Unidentified Maple Leafs Photo #11, Keon and The Bruins

Time to identify another rare photo from my pals at Vintage Sports Images here in North Vancouver. The Maple Leaf is obviously Dave Keon but there is no year or any other info with the photo. The game took place in Toronto as determined by the Leafs wearing their dark blue sweaters.
The Bruins wore this or a very similar gold jersey with sleeve numbers from 1958 to 1967, but Toronto only wore this particular jersey in the 1962/63 season. That was the first year the Leafs added numbers to the sleeves and the following years the Leaf crest had a thin blue outline added it. The photo has to be from the 1962/63 campaign.
In that season, the Bruins dressed two goaltenders and they both wore number 1, Eddie Johnston and Bob Perreault. Their photos from around this time period, at a similar angle to the photo, are below.
Bob Perreault

Eddie Johnston
It's obvious the goalie in the photo is Bob Perreault who only played 22 games in 1962/63 for Boston. Looking at old boxscores, we find that he played the first three of eight Bruins games in Toronto that season.
  • Oct. 13, 1962 a 2-2 tie in which he stopped 43 of 45 Leaf shots.
  • Dec. 1, 1962, he allowed 8 goals on 43 shots in an 8-2 Toronto win.
  • Dec 15, 1962, he is pulled after allowing his fifth goal on 28 shots, a goal scored by Dave Keon. He was replaced by Johnston, the Leafs won 8-2 once again.
The other two Bruins are fairly easy to I.D. The helmeted player behind Keon is Charlie Burns and #21 is Jerry Toppazzini. The December 15 game is the only of the three in which Keon scored a goal on Perreault. Often times these old photos depict an important moment of the game, so I'm fairly comfortable saying the photo is from the mid-December 1962 match. If not, it is narrowed down to those three at the very least.

Comments

Chris Mayberry said…
Hi!
Actually, this game would have been in Boston as the Bruins were in gold. Most visitors wore white in Boston Garden, but the Maple Leafs usually chose to wear blue. This particular Leaf jersey debuted in the 1961-62 playoffs and remained in effect until the 1963-64 playoffs, when the jersey with the outline around the leaf came into play. And a look at the net with the double mesh in the bottom third of the cage tells me the picture was from the Boston Garden.
Love these old pics and your fabulous site!
June 4, 2018 at 3:18 PM
Nitzy said…
Upon second look, I have to agree that this was in Boston Garden. The stands beyond the boards have the distinct tiering of the Garden. I'm still unsure if it can be 61/62 though, the Leaf sleeve numbers weren't added until the following year. Anyway, lots of fun to try and solve these!
June 19, 2018 at 9:16 PM
Anonymous said…
Agreed. Had to be the 62-63 or 63-64 regular season. Shoulder numbers for the Leafs debuted in the 1961-62 playoffs, which Boston missed.
Interesting that Perrault had a white border around his black shoulder number while his teammate did not.
May 18, 2019 at 4:55 PM
Anonymous said…
When Boston Garden hockey games were televised in the era of Black+White TV, visiting teams wore their home (dark) sweaters for away games against the Bruins. Otherwise, their away-game white sweaters became hard to distinguish for views at home from the Bruin's mustard/gold home colours.
. Thus, on old hockey photographs in Boston Garden that show the visiting team wearing their away game whites against the Bruins' mustard/gold home sweaters, we can detect that the game had not been shown on TV.
October 16, 2024 at 9:26 PM
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