Nitzy's Hockey Den

Here's a gem I found on ebay this week. It's a puck that was said to used by Hall of Famer Norm Ullman to notch his first ever professional hockey goal in 1953. The link to it can be found  here . The listing says the puck comes from Ullman's personal collection and has carved onto it "N.Ullman First Pro Goal" as well as "Dec. 29th, 1953" with the "3" backwards.  The puck apparently comes with a certificate of authenticity. I managed to find the boxscore of this game and low and behold, there's Ullman with his goal. He was called up on an emergency basis from the junior Edmonton Oil Kings in the midst of a 56 goal, 101 point season. His goal was assisted by team leading scorer Enio Sclisizzi and Don Poile. This was Ullman's only pro game of 1953/54 before returning for a full campaign the next. He would collect 59 points in 60 games in 54/55 before finally graduating to the NHL and the parent Detroit Red Wings.  A ...

I was watching a bit of the NHL Network's Pioneers series a few days ago. It was a half hour bio/interview with Mr. Goalie, Glenn Hall. Near the end of it, I saw this... http://youtu.be/QcteEVEyhnI?list=UUkoJHSS6M7nvYPWGN6TIIbw It was shown without any description or reference to it, simply a highlight of Hall's career. I just had know what the heck was going on in this clip. From what I could derive, the game took place on February 16, 1969 when Minnesota visited St. Louis and the Blues won 6-0. At the start, Hall is seen bolting from the net on what can only be assumed is a delayed-penalty on Minnesota. As the Blues defender (Barclay Plager) clears the zone, Minnesota's Bill Goldsworthy stabs at it and pokes it directly into Hall's path. Hall takes the opportunity, and skates with the puck for a bit. Knowing he'd be penalized for handling the puck past the centre line, he dishes the puck to teammate Terry Crisp. #12 Terry Crisp turns the N...

John Brophy was head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs for two and a half seasons in the late 1980's. He had been a hard-playing defenceman in the old Eastern Hockey league from 1955 through 1973. Playing in cities from Baltimore and Charlotte to New Haven, Long Island and Philadelphia he collected 3699 PIM's in 1064 games. Brophy began a role as playing coach in 1968 while with the Long Island Ducks.  He was suspended and fined over his career many times for transgressions including; "attempts to assault referee", "physically abusing referee", "deliberately shooting puck at referee", "jabbed stick at fan after fan bit him", "pushing linesman during fight", "pushing referee to the ice", "throwing stick at referee", "throwing object at referee". Needless to say, he had anger issues.  When he finally got his chance at an NHL coaching job, his attitude did not change. He guided the Leafs to...

January 23, 1969. The terrific Anatoli Firsov, one of the greatest players in the history of Russian hockey, scored six goals in an international game. Six goals in a game, it's been accomplished before and since...the thing is, Firsov did it by the six minute mark of the second period or in 26 minutes of elapsed game time. Big deal you say? It was probably against a second rate national squad like Romania or Denmark, right? Wrong. Anatoli Firsov scored six goals in less than half a game against the Canadian national team, on Canadian soil. In fact he collected back-to-back NATURAL hat-tricks. The game was part of the Soviet National team's Canadian tour and took place in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Firsov scored the first six goals of the game and the Soviets would go up by a score of 10-0 after two periods and win by a final score of 10-2. Firsov was actually benched for the second half of the game and didn't even dress for the third period. Sure, it wasn't Team Cana...

Last week I posted some very cool Turofsky photos of the Maple Leafs of the late 40's that a reader sent me from their own collection. There are so many great ones I had to share some more. These first three are just terrific shots of Leaf captain Syl Apps in the latter stages of his Hall of Fame career. Here's a very young Bill Barilko. He's probably 20 years old in this photo. Here's one actually signed by 23 year old Howie Meeker, then in his second year in the NHL. Another autographed photo, this one of another youngster, Sid Smith. He would go on to be a three-time NHL All-Star. The final shot is of Ted "Teeder" Kenendy who at 22 years old had already completed his fifth NHL season on the way to the Hall of fame.

Syl Apps and Ted Kennedy with The Cup I received a very cool email this past week from a reader of my blog. Attached to it were the images of over thirty old photographs of the Toronto Maple Leafs. They were Turofsky photos from likely the 1947/48 season. Nat and Lou Turofsky were official team photographers of the Leafs from the early 1930's until the time of each of their deaths in 1956 and 1959 respectively.  My new blog friend  Kim informed me; " My dad lived in Woodstock, Ontario and attended many Leafs games.You could order these pics from the 3 old Turofsky albums at 50 cents each.  He would do a lot to get an autograph, too. Back in the day you could yell at the boys and hope for a signature." Kim also told me the Hall of Fame was interested in one of the photos as they did NOT have it in their collection of 19,000 Turofsky images. The one in question is the image below of Captain Syl Apps holding the Stanley Cup while Conn Smythe and Hap Day shak...