Nitzy's Hockey Den

Here is another unidentified hockey photo, this time involving the Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens. For starters, it's a really cool shot clearly showing Habs great, Jean Beliveau being restrained by an official. The player he's trying to get at, seems to be longtime Maple Leaf #10, George Armstrong. Let's start there.  Both Beliveau and Armstrong began their careers in the early 1950's and played through 1970/71. The Leafs added numbers to their sweater sleeves for the 1962/63 season and they added a tie-down to the neck for 1958/59, so that narrows it down somewhat. Looking closely at the left of the photo, hovering in the back beyond the full glare of the photographer's flash bulb (notice the photo is taken ON the ice as was common back then), is the easily identified Leaf, Sid Smith. In addition, we see that Smith is wearing the captain "C" which he only did for one season, 1955/56. Now we're getting somewhere. The Maple Leaf directly behind

It's been a while since I've done an unidentified vintage hockey photo, heck it's been a while since I've done ANY post. Let's change that. I recently came across a few more great old hockey pics that need identification. The one above picturing the Maple Leafs and Red Wings is a fun one. Firstly, It's easy to identify the Leaf on the left as Bob Pulford. He was a staple of the Leafs in the late 1950's through the 1960's. The other Leaf appears to be Bert Olmstead based on his face alone. He was a Leaf from 1958 through 1962, so that narrows the date down a bit. When we look at NHL Uniform Database  we see that Toronto wore this specific sweater only in those same seasons ('58 - '62). The team added numbers to the sleeves in 1962/63, so this photo definitely pre-dates that season. Now, to the Red Wings goalie. of course, Terry Sawchuk wore number one and tended goal for the majority of Detroit's games over this timeframe. This guy is NOT Sawc