Nitzy's Hockey Den

Gordon Keats was nicknamed by his young friends "Duke" after a warship. His professional career began with the Toronto Blueshirts of the National Hockey Association in 1915 where he finished fifth in scoring with 22 goals in 24 games. His hockey career was delayed due to two years of military service during WWI. Upon returning he took his career out west joining the Edmonton Eskimos playing seven seasons with them mainly in the Western Canada Hockey League. He was named a first team All-Star for five straight seasons with Edmonton. When the Western League folded in '26 he finally made the jump to the NHL, playing 3 seasons with the Boston Bruins, Detroit Cougars and Chicago Black Hawks. At the age of 33 he would join the Tulsa Oilers of the American Hockey Association leading that loop in scoring one season. Lester Patrick once praised Keats for being "the brainiest pivot that ever strapped on a skate". His career scoring totals of 393 games, 271 goals and 417 p...

Over the years, the NHL All-Star game has included a few somewhat questionable "All-Stars". Whether it was the league's unofficial policy to have every team represented or an injury to more deserving star player, a few guys have been included in the mid-season classic that you probably have forgotten about. Pictured above we have Bob Woytowich who played for the West Division team in 1970. That season, he had a respectable 33 points as a defensman for the Pens. Pittsburgh also had Dean Prentice representing them. Woywotich was however one of only five d-men on the West squad that year, a fairly weak field I suppose. Doug Roberts was a bit more of a stretch on the 1971 squad. He was the only rep from the California Golden Seals, ending up with 17 points and a -56 plus minus rating. A better choice would have been rookie teammate Ron Stackhouse or goalie Gary 'Suitcase' Smith could easily have replaced the Blues Ernie Wakely for the West team. Bob Manno was a 1982 ...

Bruce Bell made the NHL All-Rookie Team in 1984-85, along with Mario Lemieux, Chris Chelios, Tomas Sandstrom, Warren Young and Steve Penney. My most prominent memory of Bruce Bell, was when Wendel Clark absolutely destroyed him with a clean body check in the 1986-87 season. Clark caught Bell with his head down coming around his own net...pretty much ending the career of the promising defenseman. Bell was drafted in the 3rd round by Quebec in 1983. In his rookie year, Bell tallied 37 points and a plus 32 rating for the Nordiques before being traded to the Blues. After the 86-87 season, and Clark's hit, Bell would play only 14 more NHL games. He would end up playing five different years in the AHL, as well as the IHL,CHL, Colonial League, British and Austrian Leagues and finished in the WCHL with the powerhouse Phoneix Mustangs. His career totals of 76 points in 209 games tell of a promise unfullfilled. Currently he runs the Bruce Bell Hockey School out of Lethbridge, Alberta.

Tommy Dunderdale was born in 1887 in Australia. He moved to Ottawa with his family as a 17 year old in 1904, within two years he was playing pro for Winnipeg of the Manitoba Hockey League. After three seasons he went to Montreal to play with the Shamrocks, then to the Quebec Bulldogs, both of the National Hockey Association which preceded the NHL. At age 24 in 1911, he moved out west to the Pacific Coast Hockey Association and the Victoria Aristocrats. He would play 13 seasons on the coast, also with the Portland Rosebuds, being named First team All-Star six times. He led the league in goals three times and retired as the PCHA career leader with 194 goals. Dunderdale's career professional totals through 19 seasons were 309 games played, 267 goals and 336 points. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in the player's category in 1974.

For some unknown reason, I was goofing around with my favourite site, www.hockey-reference.com ....must have been a slow day at work. I have recently been looking for the worst goals against averages in junior hockey history, (a future blog posting) and decided to check all NHL goalies with a single season GAA over 4.50. On this fantastic site, I'm able to create my own criteria for searching. I choose goalies that played at least 20 games in a season and produced an average of at least 4.50. It turns out that the worst average in NHL history of 7.11 was spit out by the "immortal" Frank Brophy of the Quebec Bulldogs in 1919-20. The Bulldogs that year went 4-20 in spite of Joe Malone's league leading 39 goals. Goaltender, Brophy was 19 that season which proved to be his only NHL showing. The second worst GAA in history belongs to New York Ranger Ken McAuley, who in 1943-44 had a 6.24 average over 50 games. McAuley went 6-39 -5 in playing every minute that year except...

Another cool fact about Johnny Bower is the fact that he is one of only four men in professional hockey history to have won their league MVP award in three consecutive years. Two of the other three, you may have heard of, Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky. The fourth gentleman you may not have heard of, Paul Polillo (pictured above) in the old Colonial Hockey League. Other men have come close to three consecutive MVP's, only to fall short. Guyle Fielder of the old Western League actually won four MVP's in a row, but these were not true league-wide awards. There were two awards given out in three of those seasons, one for the Coastal Division and one for the Prairie Division. On top of that, each division had only four teams from which to choose an MVP. Eddie Shore won three MVPs in four years in the early '30s. Gordie Howe won three of four in the late '50s. Len Thornson won three in four years and four in six from 1959-1964 with the Fort Wayne Komets of the IHL. Johnny Bow...

29 years ago today, Johnny Bower dressed as an emergency backup for the Maple Leafs. In a Vancouver Sun article by Dave Stubbs, he recounts how Bower, who was retired for over ten years was almost called on as replacement. January 9, 1980, the Leafs goalies, Mike Palmateer and Paul Harrison both had a bad case of the flu. Young Vincent Tremblay was summoned from the New Brunswick Hawks of the AHL, but it was uncertain if he'd arrive on time. Bower was a scout for the Leafs at the time, and was heading out on a road trip when GM Punch Imlach told him not to leave. Imlach signed him to a $1 contract and Bower headed to the Maple Leaf Gardens training room to find his duffle bag of goalie equipment he stashed away ten years prior. Bower spent the game in the training room in full gear while Tremblay was pulled after four goals against in ten mimutes. The ailing Paul Harrison took over in the 5-3 Montreal victory, with Bower on guard as emergency replacement, thankfully not used that ...