Nitzy's Hockey Den

1962 Hockey Card Game I recently noticed that I have a fair amount of vintage hockey themed games in my collection, figured I'd put them all together in a post. Above is a really neat boxed card game I picked up at the Vancouver Flea Market. It's dated 1962 from Walker Press Canada and pictures generic "Blue" and "Red" teams, with very cool artwork. The next one I got from the same dealer at the flea market but have very little information about it. It is a tin ice surface with small plastic sticks. I think it was some kind of "flick" game played with a small disc. It has to be from the 1960's at the latest and could date back as far as the 50's. It's labelled "another SUPERIOR TOY by T. Cohn". This company made many different tin games and toys in the throughout the first half of the twentieth century.  Next is one of my favourite things in my collection, a Toronto Maple Leafs colouring book from 1964. It...

1971 Book This week, Red Kelly turned 90-years old. There's no better reason to have a look at some of the cool, more "odd-ball" Red Kelly items in the collection of Nitzy's Hockey Den. Above is the cover of a 1971 hardcover autobiography aimed toward kids. There's some nice illustrations inside, pictured below. Next is a 1964 Maple Leafs Colouring Book with a couple of great drawings of Red Kelly for the kids to colour in. Stay in the lines kids! In 1963, the Toronto Star newspaper issued these great "Hockey Stars in Action" postcards. The one above shows Kelly, Jonny Bower and Dave Keon. Beauty. 1963 Hockey Stars in Action  Beehive Beehive corn syrup famously issued these posed photos of players with a cardboard backing. Above is the Red Kelly Beehive from the early 1960s. Sheriff Plastic Coins Salada Tea issued plastic "Shirriff" hockey coins for the 1960/61 and 61/62 seasons (above), in 1962/63 the coins were c...

Here's another cool vintage hockey photo from the archives of my friends at  Vintage Sports Images  in North Vancouver. There's a few familiar faces that will help identifying the photo and narrowing down the date. Starting with the obvious, it is the Boston Bruins visiting the Maple Leafs in Toronto and Leaf captain George Armstrong is battling in front of the Boston net. Also, on the distant blueline is Toronto defender Allan Stanley wearing the "A" on his chest. To narrow down a timeframe for the photo we turn to  nhluniforms.com  to see that the Leafs switched to a tie-down collar for the 1958/59 season and would add sleeve numbers in 1962/63. This puts the photo at somewhere between this range. This nails down Toronto's #20 as Bob Pulford who was there for that entire period. Now to the Bruins, Boston had only two players wear #4 during this time period, Bob Armstrong and Pat Stapleton. We can determine that the player in the photo is a left shot from...

As expected, Auston Matthews easily was voted the 2016/17 Calder Trophy winner as Rookie of the Year with 99.46% of the vote (how a supposedly "informed" voter could leave a 40-goal scoring rookie off their ballot is beyond me). What was additionally gratifying for Leaf fans is that Mitch Marner and William Nylander finished 5th and 6th place in the Calder voting. This is the first time in the post-expansion era that a team has placed 3 rookies in the top 6 of Calder voting. There have many occasions that a team has had two players even in the top three of voting, but never three players in the top six in the modern era. As recently as 2013/14, Tampa Bay's Ondrej Palat and Tyler Johnson placed 2nd and 3rd and in back to back years 2007 and 2008 Pittsburgh and Chicago placed two players in the top three. Evgeni Malkin and Jordan Staal were 1st and 3rd in '07 and the next year Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews were also 1st and 3rd. In 2001/02 the Atlanta Thrashers ...

Recently the NHL picked the greatest team ever and chose the 1984/85 Edmonton Oilers. The team finished first in the league with 109 points and waltzed to the Stanley Cup going 15-3 in the playoffs. Wayne Gretzky had one of his greatest offensive seasons collecting 208 points and setting the record of 47 points in the playoffs and Jari Kurri had his best goal scoring campaign with 71 in 73 games in addition he tied the NHL record with 19 playoff goals. A great team indeed, but was it even the greatest Oiler team ever, let alone the NHL's best ever? Edmonton Journal writer, Jim Matheson, who has been covering the team since their inception in the WHA in 1972 tweeted the following when the '85 team was announced as greatest ever; "Sorry but '86-87 Oilers was greatest team. Added Nilsson to play with Messier and Anderson, Ruotsalainen brought back for D." He next added,"Kent Nilsson with Mark Messier and Glenn Anderson in '87 playoffs was fastest line...

Nashville Predators rookie Frederick Gaudreau has scored three goals in four Stanley Cup final games...before having scored a regular season goal in the NHL. Indeed this is an extremely rare feat, as it hasn't happened in 73 years. In 1944, Saskatoon native, Johnny Harms of the Chicago Black Hawks also scored 3 goals in a four game final prior to scoring in regular season. 18-year old Harms had spent the 1943/44 campaign with Hershey of the AHL collecting 10 goals and 31 points in 52 games, he played only one game with Chicago. After not playing in the Semifinal upset of Detroit, Harms drew into the lineup against the heavily favoured Habs. His first goal came in game two with one second remaining in the game to break up Bill Durnan's shutout as the Hawks lost 3-1. With Chicago down two games to none, Harms put them ahead by a score of 2-1 early in the third period of game three. Unfortunately, Montreal scored two goals within the next three minutes and won 3-2. In the...

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 ...