Nitzy's Hockey Den

The Vancouver Public Library recently released some terrific old hockey photos online, the one above  was titled simply Vancouver Canucks vs Skyhawks Hockey Fight, April 14, 1948. It shows some heated action in the penalty box, but does not name any of the players pictured. The Skyhawks were the San Diego entry in the old Pacific Coast Hockey League. Checking the Society for International Hockey Research Database, the bleeding #10 of SanDiego is identified as Arley Carlson. Left-Winger Carlson was 24 years old at the time in his fifth professional season. In 1947/48 he posted 12 goals, 41 points in 43 games for the Skyhawks. Carlson was born in Virginia, Minnesota and would go on to star with the amateur Rochester (Minnesota) Mustangs for seven years. Virgina, Minnesota is also the hometown of Jeff, Jack and Steve Carlson of the movie Slap Shot fame. From what I can find,  although his age would fit, Arley Carlson is not the father of the movie brothers, but the odds are...

I recently picked up an old issue of Hockey Digest at the local flea market from December 1979, (OK it was a part of a self-bought Christmas present...self-buying your presents is really the only way to go). One of the first articles in the magazine was titled as shown above, "Here Are The All-Star Teams of The 1980s!". In the article, author George Vass makes bold predictions on who would be the stars of the next decade. The All-Stars of the 80s were selected as seen below: The author makes the rather bold statement while selecting his teams of the 1980s;  "In fact, though it's taking a risk considering that injuries can cut short the most promising careers, it's possible to pick hockey's All-Star Team of the 1980s with  the assurance that one is not likely to be very far off." Well...he was indeed very far off in his picks. The problem was, there was a slew of Stars, Hall of Fame players,and All-Time greats  just starting their careers in ...