Nitzy's Hockey Den

1931, shortly after opening 1961/62 Vancouver Canucks Program Header The arena at the Vancouver Pacific National Exhibition Forum was the premier facility in the city for over three decades. Built in 1931 at the corner of Hastings and Renfrew on the East side of the city, it replaced the much larger Denman Arena as the main rink in town after the latter burned down in 1936. The structure remains one of the oldest current or former hockey arenas in Canada. Only Galt Gardens in Ontario, built in 1922 is older. Windsor Arena was built in 1925, but as of last year was being used as a salt storage facility by the local road works department, I believe it is slated for demolition. Construction, 1931 1935 1943 Originally with a capacity of 5,050 the Forum became home to the Vancouver Canucks of the Pacific Coast Hockey League in 1945. By 1952, the loop was known as simply the Western Hockey League and the Forum would remain the Canucks home until 1967. This was the yea...

1981/82 #292 Tony Currie Mike Palmateer, Pat Ribble, Perry Turnbull Above is one of my favourite cards from my childhood days. No, I wasn't a big Tony Currie fan, but I always liked that fact that my favourite goalie Mike Palmateer sneaks in the left side of the photo. Currie's teammate Perry Turnbull also pops into the foreground. Twenty years ago, I got Palmateer to sign this card and as he laughed at it he put a little arrow pointing towards himself. It got me thinking about other players who have made un-credited cameos on others hockey cards. 1972/73 #76 Phil Esposito, NHL Action Pat Stapleton, Ken Hodge, Tony Esposito, Pit Martin 1973/74 #150 Dave Keon Paul Henderson, Norm Ullman, Steve Atkinson, Tim Horton, Don Luce These are two of the busiest hockey cards ever, the Keon card is almost a team photo. The Esposito is especially cool as it pictures the two superstar brothers in action each. Also in the photo are Pat Stapleton battling Phil and Esp...

Here's another cool story from  Bruce McDougall's excellent book, "The Last Hockey Game". In it there is a quick mention made of Montreal Canadien Bobby Rousseau scoring a penalty shot goal against Boston's Bruce Gamble...with a slap shot. This incident is also mentioned by other credible and excellent sources like Joe Pelletier's  greatesthockeylegends.com  and Dennis Kane's terrific Canadiens site  denniskanemontrealcanadiens.wordpress.com  . Kane's site also includes a photo of said event. The only thing is, I'm just not all that sure the event actually happened as described over the years. If we take the details at face value, it's easy to narrow down the occaisons when Rousseau scored against Gamble while he was in Boston. Gamble was only in Boston for two seasons, 1960/61 and 1961/62. Rousseau played a mere 15 games as a rookie in 60/61, so there are minimal games to look at. There are only two goals Rousseau scored against Gamb...

"He's a lot like Lanny McDonald, when he's coming down that wing. If they get him the puck, he doesn't waste too much time letting it go. He's got a very quick release." The above quote is from November, 1983 by Pittsburgh Penguins (ex-Maple Leaf) defenceman Randy Carlyle prior to a game against the Leafs. Carlyle was referring to Leaf captain Rick Vaive but could have just as easily been referring to a guy he would coach 30 years later, Phil Kessel. Is Phil Kessel the Rick Vaive of the current era? Both Vaive and Kessel were/are elite goal scorers that were/are much maligned by media and fans alike. Neither could ever do enough to appease the masses and always seemed to be under the most intense scrutiny, both on and off the ice. Both snipers were acquired via trade by the Leafs at a very young age, Vaive from Vancouver at 20 years old, Kessel from Boston at 21. Each of them quickly developed into top-flight sniping wingers. In consecutive seasons...

Atrocious. Abhorrent. Embarrassing. Nothing more need be said about the current state of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Currently on an amazing 3-17-1 run, they just completed their worst January in team history. Below are the Leaf's worst months ever. Maple Leafs Worst Months Ever with Goals For / Goals Against 1-12-0  .077 March 1988 (1OTL) 35-63 1-8-0    .111 October 1985 (1 OTL) 30-41 1-11-1  .115 January 1984 (1 OTL) 36-71 1-11-1  .115 January 2015 15-39 Each of the months in the 1980's included an Overtime Loss which were not counted as a point back then. The fact that this January also had an OTL and the fact they scored a comically low 15 goals, and had the worst goal for/against ratio of the four months in question make it the worst month in team history. As for worst month in NHL history, the Leafs January was awful but not the worst ever. Below are some of the terrible months of the worst teams in NHL history. Team, Date, Record, Goals For/Ag...