Nitzy's Hockey Den

April 21, 1951 was the last game ever played by Toronto Maple Leaf defenseman 'Bashin' Bill Barilko. As most hockey fans know, he would score the Stanley Cup winning goal in overtime against the Canadiens and within a few months was lose his life in a plane crash in Northern Ontario. Barilko wasn't the only player to play his last game ever National Hockey League game on this day. For Montreal Centre Bob Dawes, his NHL career was ended by a gruesome leg injury pictured above. I found the image in google news archives and had to find out more about the poor guy pictured. According to The Montreal Gazette, "Dawes came out of a tangle with Ted Kennedy near the boards with his leg broken in four places". Each player was carried off on a stretcher, but Kennedy "wasn't seriously injured and returned almost immediately". Dawes was not so lucky. Just the previous year, Dawes was a member of the Leafs and in 1949 he played all nine playoff games as To...

Ted Kennedy pictured April 13, 1968 In looking up some information on Leafs great Ted Kennedy, I came across a Canadian Press newspaper story about an incident I had never heard of that happened in November 1949. It seems there was very little written about what happened, and even a google search now turns up only the American Senator of the same name and his famous car accident. The story is as follows, with quotations taken directly from the Canadian Press story. According to Ontario Provincial Police it was snowing and visibility was only 50 feet. Toronto Maple Leaf captain Ted "Teeder" Kennedy was driving west along Eglinton Avenue from his home in Whitby, Ontario to Maple Leaf Gardens for a Saturday night game. Along with him was his wife who stated later that the driving conditions at the time were "wretched with snow coming from all directions". It was Saturday, November 19, 1949 and Kennedy was the 24-year old captain of the three-time Stanley Cup...

I recently posted the above scan from a 1965 Toronto Maple Leafs program showing an open house from September 1965. The picture on the right interested me as it shows a model of a proposed expansion to Maple Leaf Gardens. A little digging turned up a couple of published mentions of this plan over the years. The first one is a small article from the Canadian Press dated May 16, 1963; 4,000 Seat Expansion Program Sought By Maple Leaf Gardens A plan for a $2,000,000 expansion to provide 4,000 extra seats in Maple Leaf Gardens was presented to City Council's Works Committee Wednesday. Harold Ballard, vice-president of the Gardens, told the committee the project was proposed to increase the seating capacity to 18,400. He said there is a waiting list of 9,000 applications for season's tickets for NHL games played in the arena by the Toronto Maple Leafs. Preliminary sketches of two additions, at either end of the Gardens, indicated the structures will protrude in air space ...

Toronto Maple Leaf Phil Kessel currently sits second in the NHL in scoring. As many have noted, no Maple Leaf has won a scoring title since Gordie Drillon in 1937/38. Obviously Kessel isn't going to win it this year as he sits 15 behind Sidney Crosby but if he were to hold on to second place it would be the highest Leaf finish in scoring in almost 70 years. In 1945/46 Gaye Stewart finished second overall to Chicago's Max Bentley, nine points behind and two points ahead of Toe Blake and Clint Smith. Bentley had held the lead for most of the season but the race for second was wide open right up to the last few days of the season. Below is how the scoring race stood with two weeks remaining in the 1945/46 campaign (Goals, Assists, Points) March 5 Max Bentley    31 22 53 Gaye Stewart   32 13 45 Bill Mosienko   17 28 45 Clint Smith        21 20 43 Toe Blake         24 16 40 Gaye Stewart was eight back of Bentley, tied...

A few days ago, www.hockey-reference.com added some cool data to the site. They now have voting results for NHL awards dating back to the 1920's. A look through the numbers turns up a few strange looking results over the years. A few of the stranger ones are below: 1929/30 Lionel Hitchman 2nd in Hart Trophy (94 votes) Boston defenceman Hitchman finished a mere 7 votes behind Hart Trophy winner Nels Stewart and 15 votes ahead of third place finisher and teammate Cooney Weiland. Stewart notched 39 goals, Weiland 43 goals. Hitchman tallied 2 goals, 7 assists for 9 points in 39 games yet inexplicably garnered 17 votes more than fourth place King Clancy who had 17 goals and 23 assists. Somehow, Howie Morenz and his 40 goals placed only seventh in Hart Trophy voting that season. 1938/39  Earl Robinson 28 Hart votes 1939/40 Earl Robinson 21 Hart votes In 38/39 Chicago Right Winger Robinson scored 9 goals, 6 assists in 47 games and finished 4th in Hart Trophy voting. The follow...