The Future of the NHL...in 1958
I recently found an interesting article in an April 1958 issue of Hockey Blueline magazine. It is an interview with New York Rangers General Manager, Muzz Patrick in which he predicts what the future of hockey will look like in the distant future of 1978.
"I'd say that Los Angeles and San Francisco are the most likely cities to join the NHL in an eight-team league. They're building an 18,000 seat arena in Los Angeles now. That is the primary consideration. You must have an arena with a minimum of 12,000 seats. But more than that may be necessary to pay travelling expenses to the Coast."
The Los Angeles Kings and Oakland Seals would of course join the NHL as part of a six team expansion in 1967, perhaps a little later than Patrick predicted. The Seals would remain only until 1976 and the Bay Area would be without an NHL team until the San Jose Sharks joined the league in 1991.
Next, the Rangers GM talks of an expanded schedule from the current 70 games;
"It could easily jump to 80 or 90 games in the next decade. I think we could pack the extra 10 or 20 games into the months we use now, early October to late March. It wouldn't stretch out the season."
The schedule was eventually expanded in that same expansion year of 1967/68 but only to 74 games. In 1974/75 the schedule was finally bumped up to 80 games.
Muzz Patrick
He was then asked about Rocket Richard's goal scoring records (50 goals in 50 games and career goals total) and whether they could be broken;"Maybe Gordie Howe. But more likely some kid we don't even know about. He's probably only nine or ten years old now and he's playing in some PeeWee League somewhere. Organized teams at that age is something we never had years ago. It's bound to develop better players. Maybe the Rocket's son, Normand, will break his dad's records. They tell me the kid's pretty good for seven."
As far as I can tell, Normand Richard never played any level of professional hockey. Patrick was correct with Howe as far as beating Richard's career goals mark. As for a kid in PeeWee in back 1958 going on to break The Rocket's records, Patrick was close. Mike Bossy was only one-year old at the time and would eventually equal the feat of 50 goals in 50 games. Back in 1958, Wayne Gretzky was still three years away from being born.
The next question was about U.S. born players and whether there would be a few in the NHL in the future;
"I don't think so. Even in sections near Boston and up in Minnesota where it's cold enough for kids to play hockey, there seems to be too many other interests. Hockey isn't as important in the U.S. as it is in Canada but I think there'll be some Europeans in the NHL in the near future." He continued, "Hockey is a big sport in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany and Czechoslovakia not to mention Russia as we all know. In years to come there's liable to be a European Hockey League with franchises in Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, Berlin, Prague and Moscow. Right now I can't imagine the Rangers playing Moscow in a World Series because of the diplomatic problems. But in years to come, maybe this world tension will be erased and we can worry about hockey games instead of hydrogen bombs."
Well, 1958 was the height of the Cold War and it's fear spread even to the hockey world. We're still waiting on some sort of world hockey club championship as well. As for American-born players, Muzz would likely have been blown away by the fact that ten different American players have eclipsed the 1,000 career point plateau as of 2020.
Muzz, Lester & Lynn Patrick
Finally, Patrick addressed some thoughts on possible rule changes in the future;
"There's talk of a curved blue line. It would curve in toward the goalie. This way, if the centre has the puck at the blue line then his wings would be maybe 10 or 15 feet ahead of him, but they'd still be behind the curved blue line. That's one way we could help the offence if we find enough goals aren't being scored. If our goaltenders improve as much as they have in the last 20 years as they have in the last 20, it might be awfully hard to score a goal. But I think the shooters will improve too. That should even it up. But if the goaltenders are still ahead, we can make the net bigger. It's six feet wide now and four feet high. We could make it seven feet wide, maybe eight feet. It could be five feet high.
As for tie games:
I've got a solution to prevent ties. If the game is tied with two minutes to play, then each team is required to yank it's goaltender. If the tie gets broken, both teams can put back their goaltender. If tied again, both goaltenders must be yanked again. In other words, whenever the score is tied in the last two minutes, both goaltenders are off the ice.
The curved blue line idea is intriguing indeed, as is the forced pulling of goalies. Undoubtedly, both are far too radical even for current times, let alone in 1958. Truth is, during the 1957/58 season teams combined for an average of 5.60 goals per game, by 1978 the rate had risen to 6.60/game, nothing too extraordinary. Even with a spike to 8.00 goals/game in the early 1980's, the current rate is right around 6.00. Certainly not enough of a fluctuation to warrant an enlarging of the net our curving the blue line. It is interesting that Muzz Patrick continued thinking of innovative ways to improve the game of hockey as had his Father and Uncle, Lester and Frank Patrick had done 50 years previous.
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