More Rare 1970's Junior Photos

Last week I featured some terrific old hockey photos from a gentleman named Doug Petepiece. He contacted me regarding a blog post and has sent me some really cool, and I'm pretty sure rare photos from the early days of his photo journalism career. He was based out of Cornwall, Ontario and from what I have seen he covered many sporting events between there and Montreal. 

Over the next while I will be posting some of his great shots and trying to determine exactly who and what is depicted in them.

This first one is simply awesome, showing a 16-year old Wayne Gretzky playing in the 1978 World Junior Championships. Last week I posted some other of Doug's photos from this game in Cornwall on Dec. 23, 1977 in which Canada bested West Germany 8-0. He sent me this one later and I had to post it as any shots of The Great One from this tournament are rare, and I have never seen this one. West Germany's Matthias Hoppe is in goal while the defender is Manfred Schuster.



This next one is almost comical in nature. The Montreal Junior Canadiens at the beginning of a bench clearing brawl with the Cornwall Royals. I'm pretty sure this is from either 1976/77 or 1977/78, these were the only two years that Montreal had both a number 16 (clearly visible on the right) and a number 8 (fairly certain the player second from left is 8). This would be #16 Kevin Reeves and #8 Gerard Champagne. The photo below of Champagne sure looks like the #8 in Doug's photo. Doug said the poor Royals player covering up for dear life was star forward Bill Smith but he wore number 12 and to my eyes the player in the photo has a "15" on his arm. This may make him defenceman Pat Crombeen if it's 76/77 or Klas Lenader if it's 77/78,.

Anyway you look at it, the "Evel Kneivel" helmets, the hair and the smile on the Montreal player on the left make this shot a great one.





More rare junior hockey photos from Doug to come!

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