Nitzy's Hockey Den

Dec 2, 1916 I recently found these terrific old cartoons on google news archives. They're from the Toronto World Newspaper, by a cartoonist named Lou Skuce. Born in Ottawa in 1886, Skuce began cartooning professionally in the early 1910s eventually becoming the Art Editor and Editorial Cartoonist for the World. The first three cartoons illustrate the start of the National Hockey Association season in both 1915 and 1916. The "Livvy" in the third one refers to Eddie Livingstone the owner/manager of the local Toronto Blueshirts. Dec 11, 1916 Dec 19, 1915  The next is a great depiction of one of the toughest players of the day, George McNamara who would suit up in 1916/17 with the 228th Battalion squad of Toronto. At 6'1" and 220 lbs, he was one of the biggest players of the era and would be elected to the Hall of Fame in 1958. In 1915/16 with the Blueshirts McNamara racked up 74 Pims in 23 games while playing a bruising defence. Dec 6, 1916 Lou S...

Here's a Western Hockey League, Vancouver Canucks game program from the 1964/64 season. Longtime Canuck, Phil Maloney is the photo on the cover in addition to some nice old autographs from players in the game against the Los Angeles Blades. Maloney was in the midst of an 81 point campaign for Vancouver after leading the team with 90 the year previous. He had tallied 15 goals and 46 points as a 22 year old NHL rookie with Boston Bruins in 1949/50. Maloney would play a total of 158 NHL games, producing 71 points. He had previously led the Western League in points with 95 in 1955/56. This program is from March 14, 1965 a game Vancouver won 4-2. Lloyd Haddon, Los Angeles Blades Defensemen, Lloyd Haddon was winding down his professional career in 1964/65 and put up 35 points from the blue line after seasons with L.A. of 51 and 49 points. He had an eight game stint with Detroit Red Wings in 1959/60. Harley Hodgson, Los Angeles Blades Hodgson was a stay-at-home defencema...

1981 Last week I posted a fantastic early 1980s Wayne Gretzky poster. Here a few more that I had as a kid, and have re-purchased as an adult. The top one is a 7-Up ad from 1981. The soda company surrounded The Kid with fellow NHL "stars" Morris Lukowich and Richard Sevigny...good choices. In fairness, Lukowich was the pre-Hawerchuk star of the original Jets, leading the team in goals in their first two NHL campaigns with 33 and 35. The season this poster was released, Lukowich posted his career best numbers of 43 goals, 92 points. Hawerchuk certainly helped with those. In 1981, Richard Sevigny was coming off a season in which he shared the Vezina Trophy with teammates Dennis Herron and Bunny Larocque (this was the last year the Vezina was simply awarded to the team with the lowest goals allowed). He would never match his 2.40 GAA from that season and was lit up by Gretzky's Oilers in those '81 playoffs as Edmonton swept Montreal in three games. 7-Up included oth...

April 20, 1934 A few years back I wrote about a 1934 tour through Western Canada by the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings. In fact it was my first of many articles published in the Society for International Hockey Research Journal.  http://nitzyshockeyden.blogspot.ca/2008/09/1934-leafs-wings-western-tour.html   I was able to research the tour with an entire month's worth of original Vancouver Province newspapers that I found at a garage sale, posted here are a few additional scans of some great images from the April 1934 Province. The image at the top is an ad for an autograph signing by King Clancy and Hap Day at the Vancouver Hudson's Bay department store, for "Friends and Admirers".  The next image is a cartoon commenting on the apparently poor ice-conditions at the Denman Street Arena. April 23, 1934 Next, a photo of Dick Irvin, Conn Smyth and Jack Adams being shown the town at a rooftop luncheon put on by the organizers of the tour. Apr...

Check out this beauty. I found a bunch of old posters I had tucked away and figured I'd start posting them. This first one is from 1981 and issued through Shoppers Drug Mart in Canada. It was put out in conjunction with the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association with technical info provided by George Kingston of the University of Calgary. Kingston would go on to be the first ever coach of the San Jose Sharks and in 1994 coached Canada to its first World Championship since 1961. The title of the poster is "Improve Your Hockey Skills; Skating" and shows diagrams of The Great One demonstrating various hockey skills. There were at least two other posters put out at this time, "Shooting" featuring Mike Bossy and "Checking" with Bob Gainey.  Enjoy below the fantastic drawings of Gretzky in a Jofa helmet that he never actually wore, maybe you'll even learn a thing or two about skating, I sure did.

Here's a great book I picked up for the Den. This large, thick-stock book published in 1978 is titled "Hockey Masks and The Great Goalies Who Wear Them". It's filled with paintings of goalie masks of the era by Michael M. Cutler. I recall going on a class trip in the late 1970s or early 1980s to the McMichael Art Gallery in Kleinburg, Ontario and there being an exhibition of actual goalie masks. I'm not sure if this book was published in conjunction with that or not, but it is certainly along the same lines.  The cover of the book is of course the mask of Hall of Famer Ken Dryden. In 1978, Dryden was in the midst of his final NHL campaign. He would lead the Canadiens to his sixth and last Stanley Cup in the spring of 1979. Above is Vancouver's Curt Ridley mask included in the book. 1977/78 saw Ridley play a career high 40 games for the Canucks posting a 4.06 GAA. He would actually spend the entire next season with Dallas in the Central League. After...

Sergei Makarov was overdue to be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. His longtime teammates, Igor Larionov and Slava Fetisov were elected in 2008 and 2001 respectively. There is no reason Makarov should have waited so long. As dominance in his league went, he was the Wayne Gretzky of the Russian League in the 1980s. Makarov was a 1st-Team All-Star in Russia for eight consecutive years starting in 1981. He was top scorer in the league for nine of ten years beginning in 1979/80. The only year he didn't lead in points he missed 16 games and still produced 42 points in 30 games. It's not just the fact that Makarov was the top scorer either, it's the margins by which he finished ahead of the second place man. See below his percentage of points he was ahead of second place: 79/80 11.5% 80/81 29.5% 81/82    5.6% 83/84 28.1% 84/85 22.6% 85/86 19.2% 86/87    6.0% 87/88 17.7% 88/89 31.7% Over his nine seasons as top-scorer he led by an average of ...