Nitzy's Hockey Den

The Toronto Maple Leafs have started this season with 12 victories in their first 20 games of the season. Sure, that's fairly impressive but the fact they have no "extra points" and 8 losses kind of dulls the feat. No matter how you look at it though, 12 wins in 20 games to start a season is indeed a rare feat for Toronto.  In fact Toronto has not accomplished this in 19 years, and it is only the 4th time in 63 years they have done it. Overall, this is only the 11th time in franchise history to start a year with at least 12 wins in the first 20 games. A fact that hopefully bodes well for the Leafs is that each time they have done this they havefinished at least third in their division (or the entire NHL prior to 1967) and have made the playoffs every single time.  The eleven occasions that Toronto has started with at least 12 wins in their first 20 are as follows: 2012/13; 12-8-0 57 GOALS  FOR - 46 AGAINST 1993/94; 13-3-4 79 GOALS FOR - 53 AGAINST Fin...

Scott Garland and Mike Palmateer  My source for rarely seen hockey photos from the 1970's Doug Petepiece took these great shots of one of my favourite Leafs, Mike Palmateer. These one's were fairly easy to identify the game they were from. Palmateer only wore this mask during his rookie season of 1976/77, and Toronto played in Montreal only three times that year. The first visit in October 1976 saw Leaf goalie Wayne Thomas between the pipes. Palmateer played in the other two games in November and again at the end of March. As far as I can tell, all the players pictured played in both games and Steve Shutt scored in both as well. He's pictured below tapping in an easy one. We get a break however when looking at the Montreal Gazette archives for the game from March 30, 1977 as linked below. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=v50uAAAAIBAJ&sjid=sKEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5103%2C3744462 Jacques Lemaire looks on as Shutt taps in a gimme on the powerplay There it...

  The Maple Leafs of Toronto have begun the abbreviated 2012/13 season with seven wins and two losses in their first nine road affairs. Simply put, this is their best start away from home since 1940 when they had the exact same record.   A look at the road start from that season of over 70 years ago:   Game 1 Nov. 4, 1940: Turk Broda defeats Canadiens goalie Bert Gardiner 6-2. Pete Langelle tallied 2 goals and 2 helpers, he would score only twice more the entire rest of the season. Syl Apps and Hank Goldup had two points apiece.   Game 2 Nov. 17, 1940: Frank Brimsek and the Bruins were the home losers this time as the Leafs won 4-1. Goals were scored by Wally Stanowski, Sweeney Schriner, Hank Goldup and Billy Taylor. Taylor also chipped in an assist and Langelle continued his warm start with an assist on Goldup's goal. Also with one of his five points on the season, defenceman Bingo Kampman. Game 3 Nov 21, 1940: This one was a 2-1 over...

Pic One Pic Two Time for another little research project looking at rarely seen photos courtesy my new 'cyber'-friend Doug Petepeice. He has sent me alot of shots of the Montreal Junior Canadiens playing against a Soviet squad. Let's figure out when and where they are from. Seeing the two photos above at first glance one may say they are from the same match. Looking closer there are many differences between them suggesting they are from different games. The main difference is the fact that the Junior Canadiens goalie is different, perhaps they shared duties or is it two different games? Even with a large amount of googling the archives of the Montreal Gazette newspaper and the great site of the Society for International Hockey Research which has jersey numbers for most teams ever, it has proven pretty tough to narrow down which game is which. My best educated guesses are as follows. I found out that the Soviet Selects played at the Montreal Forum against th...

Last week I featured some terrific old hockey photos from a gentleman named Doug Petepiece. He contacted me regarding a blog post and has sent me some really cool, and I'm pretty sure rare photos from the early days of his photo journalism career. He was based out of Cornwall, Ontario and from what I have seen he covered many sporting events between there and Montreal.  Over the next while I will be posting some of his great shots and trying to determine exactly who and what is depicted in them. This first one is simply awesome, showing a 16-year old Wayne Gretzky playing in the 1978 World Junior Championships. Last week I posted some other of Doug's photos from this game in Cornwall on Dec. 23, 1977 in which Canada bested West Germany 8-0. He sent me this one later and I had to post it as any shots of The Great One from this tournament are rare, and I have never seen this one. West Germany's Matthias Hoppe is in goal while the defender is Manfred Schuster. ...

Dating back almost one full calendar year to February 11, 2012 the Toronto Maple Leafs have three home victories in their last EIGHTEEN home matches. Yikes. Perhaps not surprisingly, this is not the worst home stretch ever for Toronto. In the midst of the 1984/85 season, during the halcyon days of Jim Benning, Peter Ihnacak and Tim Bernhardt the Leafs had one stretch of three home wins over a TWENTY-TWO game  period. Beginning on October 17, 1984 with a 5-3 loss to the Hartford Whalers through to another 5-3 loss this time to Boston on January 9, 1985, Toronto went 3-17-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens. They would predictably finish last overall with 48 points that season and draft Wendel Clark the following summer. The reality is however, the current run of home-ice ineptitude, although not as lengthy as the older one may be even worse. In 84/85's 22 game home slump the Leafs scored 70 goals and allowed 103 for an average of 3.18 and 4.68 per game. Over the duration of the current 1...

 I received an email about the 1978 World Junior Championships stemming from something I wrote about a while back. The sender let me know he had a bunch of photos he took at one of the tournament games in Cornwall, Ontario. He also had a program from the game which is pictured above. The game between West Germany and Canada took place before 2,100 fans and was predictably won by Canada 8-0. 16 year-old Wayne Gretzky notched 3 goals and 2 assists as his line with Tony McKegney and Wayne Babych led the way. Gretzky was quoted afterward, "I have two pretty good line mates. They know where to go and where to be." He added, "I should have had six or seven." Canada out shot West Germany 61 to 25 and the German goaltender Mathias Hoppe was good enough to earn their player of the match. McKegney opened the scoring at 8:37 of the first on a perfect feed from Gretzky. 15 seconds later, The Kid himself banged in his own rebound for a 2-0 lead. One shift later McKegney ret...

  I found this great old newspaper recently commemorating the Penticton V's Allan Cup victory in 1954. The really cool thing is it was autographed by a bunch of the players. By beating the Sudbury Wolves, the V's earned the right to represent Canada in the next World Championships. This is of course what they would do the following spring, winning the world title for Canada in 1955. The newspaper is a 6 page special edition of the Penticton Herald dated May 17, 1954.  The V's were led by the dynamic Warwick brothers, Grant being the playing coach. Grant "Knobby" Warwick had won the Calder Trophy with the New York Rangers in 1942 and scored 46 points in 23 games en route to the Allan Cup. In 1992 I got the chance to hold the very Calder Trophy (mini version) that Grant Warwick won so many years ago. While coaching minor hockey in Oakville, Ontario I coached his 10 year-old grandson (also under-sized and the best player in the league) who while we were havi...