Nitzy's Hockey Den

I’ve been looking at some WHA drafts recently. In 1974, both the WHA and the NHL held “secret” drafts to hide picks from each other. The NHL was tired of the WHA poaching NHL draft picks so they held the draft three days earlier than the WHA and via telephone. The plan didn’t quite work as the phone drafting took far too much time and ended up spreading out over three days. Buffalo GM Punch Imlach was so frustrated by the proceedings, he made a claim for a fake player from Japan. Taro Tsujimoto of the Tokyo Katanas was selected by the Sabres with the 183rd pick. Tsujimoto was the name of an auto parts store one of the Sabres scouts occasionally drove past, and “Katana” meant “Sabre” in Japanese. The WHA’s Toronto Toros took part in only four WHA drafts, yet their final draft in 1976 could well be described as better than anything their cousins the Toronto Maple Leafs have ever produced. Sure, not one of their picks that year ended up playing for the franchise even though the team shif...

In continuing with my old program ads theme, I have scanned some more of my favourite hockey artwork from various publications. Firstly, are two images from the classic novel "A Boy at the Leafs Camp" by Neil's father, Scott Young. It was orignally published in 1963, I have a third edition copy from 1966. Each chapter has a great image on it's first page and these are my two faves. Here we have a great retro ad from a 1961 Maple Leafs programme (they spelled it like that back then). And from the same issue, a real cool ad for Esso... Now we have a bunch from a 1947 AHL Springfield Indians program. This one takes the Indians logo and gives it a slick full body look. Finally, the "Lucky Number" page from the Springfield program. This one may look good on a T-shirt soon.

Currently, in the Hockey News NHL draft preview there is an article about the worst draft ever. They have come to the conclusion that the 1999 draft was in fact the worst ever NHL draft. I wanted to see if this was indeed true. To compare one draft to another, I simply picked the best players from each draft year in the form of an all-star team. I picked the top six forwards selected (regardless of forward position), the top four defensemen and the top two goalies. I then figured the average career points for each of the players and average career wins and losses for the goalies. Firstly, here are the top players from the 1999 entry draft. Henrik Zetterberg Daniel Sedin Henrik Sedin Martin Havlat Mike Comrie Niklas Hagman Average 378 points Frantisek Kaberle Niclas Havelid Nick Boynton Jordan Leopold Average 150 points Ryan Miller Alex Auld 110-80 W/L Ok, this was a fairly week draft for defenders, but the top four forwards are consistent all-stars, and of course Zetterberg is one of t...

Yesterday I posted my homemade Gretz rookie cards, and wanted to make an Indianapolis version of his "card" from the last WHA set. This image is from the great new DVD "Gretzky, Indy and the WHA" by Timothy Gassen. When I ordered the DVD it came with a poster version of the cover from which I was able to scan this image. I used as a background for this card the Gordie Howe card from the 77/78 WHA set. There are many inconsistencies with my newly fashioned rookie card. Firstly, this set was issued a full year before Gretzky even began his pro career, secondly behind Gretz wearing his road Racers uniform we see Howe in his road Houston Aeros uni.....maybe a neutral site game? And, thirdly the real hockey fan will know exactly where this game is being palyed. Pictured behind Wayne and Gordie is seen the distinctive clear plexiglass boards of the St.Paul Civic Center home of the Minnesota Fighting Saints. Apparently this game was a King of the Court type of match involv...

I found this old ad in an Oilers program from 1979/80. It features a great photo of Wayne Gretzky during the WHA days that I have not seen before. Since it's such a good image of Gretzky from his pre-NHL career, I decided to use it to make a couple of cards that never were. First, I created a card from the 1978/79 O-Pee-Chee set that was famous for having Mike Bossy's rookie card. OPC did not produce a WHA set this year after having done so since the rebel league began. In my version, the company made a special exemption for Gretzky as he had not even played a game yet in the pros. In my world, the set was issued in January of 1979, long enough for OPC to get a photo of Gretz as an Oiler following his trade from Indianapolis (perhaps I'll make an alternate version of the card in his Indy uniform). I also made a card using the template from the final WHA set issued in 1977/78, of course Wayner would not have been an Oiler yet, but I like the look of that set and figured I...

I recently picked this up at a used book store, it's the International Ice Hockey Guide for 1980/81. It's the same size and style of the old NHL Guides of the same era, loaded with seemingly every country's league stats and every international tournament from the 1979/80 season. Of course the biggest hockey event from that season was the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics and Vladislav Tretiak is pictured on the cover battling team USA. There is loads of stats on the Olympic tourney as well as from the 1980 Expolaris Cup in Sweden won by Kladno of the Czech league, the Pondus Cup from Copenhagen, Denmark (featuring national teams of Yugoslavia, Hungary, Denmark and Bulgaria) and the Great Britain Open Challenge Cup in Dundee, Scotland (which saw the Concordia University Stingers beat the Holland B-Team, the Danish Esbjerg IK and the Great Britain national team). Obviously this is a book right up my alley. Among the interesting stats I have found in the book so far is the fascinating...

I was looking today for player stats from only this years Stanley Cup final. Surprisingly I had a tough time finding any solely for the Final. Below, are the stats I compiled with the help of espn.com. Yes, Crosby is tied for sixth in scoring on the Penguins. This alone leads me to believe that they do have a fair chance at winning. Game seven will be a big early career test for young Sid. After last year’s Cup disappointment, he really has to make himself noticeable on the huge stage of the deciding game of the Cup final. His usual linemates, Bill Guerin and Chris Kunitz have been next to invisible which hasn’t helped Crosby’s cause. Perhaps the biggest surprise standout for the Pens has been Maxime Talbot with two big goals and four points in the series. I decided to put this series to my scoring rating system which I created originally for the 1972 Summit series. The system gives varying weights to scoring points depending on the period of the game and the score at the time. Of c...