Nitzy's Hockey Den

I just had to share this. Hockey historian, archivist and writer, Paul Patskou had quite an interesting thread going on his Facebook page this week. He noted that both Punch Imlach, Leafs GM/coach and his wife Dodo Imlach had at different times played games at Maple Leaf Gardens. Punch played at the Gardens multiple times as a junior and senior hockey player in the 1930s and 40s, while his wife Dodo played there in a charity game in 1945. A charity game of...softball. Leave it to Paul to dig up this nugget. Personally, I had never heard of softball ever being played at Maple Leaf Gardens, but it's true. Patskou with help from his friend Bill Williams, shared the story of this strange happening. It was a Friday night, November 9, 1945 when the Rotary Club of Toronto put on the event as a fundraiser for Toronto Sick Children's Hospital. The Globe and Mail newspaper described the event thusly; "The Major's Manse (the Gardens) gave itself wholeheartedly over to the ...

Vancouver Waterfront HC 1933 I found these two cool team photos over at the Vancouver Archives database. The first is of a squad called Vancouver Waterfront from 1933 that played in the amateur Vancouver Commercial League. The circuit included other teams such as Vancouver Ex-King George, New Westminster Cubs and Vancouver Merolomas. The one player I can identify for certain is at front row, far right as Art Jerwa. He was older brother to Frank and Joe Jerwa who both were playing in the NHL at that time with Boston Bruins.  Interestingly, the Waterfronts would make the championship game in 1933 and lose in a fairly unique fashion. Playing the Vancouver Sun in the final, the teams split the first two games of the series before the deciding match on March 3, 1933. After three periods, the fifth game was tied, scoreless. However, league officials, fed up with too many games finishing in a draw, had previously decided that all games that ended even would be called "no contest...

Here's a real nice photo from the City of Vancouver Archives showing Gordie Howe playing the Western Hockey League Vancouver Canucks at the PNE Forum. There are no labels or date attached, but I believe I've narrowed it down. First of all, we see that Gordie Howe is wearing the Captain "C" for Detroit, a position he surprisingly only held between 1958 and 1962. Seeing as the Canucks goalie's face is visible clearly, he should be identifiable. Checking the Society for International Hockey Research photo database I looked at Canuck goaltenders of this era. It's fairly easy to name the goalie as Hank Bassen when compared to the photo below. This really aids in dating the photo, as Bassen played for the Canucks for only one season, 1959/60. If this is a pre-season game with Detroit, it must have then taken place in late September or early October of 1959. This season, Bassen would lead the WHL in Wins with 44, shutouts with 5 and Goals Against Average wit...

As any good hockey fan on scoial media knows, today is the 46th anniversary of one of the greatest goals ever scored. Here are two other photos of the iconic goal found on Google news archives. They are both creditied to the Associated Press Wire Service, but were taken from slightly different angles. Both are approximately 180 degrees rotated from the more well-known shot pictured below. "After the third period I told the fellows, 'look, let's not do too much thinking. We've lived and died playing our gung ho hockey all along.' We went out there to attack. If we died by it, we died by it.", coach Harry Sinden summed up his advice for his Bruins as they entered overtime.  Orr himself admitted he took a gamble on the winner when he tried to beat Blues' Larry Keenan to a loose puck inside the St.Louis end. "I guess it was. (a gamble) I get caught like that sometimes but at other times it works. This time it worked." Derek Sanderson decri...

Fifty years ago exactly, the Western Hockey League championship was being decided between the Victoria Maple Leafs and the Portland Buckaroos. Featured here is a game program issued in Portland for Game Two of the series on May 2, 1966. Lineups are below. Both teams had won hard-fought, seven game series to advance to the final. Portland came back from down three games to two to beat Vancouver in games six and seven back in Portland by scores of 4-2 and 7-3. They were led by regular season scoring leader and runner-up, Cliff Schmautz and Art Jones. They notched 10 and 12 points repectively in the seven game set. Vancouver defenceman Larry Cahan erupted for a record 16 points in a losing effort. Cahan was a veteran of almost 400 NHL games at this point and had produced 48 points in the just-completed season. He would play four additional NHL years once the league expanded with Oakland and Los Angeles. Victoria bested San Francisco in the semi-finals in similar fashion to ...

Edouard 'Newsy' Lalonde in his mid-70s I've been sifting through Library and Archives Canada hockey photos on the Collections Canada website and found these awesome ones from the early 1960's. They are all from the early 1960's (the Hall opened in 1961). I find it pretty cool seeing some of hockey's greats in these photos. Even though they are 30 or 40 years removed from active playing, a good hockey fan can still recognize them. Two of the greatest defencemen of alltime, Eddie Shore at right, King Clancy 3rd from right. Art Ross, Lloyd Turner, Lester Patrick, W.A. Hewitt, Newsy Lalonde, 'Red' Dutton on Opening night, 1961 As a kid, I remember going to the old Hockey Hall of Fame at the Canadian National Exhibition grounds in Toronto. I went pretty much every year in the 1980's and judging by these photos, it looked pretty much the same as it did in the 60's. The Hall moved downtown in 1993, and the displays improved immeasureabl...

"He beat me every way you could think of tonight. Sittler gives you no warning. You can't anticipate when  he comes in like you can with a lot of other guys. He just wheels around and you've got only an instant to react," the words of Flyers goaltending legend Bernie Parent after being ventilated for five goals by the Maple Leaf great. It was 40 years ago to the day and Darryl Sittler had just equalled an NHL record for goals in a playoff game as Toronto tied Philadelphia at three games each in the Quarterfinal round. Parent continued, "He caught me shifting my weight and I was off balance." Apparently Bernie was off balance quite a bit on this night as Toronto won 8-5. Sittler commented, "I just got lucky again, like on February 7," the night of his famous ten point game. He shared the fact that he had put his stick under one of coach Red Kelly's lucky charm pyramids and felt that the spell worked. "The spell was marvellous"....