Nitzy's Hockey Den

In addition to the 1957 NHL board game I picked up at the flea market last weekend , I grabbed this beauty. It's a 1970 game from 3M Sports called Blue Line Hockey.  The back of the box replicates the cool front imagery, the inside of the box displays the many aspects of hockey that are not necessarily conveyed in this game. The game itself seems to have not evolved much from the 1957 issue I posted last week. If anything, the quality of the game has DE-volved, as the 1957 game had some fantastic graphics on the game pieces.  The game pieces in 1970's Blue Line Hockey shown below are, I suppose more durable than the 1957 cardboard punch-outs, but they are not even close to as appealing a design. Again, we see the eye-boggling giant checkerboard hockey rink. Truly a sight for sore eyes. The one thing they did nail is the nicely embossed texture to the back of the game board itself. The rules are on the inside of the game box. If you feel like trying to ...

 Here's a fun thing I like to do every once in a while, assemble a squad of players who played for two distinct franchises. I did it for Leafs/Wings when they played in the Winter Classic a few years back. Also, I'm working on a squad of guys who played for both the Canucks and Leafs that includes such names as Vaive, Benning, Butcher and Kurtenbach. What follows is the all-time team of players who at some point in their careers, suited up for both of the 2019 Stanley Cup Finalists Boston Bruins and St. Louis Blues. The fact that goaltender Hannu Toivonen is pictured at the top may seem a strange selection, but he is  the only retired player to play his entire career ONLY for Boston and St. Louis. Currently playing, David Backes has done the same, playing for only St.Louis and Boston. Toivonen came up with the Bruins in 2005/06 playing behind Tim Thomas and Andrew Raycroft, during the summer of 2007 he was dealt to the Blues for Carl Soderberg. He would back-up Manny Legace...

Check out this gem that I picked up at the flea market this past weekend. It was prominently displayed by my regular dealer who has a permanent set-up at the Vancouver Flea Market. It's one of those items that the second I saw it, I knew I would be walking away with it. I've never seen it before, but what a beauty. This board game was issued in 1957 by Copp Clark Publishing Company of Canada as a fully licensed game from the NHL. The Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens and their logos are wonderfully displayed on the game box lid. The company, Copp Clark can trace it's roots back to 1841 and still exists today solely as a book publisher. Perhaps their most well-known board game was Rummoli, which they created in 1940. The back of the game board has more great graphics as well as a textured "gator skin" finish. Manufacturers sure put a lot of quality and care into their products in the 1950's. Upon opening the three-panelled game board, the player...

Ricky Vaive, Incredulous in the Penalty Box The other night, after the late NHL playoff game finished I instinctively changed the channel to TSN/ESPN Classic just to see what was on. Any thoughts of a regular bedtime for me were instantly ruined. Airing on the retro sports channel was a 1978 World Junior Hockey Championship game between Canada and Sweden originally played January 1, 1978. This game, at the Montreal Forum featured a 16-year old Wayne Gretzky (among many other future NHL stars). Boxscore of the game is below. This game amounted to a semi-final match to determine who would play the winner of the Soviets and Czechs (Soviets won handily). All Canada needed was a tie against the Swedes and they would move onto the Championship game. Alas, Sweden bested Canada 6-5 on the strength of four power play markers. Canada had to make do with the Bronze medal while Gretzky was named Top Forward and topped the tourney with 17 points in 6 games, 7 more than his next teammate Wayn...

Carolina Hurricanes goaltender Curtis McElhinney started his first career NHL playoff game at the age of 35 years, 343 days. He is now the oldest goalie to make his playoff debut in NHL history. The two previous oldest were Les Binkley of the 1969/70 Pittsburgh Penguins and Ross Brooks of the 1972/73 Boston Bruins; each were over 35 years old, but younger than McElhinney. With 219 career games before a playoff start, McElhinney had played more career regular season games than Binkley and Brooks combined. By the 1970 playoffs Binkley had played 131 regular season matches for the Pens after over 600 starts in the minors. Binkley would win five of seven playoff games in 1970 with a 2.10 GAA in his only NHL playoff appearances. He played a total of ten additional playoff games with the Ottawa Nationals/Toronto Toros franchise of the WHA before retiring from professional hockey in in 1976 at the age of 41. Ross Brooks had posted a record of 11-1-3 for the Bruins in his rookie sea...