Nitzy's Hockey Den

Here are a few recent purchases to add to the Den collection. I love 1970's oddball hockey stuff, and it doesn't come more oddball than the old Letraset rub-off transfers that were big back in the day. Remember, there were no video games or computers, so we did what we could for indoor fun. I picked up two from the 1972/73 NHL "Hockey Action Replay" Transfers issue, still in unused, perfect condition. They were originally sold for ten cents per scene, and each came with a background on which to transfer the images and five images that could be rubbed onto the scene. Of course, once applied, the images were immovable and half of them tore as you peeled the paper backing. Boy did we have fun.  I also got a bunch of intact sheets of Loblaws NHL Stamps that were given away free with the purchase of groceries. Each booklet of eight player stamps came with a handy coupon. "Save 8 cents on Dr. Ballard's Meat Dinners for Dogs", what a deal!  I ...

Time to identify another old hockey photo from my friends at Vintage Sports Images  in North Vancouver. I got this one with no date or info attached, but there are some easily identifiable faces.  The three in the middle with their jerseys removed are Allan Stanley, Bobby Baun and Tim Horton.  The Leaf at left reading the game program certainly appears to be Carl Brewer which makes sense, as he was always more cerebral player than most. To the left of him we see a player in the midst of removing his jersey. If we look closely at the skate under the bench below him, there is a number "23" visible (see below) making this very likely the one and only Eddie Shack. You can almost see his nose poking through his jersey. The last guy at the right side of the scene enjoying a swig of 7-Up is almost surely Larry Hillman. His face nicely matches the photo below. To narrow down the timeframe of this photo, the terrific uniform database nhluniforms.com  informs us...

A few tidbits from the day off between Game 5 and Game 6 of the 1967 Cup Final culled from the archives of the Montreal Gazette and Toronto Star: "We'll wind it up here," Maple Leafs coach Punch Imlach stated after the Leafs went through an hour-long practice session on the Sunday after Game 5. Toronto had beaten Montreal at the Forum the previous night by a score of 4-1 to take a 3-2 lead in the 1967 Cup Final. Imlach continued, "We don't even have transportation booked for a return to Montreal, we haven't even tried. He finished by saying, "I have nothing to say. After 96 games, I'm all talked out. The team'll have to do the talking in this one." Of course Imlach added, "What difference does it make? Has Blake decided who he's going to use in goal?" "You'll know who's in goal at game time and not before", said Montreal coach Toe Blake, answering Imlach's query. "It doesn't matter who...

John Ferguson Battling in Game Two After Game Two of the 1967 Stanley Cup Finals, Maple Leafs coach Punch Imlach stated the obvious to the Montreal Gazette, "When you have two good netminders you're not taking a chance. Bower usually goes well against Montreal so I played a hunch that he could come through in this game. He came through and so did the rest of the team." After replacing Terry Sawchuk in Game One with 15 minutes remaining, Bower allowed one goal on eleven shots in Montreal's 6-2 victory. In the second match, Imlach started Bower and he went on to shutout the Habs 3-0. In the process of shutting out the Canadiens, Bower earned a $100 bonus from his team. Bower was not even aware of the extra money earned for a shutout, arranged by King Clancy. "I haven't heard anything about the bonus plan but I certainly won't argue against it," Bower declared. Ferguson Causing Trouble Again in Game Two Once returned home to Toronto the f...

Auston Matthews just completed a rookie season for the ages, as a teenager. He became only the 12th teenager in NHL history to notch at least 40 goals and only the 3rd since 1993. Below is the chart from hockey-reference.com showing all the teenagers to top 39 goals, which adds Yzerman and Crosby to the list. Now, of course, league-wide goal scoring rates have fluctuated greatly over the years from 8 goals per game in the early 1980's to just over 5 goals per game just prior to the lock-out of 2004. The 2016/17 season produced a scoring rate of 5.53. Hockey-ref has a wonderful statistic called Adjusted Goals in which seasons from different eras can be compared to an even playing field. Below is the list of teenagers above translated to Adjusted Goals: Stamkos 56 Nash 48 Carson 46 Matthews 44 Gretzky 43 Crosby 39 Nolan 37 Lemieux 34 Lindros 33 Hawerchuk 33 Hawerchuk 32 Bellows 32 Turgeon 31 Yzerman 31 Matthews' season looks even more impressive after a...

Toronto's rookies in 2016/17 are really doing some special things. Individually, Matthews, Marner and Nylander are setting team records seemingly every day now. Collectively, they're doing things rarely seen in NHL history. All three of the Leafs super rookies have at least 57 points. This has happened on one team only three other times in NHL history, all in an era when goal scoring was at least 30% higher than today.  Three Rookies, One Team 57 Points (Age in Brackets) Toronto 16/17 A.Matthews (19) 61 M.Marner (19) 57 W.Nylander (20) 57 Quebec 80/81 P.Stastny(24) 77-39-70-109 A.Stastny(21) 80-39-46-85 D.Hunter (20) 80-19-44-63 Edmonton 79/80 W.Gretzky (19) 79-51-86-137 B.MacDonald (26) 80-46-48-94 B.Callighen (26) 59-23-35-58 D.Lumley (25) 80-20-38-58 Hartford 79/80 M.Rogers (25) 80-44-61-105 M.Howe (24) 74-24-56-80 J.Douglas (22) 77-33-24-57 The last two teams on this list were transferred from the WHA and these "rookies" had played mult...

Charlie Conacher in Action Well, this is pretty cool. Recently I have been helping out a friend go through old hockey photos for his store  vintagesportsimages.com  . I am assisting in categorizing, curating and identifying literally 1000's of images that predominantly come from the collection of the Boston Globe. He owns the original negatives, and most of them have not ever been published. I think I found a doozy here. Above is a game-play shot of Maple Leaf great Charlie Conacher that I'm fairly sure has not ever been put online.  Below are the main two iconic images of Conacher, both staged in a photo shoot. The one in Vintage Sports Images collection is cropped from a far larger image, attached at the bottom, that gives more info about it. The photo is definitely from an actual game, against the Detroit Falcons. The Falcons were known as such for only two seasons, 1930/31 and 1931/32 before being re-branded the Red Wings. Coancher's teammate to the righ...