings franchises. Below is the all-time squad of the best to have played for both of these storied teams. Darryl Sittler C Red Kelly C Norm Ullman C Dale McCourt C Pete Stemkowski C Reg Noble C Frank Mahovlich LW Paul Henderson LW Mark Osborne LW Errol Thompson LW Steve Thomas LW Dan Maloney LW Andy Bathgate RW Miroslav Frycer RW Mike Foligno RW Claude Loiselle RW Borje Salming D Larry Murphy D Mathieu Schneider D Flash Hollett D Bob Baun D Carl Brewer D Marcel Pronovost D Jim Korn D Jamie Macoun D Bob Manno D Todd Gill D Larry Hillman D Ian White D Darren Veitch D Bob McGill D Kent Douglas D Bob Rouse D Marc Rheaume D Terry Sawchuk G Curtis Joseph G Harry Lumley G John Ross Roach G Hap Holmes G Allan Bester G Ken Wreggett G Jim Rutherford G Ron Low G Jonas Gustavsson G Mark LaForest G

Here's a cool article I found in a Maple Leafs program from 1959. It talks about how they used to track each player's time on the ice back in the 1950's. It seems that Punch Imlach was somewhat interested in who was on the ice and in what situations. Sounds like the beginning of advanced statistical analysis if you ask me. All in italics below is the original article.    These clocks, installed in 1951 are a Gardens "first" in the NHL. Wilf Snowden and Billy Calvert trigger the timepieces with two panels of switches which they operate in the booth west of the band. From their vantage point they keep track of the players on the ice for both teams. The panels - one for the Leafs, one for the visitors - have 18 "on-off" switches each. Beneath each switch a player's name is inked on a strip of white adhesive tape before the game begins. The names are arranged so that the switches for players playing together are side by side. Wilf  and Billy can...

Not much need be said about this gem from the past. A Maple Leafs Christmas card sent out to season-ticket holders for Christmas 1979. Holes punched out in the front of the card allow the players heads to be whimsically displayed as Christmas tree ornaments or crudely drawn elves. Pure joy.

The lowly Kansas City Scouts hosted the slightly less lowly Maple Leafs on this Friday night in 1975. The Scouts were one year removed from their awful expansion season when they posted 41 points over 80 games. Toronto would have an 83 point season in 75/76, beat Pittsburgh in the best-of-three preliminary round before falling to the Flyers in seven. The Leafs had not won a seven game series since capturing the Stanley Cup ten seasons before. Kansas City could only dream of that kind of "success". By earning a tie with the visiting Leafs in this game the Scouts held a 4-7-2 record. That was pretty much the high point of their season. Their second year of existence would prove worse than their first as they won only 12 games and collected 36 points. When the next season began they were located in Denver, Colorado and renamed the Rockies. By the time Toronto would make their final visit ever to K.C. on January 15, 1976 the Scouts were a rudder...

"Corsi Italy's Hero in Tie With Canada"  This was the headline by Canadian Press on April 22, 1982 after Italy earned a surprising 3-3 draw with Team Canada at the 1982 World Hockey Championships. On the strength of 55 saves by Montreal native Jim Corsi and a goal and two assists by ex-Washington Capital Rick Bragnolo, Italy shocked a stacked team of Canadian professionals. That year, Canada was represented by stars Wayne Gretzky, Dale Hawerchuk, Mike Gartner, Darryl Sittler, Bobby Clarke, Bob Gainey, Bobby Smith and Kevin Lowe. "Obviously we weren't ready for the game," said a dejected Smith. "Even as much as we said we did, we didn't take this team seriously enough, and it showed. It cost us a big point and it will hurt us dearly when the tournament is over." Bob Gainey added,"Corsi played a strong game in goal. He was getting the clean shots. Then when he had to make the save, he did and kept us off the boards." Ji...

"The Soviet team seemed nervous to me...it was their first taste of international competition," said Whalers coach Harry Neale. "But they started to show some good things in the third period." Soviet coach Boris Majorov agreed with Neale's assessment of his team's performance. "We were very nervous," he said through an interpreter."It seemed to me that it took a while for our players to realize that the Whalers were just another team." These two programs are from the World Hockey Association International Series of 1977. Separate teams of Soviet and Czechoslovakian All-Stars played one game each against every WHA team. These games counted in the standings for the season. December 14 was the first game for the Soviets on the tour, and it showed as they were trounced by the New England Whalers 7-2. December 14, 1977 New England 7, Soviet Union 2 First Period  1. NE Rogers 11 (Pleau, J.Carlson) 3:50 2. SOV Biljaletdinov ...

Here's another cool program in The Den's collection, from an exhibition game between the national teams of Russia and Canada at the brand new Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. The Canadians proved no match for the Soviets getting pounded by a score of 9-3. Canada's coach Jackie McLeod insisted that his team "can skate with the Russians, do everything they do just as well, and when they do it can beat the Russians". This was the third of an eight game tour by the Soviets across Canada having beaten the Canadian National squad in Winnipeg 5-3 in the first game. Petrov and Maltsev each potted a pair before 8,500 at Winnipeg Arena. Chuck Lefley also had a pair with Billy MacMillan adding the third for Canada. This game was the debut in Canada of Russia's young goaltender Vladislav Tretjyak. In game two at Winnipeg the Canadians got revenge with a 4-3 win ending a winless drought against the Russians of almost three years. Bob Murdoch scored the winner at 3:09 o...

5,080 spectators watched the three-time defending Stanley Cup champions put on a clinic at the Vancouver Forum against the Western Hockey League Vancouver Canucks. This program is from the game that took place September 29, 1964. Toronto was in the midst of a a Western tour which would take them from Vancouver to Seattle, Long Beach, San Francisco and Portland. A couple of interior pages of the program. Lineup page below. Vancouver goalie Marcel Paille was outstanding turning aside 47 shots in the 6-2 loss. Leafs scored four in the first 14 minutes on goals from Bob Pulford, Eddie Shack, Ron Stewart and Gerry Ehman. Bob McCusker and Jim Baird tallied for Vancouver. Toronto went on to best Seattle 7-1 before 8,601 on the opening night of the brand-new Seattle Coliseum the following night. They then beat the Los Angeles Blades 10-3 and San Francisco by 5-3. The Leafs were finally beaten in their final game of the exhibition road trip by Portland on October 6. The Buc...

The Hockey Den and it's Maple Leaf Programme Project already has a few Toronto game programs from the 1967/68 season, but I still have to pick this one up recently when I saw it at a show. This is from the 21st NHL All-Star Game and pitted the reigning Stanley Cup champs Toronto against the league stars. The game was on Tuesday, January 16, 1968 at Maple Leaf Gardens and was won by the Leafs 4-3 in front of an All-Star record crowd of 15,740. Here, various hockey writers select their 1st and 2nd season All-Stars to that point in the 67/68 season. A second-year Bobby Orr receives great accolades after producing 9 goals and 26 points through the first 41 games of the season. Although he collected an assist on Norm Ullman's goal eight minutes into the last period, Orr suffered a bruised shoulder after colliding with Leafs' Frank Mahovlich earlier in the game. "He cross-checked me", Orr said. "It's tender now, but I don't think it's going to ...

I added this program of the Seattle Totems from the Western Hockey League to the Den recently. It's from a game in March 1974 but pictures a terrific cover shot of the Totems playing the Soviet National team. Gennady Tsyganov is shown battling Seattle forward Dave Wisener. The game took place on January 5, 1974 when the touring Soviet National team rolled into Seattle, Washington. In lieu of playing NHL teams due to financial problems, the Russians toured through the Western Hockey League. Having already beaten Phoenix, San Diego and Portland as well as trouncing Seattle 9-4 just over a year prior, this last game of their tour was expected to be a cake-walk. The Totems who would not even make the playoffs in this the last ever season of the WHL somehow surprised the Soviets with a convincing 8-4 win. This Soviet squad was pretty much the same one that Team Canada had narrowly beaten 15 months before. Vladislav Tretiak was in net for them on this night and Soviet goals were t...

Evgeni Malkin just wrapped up the month of November with 21 assists in 15 games. This was the most helpers by a player in a calendar month since 1996. The guy who last collected 21 assists in January of 1996 was Wayne Gretzky. The Great One did it in 13 games on the way to a 79 assist campaign. Of course this was far from the best assist total in any one month of Gretzky's career. In fact, he collected at least 25 assists in 11 different months over his career. Five different times he had months of over 30 assists! Gretzky's best month total was in December 1985 when he notched an amazing 36 assists over only 14 games. Amazingly, this was his first of FOUR months in a row in which he would have at least 25 assists. Naturally this was the season that Gretzky set the all-time record for assists in a season with 163. His amazing run included along with 36 assists in December, 31 in 15 January games, 26 in 11 February games and 31 in 14 March games. Gretzky's l...

I picked up this rare program last week, it's from the 3rd annual World Hockey Association All-Star game. It took place on January 21, 1975 at the brand new Edmonton Coliseum.  The lineup page is below and shows many Hall of Famers.  The West team won by a score of 6-4, and were led by 46 year-old Gordie Howe who had a goal and an assist. The capacity crowd of 15,326 saw what was supposed to be the last All-Star game in the legendary career of Howe. Of course he would play another five full seasons after this one and played his actual last All-Star game in 1980 as a member of the NHL's Hartford Whalers.  Gordie's goal was the result of a half-speed backhand shot trickled over the goal line. "I was trying to pass into the goalmouth," he said. "I knew it was in when Andy Brown (East goalie) called me lucky." Howe even kept his stick from the game wrongfully stating it was his last All-Star match. "Sure it was fun. It's nice to win...

Pictured above is the first ever cover of The Hockey News for Wayne Gretzky. It's dated October 27, 1978 and shows a great shot of The Kid as a member of the soon-to-be defunct Indianapolis Racers. My favourite part of the photo is Gretzky's teammate staring at him from the bench, simply smiling. It's fairly easy to find out the happy player is Claude St.Sauveur. He was the only number 20 on the Racers that season. It's also easy to determine at which game this picture was taken. The Racers are wearing their road dark uniforms, and the only away game they played prior to October 27 was in Quebec against the Nordiques. Indy goalie Eddie Mio shutout the Nords by a score of 4-0. This was the Racers first win of the 78/79 season after losing 6-3 and 9-3 at home. That makes this photo as the day of Wayne Gretzky's first ever professional victory. This helps identify the backup goalie on the right side of the pic as Gary Inness, riding the pine that eveni...

I had this poster on my bedroom wall as a kid and had kind of forgotten about it. It probably is one of the first pieces of the collection that came to be my Hockey Den. Showdown was a contest staged by the NHLPA and shown during intermissions on Hockey Night in Canada. It was filmed in one day in the summer and shown over the course of the following season. I figured it was time to scan this thing. Just check out the lineup, ten of the 16 guys ended up in the Hall of Fame. As well as stars of the current day, old-time greats were brought out to conduct a shootout. Just amazing to see these guys in full uniform at their age. Gump Worsley was 49 years old and Johnny Bower 53. George Armstrong at 48 and Andy Bathgate at 46 looked like they could still play in the NHL.  Maurice Richard was 57 years old during Showdown '78 and still had the intensity in his eyes. 47 year old Dickie Moore is thwarted by a text-book Johnny Bower pokecheck.