Nitzy's Hockey Den

Above is a fantastic photo from the City of Toronto Archives showing the Toronto RCAF Flyers celebrating a victory. They were a war-time team of mostly professional players who were enlisted in the Canadian military during World War II. The Flyers played in the Ontario Hockey Association Senior circuit for two seasons. The problem with the photo is that none of the players are identified. Thanks to the Society for International Hockey Research database, I have attempted to put names to as many of these men as possible. Using simple visual recognition of the database photos side-by-side with the above photo, I have managed to name the following fairly confidently.  First Row, Left to Right: Norm McAtee, Johnny McCreedy, Lloyd Gronsdahl, Duke Scodellaro (Goalie), Murray Henderson, Unknown, Joe Primeau Norm McAtee is certainly the first player on the bottom left, he won back-to-back Memorial Cups with the Oshawa Generals scoring the winning goal in 1939. He would p...

"No More Hockey", Says The Turk. 'Six-Teeth' Goal Did It ; this was the headline of The Maple Leaf newspaper of the Canadian Armed Forces in Britain on January 8, 1946. The article continued, "the stocky happy-go-lucky Broda appeared serious in his assessment that his bulky frame will never again be a target for flying pucks. Broda was practising at Amsterdam with a CFN all-star team when a puck fired from three or four feet out caught him flush in the mouth and dislodged six teeth. "Can ya imagine," gesticulated the portly Turk, flashing at the same time the replaced "biters" furnished by a considerate army dentist, "getting it from some joker after catching the best from the best of 'em." Broda had been a member of the Canadian Armed Forces for almost two and a half years after playing seven full seasons with Toronto. If Broda was to be trusted, his career almost came to an end before he even returned to NHL play. At this...

Mackell, Kennedy, Stewart, Lindsay, Chadwick The photo above is a beautifully re-coloured photo originally found in the Toronto Archives. It has been painstakingly re-coloured by Mark Truelove of   www.canadiancolour.ca  . This is only one of the many terrific works he has on his website, many of them sports related. The only problem with using city archive sites is usually, there are no names attached to the images describing the photo. This is where the fun begins. Firstly, the one thing this photo does have is an exact date. April 16, 1949, the day the Maple Leafs became the first team ever to win the Cup in three straight years. Toronto had finished the 1948/49 season under .500 with 57 points in 60 games, losing  five of their last six regular season games. They got hot at the right time though. In winning the Cup, they won eight of nine games including a four game sweep of the first place Red Wings in the final.  The problem with this photo is that...

This great photo showed up on my twitter timeline recently courtesy of the great  @Super70sSports .  No info was given other than what is obvious to the viewer, Gordie Howe and his Houston Aeros are playing the Edmonton Oilers in WHA action. Most good vinatge hockey fans will know that #3 and captain of the Oilers is Al Hamilton, but what year was this photo from? Two simple pieces of information narrow down the year. Gordie Howe returned to hockey with the Aeros for the 1973/74 season and the Oilers logo switched from blue to orange lettering in 1974/75 (thanks to whauniforms.com ). Now we can confirm that Oilers goalie in the pic is Chris Worthy who shared duties mainly with Jack Norris in 73/74. Worthy went 11-12-1 with a 3.80 GAA. Hamilton ended up a Second Team All-Star this season with 14 goals and 59 points. Howe of course returned with a bang this season scoring 100 points. He was named First Team All-Star and won the WHA's MVP. Determining the exact dat...

L to R: Ted Kennedy, Reg Hamilton, Mel Hill, Frank McCool, Elmer Lach, Bob Davidson These terrific photos come from the Toronto Archives website and are all dated March 27, 1945. This was the date of the fourth game of the Stanley Cup semifinals won in overtime by Toronto 4-3. In 1944/45, Montreal had put together one of the greatest regular seasons in NHL history by collecting 80 points over the 50 game schedule. This of course was also the year in which Maurice Richard scored 50 goals in 50 games. Toronto had trudged along to 52 points, barely over the .500 mark to finish third place.  The Leafs had won the first two games of the series in Montreal by scores of 1-0 and 3-2 before losing game three at Maple Leaf Gardens by 4-1. After taking a three games to one series lead in this one Montreal bounced back big time winning game five by 10-3 back in The Forum. Toronto closed out the series with a 3-2 win at home in game six.  The Habs started with a flurry in game f...

The Seattle Totems in October 1968 were a real good hockey club. They had won back-to-back Western League championships the previous two years. The Totems would prove they were a good team this evening by beating the Toronto Maple Leafs who were only a year removed from a Stanley Cup victory. I recently picked up this program from the game to add to my den collection. The pre-season game was played in front of 5,262 fans at the Seattle Centre Coliseum. This was Toronto's third visit to Seattle having won 7-4 in 1962 and 7-1 in 1964. Jim Armstrong started in goal for the Totems, Bruce Gamble for Toronto. Leaf rookie Rick Ley opened the scoring at 15:55 of the first period before Totem Don Chiz tied it on a power play early in the second. Halfway through the game, Don Head and Al Smith replaced the goalies for Seattle and Toronto respectively.  Around two minutes after the goalie change, Bob Courcy put the Totems ahead after a pass from Guyle Fielder. Early in the third, W...

Tom Earl, Daryl Maggs, Mark Lomenda, Gary MacGregor, Garry Swain "Please let the fans make up their own minds," Henry Feller told a press gathering. "Let them decide if they want pro hockey here. We have to average 7,000 or 8,000 in the remaining 19 home games for a break-even point." Feller was a director of the Founders Club who had interest in buying the WHA's Denver Spurs club. Ivan Mullinex, owner of the Spurs had brought his team to Ottawa in an attempt to drum up interest and save his investment. The date was January 2, 1976 and Mullinex was in debt to a Denver bank to the tune of $1 million dollars. This same day, the newly christened Civics lost their first game under the new moniker by a score of 2-1 at Cincinnati. Star of the team, Ralph Backstrom said after the game, "Our first official notice of the move hit us when we entered the Cincinnati rink and the names on the big scoreboard read: Stingers and Civics. Until that moment we were un...