The NHL used to play games on Christmas Day until the 1972–73 season. Over the years, from the first Christmas game on December 25, 1919, through the last games in 1971, there were a total of 125 games played on Christmas Day. I wrote about that 1919 game 10 years ago, but I didn’t realize until recently that NHL records showed the game to have been played on December 24. Stuart McComish, Senior Manager, Statistics and Research, for the NHL and I went over this last month.
Though it does appear the original newspaper stories about the 1919–20 schedule showed the first two games being played on December 24, 1919, the actual schedule had Toronto at Ottawa on December 23 and Montreal at Quebec on December 25. (The Canadiens won, 12–5). If you go looking for stories (other than mine!) about the first NHL game on Christmas Day, you’re likely to find the Toronto St. Patricks at the Montreal Canadiens on December 25, 1920 (Toronto 5, Montreal 4) … but the NHL has now updated their records. Here’s an ad for that 1919 Christmas game from The Quebec Chronicle, on Wednesday, December 24:
There were six NHL games on Christmas Day in 1971. The final game that night — the last NHL game ever played on Christmas — was a West Coast affair with the Los Angeles Kings hosting the California Golden Seals. The Seals won 3–1.
Los Angeles Times, December 25, 1971.
An earlier game that night in Toronto — Maple Leafs 5, Red Wings 3 — holds some significance in my family since it was the first game my brother David (a Christmas baby!) ever attended, with our father on his sixth birthday. (There’s no actual date in this image from The Toronto Star, so you’ll have to trust me that it’s from December 24, 1971.) I remember watching the Miami Dolphins beat the Kansas City Chiefs 27–24 in the longest overtime playoff game in NFL history earlier that evening, and then switching to the Leafs game on Hockey Night in Canada. I was looking for David and my Dad in the stands, but I never saw them…
And, well, because I’m Jewish, we’ll conclude with this. It’s not easy to find stories combining hockey and Hanukkah, so this, from The Toronto Star on December 20, 1973, is the best I could do!
No matter what holiday you celebrate at this time of year, I hope you have a happy one. And all the best to everybody for a happy and healthy — and peaceful — new year in 2025.
Hi Everyone. It’s been about a month since I posted a story. I don’t usually like to let longer than that go by, so here’s something new today. To be honest, it’s not much more than some self-promotion (with a good word for a few friends too). But, hey, whaddya want for nothing?!?
I have two new books out as we head into the holiday season. Amazing Hockey Trivia for Kids is the sixth in a series for Scholastic Canada. If you’ve got a child on your shopping list, ages 8 to 12 or so (older people say they like them too), these books have been very popular. Hockey Hall of Fame True Stories 2 is a sequel to Hockey Hall of Fame True Stories. (I wanted to call it True Stories Too). I had a lot of success with the first book in 2022, and I have high hopes — if somewhat nervously! — for this one.
I’ve also received or purchased a handful of other new hockey books for 2024. There’s Ian Kennedy’s Ice In Their Veins, which is a history of women’s hockey. (Ian covers women’s hockey for The Hockey News.) I haven’t read it yet, but the online reviews I’ve seen are excellent. There’s also Turk, a biography of Gerard Gallant. Admittedly, it’s not the type of hockey book I’d normally read, but a colleague who works for the publisher was gracious enough to send me a copy, so I’ll get to it.
Another book on my “get to it” list is Jack and the Box by Kevin Shea. Kevin’s books are always well-researched and well-written, and I know this story was very personal to him. I’m sure it will be excellent.
One new book I have read is Ronnie Shuker’s The Country and the Game. Highly recommended! Though there’s plenty of hockey in it, it’s not your typical hockey book. It’s a travelogue of his hockey adventures across Canada from coast to coast to coast and is filled with fascinating stories and interesting people. Ronnie is an author, editor, freelance writer, and an editor at large for The Hockey News. He did copy editing on both Hall of Fame True Stories books … but that’s not the reason I’m saying he’s an excellent writer!
As for Hockey Hall of Fame True Stories 2, it once again indulges my personal interest in stories from hockey’s past … and hopefully tells them more truthfully and accurately than they’ve usually been told before. There’s a chapter on the NHL trophies; on the early days of the Stanley Cup; on the rules that helped make modern hockey; on early international hockey; on the first hockey broadcasts on radio and television; and a final chapter about strange injuries and other oddities. Regular readers of these posts on my web site will recognize some of the stories, but there’ll be plenty that’s new.
Art Ross III never had any idea who this person was seated next to his grandfather. He suspected it was someone hired to portray one of the characters he had created for his many stories about life in smalltown Quebec.
I’ve often said — in these posts, and elsewhere — that I enjoy the research I do more than the writing. It’s always fascinating to me when trying to find one thing leads to something completely different. In this case, I was trying to track down the history behind the rule change in 1943–44 that introduced the center ice red line to hockey. I found plenty about that, but I also found this odd little tale that I had not seen years ago when research and writing Art Ross: The Hockey Legend Who Built the Bruins.
To be honest, this story doesn’t really fit any of the categories covered by the six chapters. I was also a little worried some people might find it politically incorrect. But, it made me laugh and so it found its way in. It’s actually the last story in the book, in the Injuries and Oddities chapter. It’s sort of an injury story … but it’s mostly an oddity.
The story appeared in Dink Carroll’s column in the Montreal Gazette on May 11, 1943. He was writing about a recent informal meeting of the NHL Governors, and noted that while sitting around in a suite in Montreal’s Windsor Hotel, Art Ross had been prevailed upon to tell “what has become known as ‘the Father Leveque story.’” He told it, wrote Carroll, “with obvious relish.”
Dink Carroll’s column from May 11, 1943 and the NHL Governors for 1943–44.
In setting the scene, Carroll notes the story dates back to the fall of of 1936, when Ross’s Boston Bruins played Tommy Gorman’s Montreal Maroons in a six-game exhibition tour of the Maritime Provinces prior to the 1936–37 NHL season. By the time they reached Saint John, New Brunswick, interest had built to the point where tickets were scarce. Both Art Ross and Tommy Gorman were being inundated with requests for seats.
On the afternoon of the game, Ross called up Gorman and said it was Father Leveque speaking. Art can talk Habitant dialect with the best of them and Gorman went for it, particularly as “Father Leveque” kept telling him that he had admired the great job Tommy had done as a newspaper man and then as a hockey manager. Tommy said yes, he remembered “Father Leveque” very well.
“Father Leveque” then said he was the principal of a boys school, and the boys were poor and he would like a few passes for the game. Could he possibly get them? Tommy said he thought he could handle it all right. “Just a few passes,” said Father Leveque. “There are 59 boys at the school and they all want to go to the game. Can I maybe have 59 passes?”
Tommy demurred . . . but “Father Leveque” again recollected the great job Tommy had done on the newspaper, and his glorious record in hockey. Tommy finally capitulated, saying he would pay for some of the seats himself.
“One more thing,” said “Father Leveque. “Are you sure the boys will be able to see from the seats?”
“Of course they will,” Tommy answered a little testily. “These will be the best seats in the house. They’ll be able to see fine.”
“That will be a miracle then,” said Father Leveque. “Because these boys are all blind.”
After an exhibition game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Montreal Wanderers four nights earlier, the first regular-season hockey game was held at Toronto’s new Arena Gardens on Mutual Street on Christmas night, December 25, 1912. (That’s coming up on a somewhat stylistically interesting – but not really significant – 111 years ago.)
In that season opener of the National Hockey Association (forerunner of the National Hockey League), the Canadiens beat the brand new Toronto Hockey Club (aka the Torontos, the Blueshirts, or the Blue Shirts), 9-5.
No matter what you celebrate at this time of year, I hope you have/had a happy one. And all the best to everybody for a happy and healthy — and peaceful — new year in 2024.
Canada won the World Championship in hockey on the weekend. Yay, us! But the tournament has never really attracted a lot of attention in this country. When Canada was dominating in the early days, everyone here knew the amateurs representing the country in Europe weren’t the best players we had to offer, since the pros in the NHL weren’t allowed. And, of course, that became our national excuse when the Soviet Union began to dominate during the 1960s.
The vast majority of Canadian hockey fans have always been much more interested in NHL teams and Stanley Cup victories than the World Championships. It’s also part of the reason why, when it comes to international hockey, we long for the “Best-on-Best” format of the Canada Cup/World Cup and so enjoyed the Winter Olympic tournaments of 1998 through 2018, when the NHL was allowing its best players to compete … which hasn’t been the case at the last two Winter Olympics.
Still, the victory on Sunday — 5–2 over Germany — gave Canada 28 world titles all-time; one more than the Soviets/Russians. So, again, yay us! That said, I barely paid any attention this year myself … but it was an interesting tournament. Latvia won the bronze medal by defeating the United States 4-3 in overtime for the first World Championship medal in that country’s history. Germany’s silver was their first medal since 1953. And, it was the first time the Germans faced Canada for gold since 1930 … which was the very first year the hockey World Championships were conducted separately from the Olympic Games.
And therein lies the rest of my story.
I guess it was in early May, back in 1994, when I first began to do some research into the 1930 World Championships. I had, by then, published my first book, the novel, Hockey Night in the Dominion of Canada, and had since managed to sell a few articles about sports history (mainly hockey) to various Toronto newspapers. With Canada en route to its first hockey World Championship in 33 years, I figured there would be (or maybe there already had been — I can’t remember!) plenty of stories coming out about the 1961 Trail Smoke Eaters. So, I thought, instead of re-hashing the last Canadian World Champion team, I would write something about the first one.
I remember reading a little bit about the 1930 tournament in the book Hockey is Our Game, by the esteemed Canadian sportswriter Jim Coleman. Coleman wrote that Canada was represented at the tournament by the 1929 Allan Cup champion Port Arthur Bearcats. That made sense to me, since I knew it was often the previous year’s Allan Cup champions — the senior amateur champions of Canada — who represented the country at the World Championships and Olympics in the early days of international hockey.
So, I went down to the Metro Toronto Reference Library to read through microfilm and see what I could find. Again, I can’t recall precisely, but my memory is I spent the whole day searching through either a Fort William or Port Arthur newspaper. (It’s possible I was searching through The Toronto Star or The Globe and Mail … but I don’t think so.) Anyway, I began in the fall of 1929, and just kept searching. The Port Arthur team started out playing their local season schedule … and kept on playing. As they did, I kept expecting to find a story one day saying they’d been invited to represent Canada overseas, and so had dropped out of the local hockey scene to head to Europe.
But then it was March and the playoffs were starting. And Port Arthur kept playing.
The Ports (as they seem to be called — not the Bearcats) won the Thunder Bay championship, and then defeated the Manitoba champion Elmwood Millionaires in a Western Canada semifinal. Meanwhile, the British Columbia champion Trail Smoke Eaters defeated the Alberta champion Blairmore Bearcats and then beat the Saskatchewan champion Saskatoon Quakers in the other Western semifinal (I looked all that up now) before Port Arthur eliminated Trail in the Western Final and advanced to play the Montreal AAA for the Allan Cup.
Even then, I still expected to find a story saying Port Arthur was going to bail on the Allan Cup and head over to Europe. I didn’t know yet that the 1930 World Championships had actually taken place between late January and early February. But then, I came across a photo in the newspaper of the Canadas Hockey Team of Toronto who had represented the country at the tournament!
Who were they?!?
I don’t remember when I began the research that would eventually lead me to write about the Toronto Canadas (who were actually the Toronto CCMs — more shortly). Nor do I remember how I tracked down a phone number for Jim Coleman. But I did. I don’t remember if he was still living in Toronto, or if he had already retired to Vancouver. Wherever he was, and however I got the number, I called him.
I told him he’d been mistaken in his book.
He couldn’t have cared less! Couldn’t have been ruder to me, actually.
(I shouldn’t hold a grudge, but nearly 30 years later, it’s still lessened my opinion of him!)
Anyway, I would come to learn the CCM sporting goods company had been entering a team in the Toronto Mercantile League since at least 1923. My brother Jonathan and I produced a short TV feature about the Toronto CCM team and the 1930 World Championship for TSN in 1997. Unfortunately, the Toronto Blue Jays fired manager Cito Gaston around the time our piece was supposed to air and we got bumped … but TSN did show it later, and it was pretty exciting for us.
I would later write about the team again for The Toronto Star on April 26, 2005. Much of what I’m about to say here comes from that story. As I wrote then, CCM won not only the Toronto Mercantile title in 1929, but also defeated the winners of the city’s Mining and Brokers League too, and that fall, CCM executive George S. Braden travelled to Europe on business. While there, he decided the growing number of hockey teams in Europe would benefit from increased exposure to Canadian teams. (He no doubt saw a lucrative new market for CCM merchandise too!)
Braden obtained permission from the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association to send the CCM team on a European tour. Since the International Ice Hockey Federation had decided to expand its annual European Championship into a World Championship in 1930, the Toronto team — wearing a white maple leaf on red sweaters and with the name “Canadas” emblazoned beneath — would represent the country at the new tournament.
Nine of the 11 men who had played for CCM’s championship team gathered at Union Station on December 5, 1929. One day later, goaltender Percy Timpson, defencemen Joe Griffin and Fred Radke, and forwards Gordie Grant, Wally Adams, Don Hutchison, Bert Clayton, Alec Park and Harold Armstrong, along with George Braden and coach Les Allan, set sail from Saint John, New Brunswick. They arrived in London on December 14 and defeated the British All-Stars 6-2 at the Wembley Ice Club three nights later.
Averaging a game every second night, the Canadas scored victory after victory en route to the World Championship, which was scheduled to begin January 27, 1930. Unfortunately, warm weather at the outdoor venue in Chamonix, France, pushed back the start until January 31. The round-robin system was abandoned in favor of a knockout format that would serve as the European Championship. With no U.S. team present, the Canadians were given a bye directly into the finals, where they would face the European champs for the World title.
To stay in shape while the European teams knocked each other out, the Canadas scheduled games in Vienna, and on February 7, 1930, during a stretch of three games in three nights, they dropped a 1-0 decision to the Austrian national team on an outdoor rink that had been waterlogged by a day of rain. They bounced back the next night with a 6-0 win over the Vienna Skating Club, then boarded a train for Berlin, where they would face Germany in the World Championship final (which had been relocated to an indoor arena) on February 10.
Buoyed by a hometown crowd and taking advantage of their weary opponents, Germany’s Gustav Jaenecke beat Percy Timpson for the game’s first goal, but Gordie Grant retaliated quickly. A few minutes later, Alec Park put the Canadas on top. Grant and Park scored again in the second period, while Red Armstrong and Joe Griffin tallied in the third for a 6-1 Canadian victory.
Back home in Canada, the World Championship victory was newsworthy, but hardly noteworthy. “The title is an empty one, of course,” wrote Toronto Star sports editor W.A. Hewitt in the paper on February 11, “and the Canadas will make no such pretensions when they come home. To their credit, however, they have played good hockey on their trip and plenty of it, and have done much to educate Europeans in the fastest of all sports.”
Having won the World Championship, the Canadas flew from Berlin to London and finished their tour. They arrived back in Toronto on the evening of February 25. In their 83 days abroad, the Canadas had travelled 22,500 kilometers, played 32 games, won 31, and outscored their opponents 304-26.
The City of Toronto held a small civic reception for the Canadas/CCM team at Union Station on the night of their return. In reporting on it in The Star on February 26, writer C.H. Good was quite complimentary of the team, and although his story mentions they would be “sure of a great reception when they show themselves at the Ravina rink where the Mercantile League first playoff game is scheduled, and also tomorrow noon when they will be guests of honor at a luncheon to be tendered by the West Toronto Kiwanis,” and, furthermore, that a civic dinner, or, at least “something of the sort” had been promised by the city fathers on hand at Union Station, I could find nothing to confirm any of it.
And so, Canada’s first World Champions of hockey soon faded into obscurity.
I wasn’t the first to uncover their tale, but I’ve certainly done my part.
Though I’m putting this out on April 11, I actually wrote it two days ago, on April 9. With the Blue Jays opening at home today, I’m waxing nostalgic about the home opener from 40 years ago, which was played on April 9, 1983. And, really, for that entire 1983 season.
What a great year!
So many memories…
My family has had Blue Jays seasons tickets since the moment they went on sale when the team began in 1977. I worked on the Blue Jays ground crew from 1981 until 1985. Those were the “Worst to First” years … and it’s hard for me to believe how long ago it was.
The Blue Jays ground crew. This might actually be 1985.
I am nothing like the sports fan I used to be. Though Lynn might tell you differently, I watch nowhere near the amount of hockey and baseball I used to. My two brothers still live and die a little with the Blue Jays. Even my mother does.
Me?
Well, I still enjoy baseball, but some times I feel like I only follow it as closely as I do out of loyalty to my younger self. Because, man, my younger self loved this team!
Our family was Blue Jays crazy … even with a team that lost more than 100 games in each of its first three seasons, and finished last (seventh place then) in the American League East five years in a row. That fifth season of 1981 was the strike year, when a big chunk of summer baseball was wiped out. The Blue Jays actually showed a lot of improvement in “the second half” of that season and, come 1982, I was optimistically predicting they would win 75 games. I remember us on the Ground Crew writing down our predictions and burying them under home plate before the season started … though I don’t ever remember digging them up to see if anyone had correctly predicted the Jays’ 78-82 record that year.
Celebrating the end of the season in 1982.
The 1982 Blue Jays finished strong. They went 44-37 in the final 81 games of the season, winning nine of their last 12. The 78th win was a 5-2 victory over the Seattle Mariners on the final day of the season, and moved the Jays out of seventh place … albeit into a tie for sixth and last with the Cleveland Indians. Jim Clancy pitched a complete game, and though there were only 19,064 at the game, the crowd roared as he came off the mound. Clancy, and several other Blue Jays, fired their hats up into the stands, where fans were shouting “We’re Number Six!” and “Bring on the Indians!”
The Maple Leafs were particularly terrible in the mid 1980s … so I couldn’t wait for spring and for baseball to start again.
The Blue Jays began the 1983 season in Boston on April 5, and I can clearly remember watching on TV in the Common Room at C House in Otonabee College at Trent University. Not a lot of other people were watching. Rance Mulliniks hit a two-run homer to cap a four-run second inning and the Blue Jays romped to a 7-1 win over Boston. But, after dropping the second game to the Red Sox, the Jays were 1-1 when they opened at home against the Yankees.
Jesse Barfield rounds the bases after three Yankees collided.
I don’t remember much about that game (I had to look up most of this), but I do remember the key play. The Jays had led 2-0 since the bottom of the second, but the bullpen (a crippling weakness all that season, and the next) coughed up two in the seventh and two in the eighth and the Yankees led 4-2. In the bottom of the eighth, Damaso Garcia led off with a single off Doyle Alexander, and the Yankees went to Goose Gossage, who was a little past his prime but still one of the most intimidating closers (we called them “stoppers” then) of his day. But Gossage walked Dave Collins and then gave up a run-scoring single to Willie Upshaw and it was 4-3. Surprisingly, Cliff Johnson laid down a bunt, moving Collins to third and Upshaw to second.
That’s when the key play happened.
Ernie Whitt was the batter, and he popped up into shallow right field. Collins was fast, but no way this ball was deep enough to score him. But then second baseman Willie Randolph, center fielder Jerry Mumphrey, and right fielder Steve Kemp all collided.
They didn’t need a pitch clock to play quickly back in 1983!
The ball fell in!
I leaped so high I hit my head on the bottom of the concrete roof atop the third base photographers dugout where I was watching the game! But it was worth the pain. Collins scored to tie the game, and then Jesse Barfield hit a three-run homer. Roy Lee Jackson — who had pitched poorly over 1 1/3 ineffective innings, helping to blow that 2-0 lead — pitched the top of the ninth and hung on to get the victory as the Jays won 7-4. (Jackson did this sort of thing so often, we used to call a reliever blowing the lead but getting the win “a Roy Lee victory.”)
The Jays actually struggled during that first month of the season, but won a huge game on April 19. I was back at university in Peterborough, where I had trouble getting radio reception in my dorm room. (Not a lot of TV coverage in those days.) But for some reason, I could tune in the game on my car radio in the parking lot behind C House. So, I was sitting out there on a cool evening, listening to the bottom of the ninth. The Jays were trailing Cleveland 7-5 when — with two outs — first Cliff Johnson and then Lloyd Moseby (after a Buck Martinez single) hit two-run homers to pull out a 9-7 victory.
The cover of Sports Illustrated … and my souvenir Lineup card.
That big win turned the season around, and the Jays won 22 of their next 35 games. When they moved into first place all alone in the AL East with a 7-6 win over Detroit on May 24, I took Bobby Cox’s team lineup card from the wall in the dugout to keep as a souvenir.
Toronto, Baltimore, New York and Milwaukee were all in a tight race for first throughout June, and when they reached the All-Star break on July 3, the Blue Jays were 44-33 and on top by a single game. Not only was it the first time Toronto had been in first place at the All-Star break, it was the first time the team had been anywhere other than last place! Three days later, Blue Jays ace Dave Stieb started, and won, the 50th anniversary All-Star Game.
The Jays remained in first place until July 25. But not everyone was a believer. I remember Duke Snider, the Hall of Fame player and Montreal Expos broadcaster, saying, “Water always finds its level, and so will the Blue Jays.” And Hal McRae of the Kansas City Royals said something along the lines of he didn’t think the Blue Jays would win the AL East because they never had. That seemed stupid to me! Nobody wins anything until the first time they win something.
The Blue Jays did begin to slip from contention in August, but there were still highlights. A doubleheader sweep of the Yankees on August 2 … and Dave Winfield sort of accidentally-on-purpose killing a seagull with a throw two nights later. Still, it all fell apart late in August at the end of a two-week road trip with a series of crushing, last-inning losses in Baltimore and Detroit.
Monday Night Baseball came to Toronto on July 18, 1983.
Our family was in Detroit, visiting our American cousins, when the Jays played the Tigers. At least 10 of us were at the first game of the series on Friday night, which was a tense, tight, 3-3 tie through nine innings. With no faith anymore in our terrible bullpen, Bobby Cox stuck with starter Jim Gott to pitch the bottom of tenth … and, with two out, he gave up a game-losing homer to Alan Trammell.
Jim Gott was the friendliest Blue Jays player during my five years on the ground crew, and before the Jays set out on that long road trip, I had asked him if he would be able to put aside tickets for my brothers and me for the Saturday game in Detroit. Of course, at that time, I had no idea he’d been pitching on Friday night … nor how devastating that game would be. Still, on Saturday morning, he called at my aunt and uncle’s house to tell me he’d got the tickets.
(My family’s end of the bargain was that we were going to invite him and his wife to dinner after the season … but he never followed up on that. I was in touch with Gott via email through the Los Angeles Dodgers about 10 years ago and reminded him that we still owed him dinner! He didn’t follow up then either.)
Tiger fans celebrate Chet Lemon’s homer.
The Jays won that Saturday afternoon, and on Sunday, we drove back to Toronto from Detroit listening to the game on the car radio. The Jays were leading 2-1 heading into the bottom of the ninth when the bullpen struck again. Dave Geisel, who’d come on with two out in the seventh and done well since then, got the first out in the ninth, but then walked Lance Parrish. Bobby Cox went to Randy Moffitt (brother of tennis star Billie Jean King), who retired Glenn Wilson on a screaming line drive for the second out of the inning.
Maybe Cox always planned to use Moffitt for just one batter.
Or maybe the loud out changed his mind.
Whatever the reason, Cox made the switch to our supposed relief ace, Joey McLaughlin.
Tigers first baseman Rick Leach singled on McLaughlin’s second pitch.
Then, on Joey’s third pitch to Chet Lemon, the Tigers’ centerfielder smashed a three-run homer.
At that point, we had turned off the 401 at London for either a late lunch or an early dinner. That part, I can’t quite remember. But, what I can clearly recall is that as we drove up to the restaurant (a Swiss Chalet) in stunned silence, my father asked, “Anybody still feel like eating?”
None of us did.
So he turned the car around and got back on the highway.
A special Toronto Star section celebrating the 1983 season.
The Blue Jays finished in fourth place in 1983 with a record of 89-73, but were only nine games out of first. It took another two years, and the addition of Tom Henke to the bullpen, before they finally won the American League East in 1985.
It was another seven seasons until the first of back-to-back World Series titles.
It’s now been 30 years since that second Blue Jays championship.
We’re still waiting for the third.
Maybe this is the year.
Maybe not…
But, I guess I’ll remain loyal to my younger self a little while longer.
Christmas/New Years greetings from an ad in the Owen Sound Times on December 8, 1871. And a Hanukkah story from a few years later, on December 7, 1915.
And, in keeping with the usual theme, Owen Sound opened a new indoor ice rink just after New Year’s in 1893, which was a big boon to local hockey. Clippings from the Times of January 5 and 12, 1893:
And, finally, thank you to everyone who had anything to do with the success of this book; those at Firefly Books who helped me get the job done … and to those of you who bought a copy!
From the Toronto Star, December 17, 2022. Slipped a bit this week, which will be reflected in Saturday’s newspaper. But it’s been fun while it’s lasted!
Whatever you celebrate at this time of year, have a happy and safe one!
Here in Owen Sound, we didn’t quite get the 7 feet of snow they got in some areas around Buffalo this past weekend. Still, the 2-or-so feet we got was plenty for mid November! But, as the old saying goes, It’s an ill wind that blows no one any good, and so the storm put me in mind of a story. One that — by happy coincidence — is told in my new book, Hockey Hall of Fame True Stories.
On March 4, 1971, 18 inches of snow fell on Montreal in the space of just 12 hours. As a result, mayor Jean Drapeau asked NHL president Clarence Campbell to suspend the game that night between the hometown Canadiens and the Vancouver Canucks. Reports at the time noted that NHL games had been canceled before. (In the wake of the deaths of King George V and King George VI of England and the assassinations of U.S. president John F. Kennedy in 1963 and of Martin Luther King in 1968. Another game had been canceled in 1950 when heat inside the Boston Garden caused fog over the ice.) But it was generally noted that the Canadiens–Canucks game was the first in the NHL ever to be canceled by weather.
The storm of February 20, 1924, was front-page news in these Ottawa papers.
Bill Westwick, longtime sports editor of the Ottawa Journal, knew that wasn’t true. “After reading for the third time the uncorrected claims that in the recent snow storms a major league hockey game was cancelled in Montreal by weather ‘for the first time in the history of the National League,’” Westwick wrote on March 10, 1971, “the urge must be strong among just a few remaining members of Ottawa’s one-time almost unbeatable National League teams to say: ‘It just ain’t so.’”
Westwick then spun the incredible tale of the Senators’ ill-fated train trip to Montreal on February 20, 1924. It’s an account that is more than backed up by Ottawa newspapers from the time.
More on the team’s travel problems on the front page of the Ottawa Journal (left) and Citizen (right).
Ottawa was scheduled to face the Canadiens in Montreal that night and because of the threat of bad weather, the Senators decided to catch an early train. “All the players were rounded up and ordered to board the Canadian National express, which left at noon,” reported the Ottawa Citizen on February 21, 1924.
But trouble was already in the air. The train was late arriving from Pembroke because of the snowstorm and didn’t pull out of Ottawa’s Union Station until 1:30 p.m. It had barely gotten out of the city before it was held up again, awaiting a snowplow to be sent ahead and clear the track. This time the train got as far as Rockland, Ontario, about 25 miles (40 km) east, where it was delayed again due to a freeze-up in the water tank.
Many members of the 1923 Stanley Cup champs were stuck on the train that night.
“There was no great danger that the Ottawas would be delayed,” reported the Citizen, “until shortly after Hawkesbury [another 37 miles / 60 km] was passed.” Just a short distance farther, near Cushing Junction, “a terrific blizzard” was raging. Another snowplow had gotten stuck and the train couldn’t get through. By then it was a little after five o’clock.
From 5:30 p.m. until 2 a.m., the players and other passengers were stranded on the train, with practically no provisions. The game in Montreal was, of course, canceled. A plow was finally able to get through to the train and clear the tracks enough to get everyone back to Hawkesbury, where the train sat until some time after 4 a.m. when the line was cleared sufficiently for departure.
The Canadiens went on to win the Stanley Cup in 1924 and wore these uniforms in 1924-25 to commemorate their ‘World’ championship.
Montreal was only about 60 miles (100 km) away, but it wasn’t until 8:30 a.m. that the train finally arrived. The Senators slept the day away at the Windsor Hotel on February 21 before showing up at the Mount Royal Arena for the reschedule game that evening. Reports say the Ottawa team was never really in the game, and they were beaten by the Canadiens 3-0.
There were lots of strange goings-on during the Senators’ ill-fated train ride to Montreal, but to get the whole story, you’ll have to read Hockey Hall of Fame True Stories!
Finally, congratulations to the Toronto Argonauts on their Grey Cup victory over the weekend. Though I’m far from the fan I used to be, the Argos will always be my first favourite team with many memories of my father. And, good luck to the Canadian soccer team this afternoon in their first game at the 2022 World Cup! Before I wrote a book about North American football for National Geographic Kids this year (It’s a Numbers Game! Football), I wrote a book about the game the rest of the world calls football (Absolute Expert: Soccer) back in 2018.
It was 30 years ago, almost exactly to the day, that a box arrived at our house containing author’s copies of my first book. A few days later, on November 1, 1992, my parents hosted a launch party. I was 29 years old. Still living at home. Wouldn’t be married for another four years. Definitely the greatest day of my life to that point. And it still ranks pretty high!
I’m 59 years old now, and pushing 50 books to my credit … which doesn’t even count all the books to which I contributed during 20+ years with Dan Diamond & Associates, helping to produce publications for the NHL. Many of my titles over the years have been non-fiction books for children. I’d never envisioned myself as a children’s author, but, I have to admit, it’s been a pretty good gig! To be honest, I’m not sure I ever envisioned myself as a hockey writer either. My first book — although strongly hockey-themed — was a novel, and, I suppose, I imagined I’d become a sports novelist.
By Canadian standards, Hockey Night in the Dominion of Canada, was a modest success. I was paid an advance of $3,000. (I remember my father saying, “write 20 of them a year and you’re doing OK.” I also remember seeing a Harold Lloyd silent movie from the 1920s where his character was paid an advance of $3,000 for a book he had written, so that gives you a pretty good idea about the publishing industry!)
Hockey Night “earned out,” as they say in the book business, and I received another $300 in royalties on sales. That’s $3,300 … for just over two years work. Since then, some of those nearly 50 books didn’t even earn that much, although at least one has earned more than 20 times that amount. So, writing hasn’t exactly been a road to riches, but I’ve certainly enjoyed it most of the time.
Following up on Hockey Night, I had an idea for a second hockey-related novel. I did a ton of research, and even wrote a few chapters, but it never happened. Years, later, I was at least able to use the research for one of my non-fiction children’s books. But I also remember thinking, “if a novel about hockey made $3,300 in Canada, a similar novel with a baseball theme for the United States should earn $33,000 just because the potential audience would be 10 times larger!”
I started writing that novel in 1995. Baseball plays a part in it, but not nearly to the extent that hockey did in Hockey Night. It’s essentially an historical fiction/time travel story. I wrote about 16 chapters at the time, but put it aside a couple of years later. I often said I stopped working on it when my father died, and while that was true, it was more because I was married by then, was a step-father to a school-aged daughter, and needed to find a full-time job.
Within a few years, I was able to combine my NHL work with writing books about hockey for kids, and have since written several adult hockey books too. (It certainly helped to be “Eric Zweig, of Total Hockey!”) All but one of those books was non-fiction. Still, I never gave up on that other novel. It was often in my head, and sometimes I would even get back to it, mostly re-writing the chapters I’d already written while trying to figure out how to advance the story.
When my association with the NHL ended in 2018, I sort of figured I was done with hockey. It was time to get back to the novel. But offers to do more hockey books, and kids books, kept coming in! I’m certainly not complaining. Turns out, I still mostly enjoy the work, and some of the projects even paid decent money. Others covered subjects I really wanted to write about. (Like the Kenora Thistles!)
Finally, this past January, with nothing new on the immediate horizon, I got back to my novel. I’m pretty close to finished it now, and I’m pretty happy with it! Still, it’s the first thing I’ve written since Hockey Night came out 30 years ago that doesn’t have a publisher attached to it already, so it’s a little scary too. I’ve called on a couple of contacts, who are willing to help out when I’m ready (which I will be soon), so it’s also pretty exciting!
Also, I’ll be at the Sports Card Expo at the International Center near Pearson Airport in Toronto on November 10-13 at the Rat Portage Press table with the Thistles book. My publisher, Rick Brignall, will have copies of other hockey books he’s done, and I’ll probably have some of my other new titles there as well. Come on by if you’re in the area.
And, we’re still working on dates for potential events in Kenora and Winnipeg in November … so I’ll keep everyone posted on those when we have them.
It was 50 years ago today, on September 28, 1972, that Paul Henderson scored to win for Team Canada. As I indicated in the story I posted three weeks ago, I know that goal — that series — is a big reason why I became the sports fan I remain to this day. I played plenty of sports, too, over the years, and I also know — perhaps like most of us who don’t become professional athletes — that my greatest moments came when I was still a kid.
I suppose my greatest personal accomplishment was winning the Grade 9 scoring title in the Zion Heights intramural football league early in the 1977-78 school year. In a five-game season, I scored nine touchdowns and three two-point converts for a total of 60 points. I was a tight end. We didn’t throw the ball much, and I scored most of those points running the “end around” play. Good as I was that year, our team lost the championship game, and as Richard Jacobson would constantly remind me over the years, I couldn’t block him.
Truth was, I couldn’t block anyone! I didn’t like blocking. I didn’t like getting hit either. I just wanted to run and catch. I’m sure my friend Jody Munro will remember the Zion game when I was taken down hard (pretty close to a tree along the sidelines, as I recall). I rolled over and moaned, “Now I KNOW I’m dead!”
My best hockey team. Andrew Morrison Real Estate. I missed the picture at Mitchell Field, so that’s me in the inset. The captain is Carey MacIntyre, standing in front of his dad and our coach, Andy. Ross Takahuchi is holding the white helmet. Andrew Spitzer is our goalie. My defense partner Blake is next to him with the yellow helmet.
Not surprisingly, it was touch football where I really excelled.
The team championships I won came in hockey a few years earlier. When I started playing house league hockey in grade four, I was pretty terrible. My brother David, who is two years younger, also started playing that year and wasn’t very good either. But that summer, we went to the Roger Crozier Hockey School in Barrie, Ontario, near our cottage on Lake Simcoe. It was only for a week, but we learned from some NHL players (Dale Rolfe of the Rangers and Andy Bathgate, who was retired at that point) among other instructors. Both of us improved greatly!
I’m lower middle, next to the goalie. John Romain is behind me to the right. Richard Weait is in my row on the far right. Mostly thanks to Facebook, I’m still in touch with them to this day!
That coming winter, I played for John Elliott Real Estate in my second year as an atom in the Willowdale Boys Club. I was now an indispensable offensive defenseman. (I remember one day, when a forward got hurt, and I volunteered to play the wing in his place, our coach said, “you play good enough offense from defense.”) I won the trophy for Most Improved Player that year, and helped my team win the league title.
The next year, I began my minor peewee season with Jerrett’s Funeral Home. (Honestly!) We started strong, but this was still house league. They liked to keep the teams well-balanced, and after a few weeks the league often made trades to keep things even. I remember getting a call from the convenor of the league saying the coach from Andrew Morrison Real Estate wanted me. It was my choice, and I agonized over it. (I think, after that year, they no longer gave kids the choice when they made trades.) I didn’t want to go, but I remember my father saying, “The coach wants you. He thinks you can help his team.”
So, I said yes.
It was a great call!
David wears the A, standing in the middle. Beside him is family friend Joel Waldman. The goalie is our cousin, Bob Freedman. (Bobby back in those days.)
Maybe the team would have improved anyway, but I helped them win the championship that year. This was a pretty strong team, led on offense by the coach’s son, Carey MacIntyre, and Ross Takahuchi. I played defense with Blake Jacobs. He was the Charlie Huddy to my Paul Coffey. (In those days, I’d have thought of myself more as Bobby Orr — although I knew I wasn’t that good!) Our goalie was Andrew Spitzer; the best in the league.
During that season with Andrew Morrison (1974-75), I had what I consider to be my own personal Team Canada story. (Andrew, if you read this, I’d love to know if you remember!)
At some point during the winter, we played an exhibition game against a team from Keswick, Ontario. Keswick was (and still is) a very small town about an hour north of Toronto. I guess we were snooty, big city kids (even though we all lived in the northern suburbs). We thought, “no way these country bumpkins are going to beat us!”
Youngest brother Jonathan was a goalie. Family friend Howard Hamat to his left. Paul Fillman to the right. (Except for the little guy standing at the top left, I can actually remember the names of everyone here!)
I think we played on a Sunday morning at Mitchell Field, which was an outdoor arena where our teams often practiced. The Keswick kids killed us! I think it was 7-1. I remember being outclassed and exhausted — which must have been how Team Canada felt after that stunning first game loss to the Soviets.
Some time later, we went up to Keswick for a return game. This one was played in what I remember as a pretty large indoor arena, after which we all had dinner together in a banquet room attached to the rink. I don’t remember the score of this one (it may have been 4-3), but we played so much better and we beat them by a single goal.
My personal highlight came late in the game, as we were hanging on to our one-goal lead. A Keswick player was on a breakaway. I closed in on him, and then launched myself along the ice to attempt a diving hook check. It was a play I’d pulled off before, having first seen it demonstrated in an instructional film at Roger Crozier’s.
As I reached my stick between this guy’s skates, he started to teeter off balance. I managed to hook the puck away, but I definitely remember thinking, “If he goes down, they’re going to call a penalty shot.” He didn’t — he probably should have! — and I pulled it off. The crisis was averted, and we won the game.
I didn’t score the winning goal, but I still remember that play as my Paul Henderson moment.
It was September of 1972. I was only eight years old — wouldn’t turn nine until late October — and in grade four at Snowcrest Public School. (That’s fourth grade, for those of you who speak American.) I started playing hockey that year too, although I wasn’t very good yet.
There’s actually quite a lot I still remember about that school year.
But nothing was bigger than the Canada-Russia series!
You can pretty much draw a straight line — well, maybe not all that straight, really — from that series in 1972 (it wasn’t called the Summit Series until some time later) to today, and what I do for a living 50 years later, and have been doing for more than 30 years. So, how could I not write about it?
That being said, I really don’t have anything new to contribute to the collective memory. Even my one bit of original insight is discussed (a little bit) in Ken Dryden’s new book, The Series: What I Remember, What It Felt Like, What It Feels Like Now.
I came to know Ken when he was president of the Toronto Maple Leafs. (He has helped me, from time to time over the years, with answers to questions for some of my own projects.) We at Dan Diamond & Associates did a lot of work with the Leafs when they were moving from Maple Leafs Gardens to the Air Canada Centre (now the Scotiabank Arena) and Ken and Dan became good friends. He came to a few of our office Christmas parties and curling bonspiels.
At one of those events, I’d mentioned to Ken that I’d recently watched the entire ’72 series, which had come out on DVD around that time, and how exciting it still was! This was probably in 2002. At that point, Ken had never seen the games since having played in them 30 years before. I asked him how come he and the others who had played with the Canadian national team (the Nats) before going pro hadn’t been able to impart to their Team Canada teammates just how good the Russians really were. He basically told me, “I thought the NHL players were that much better.”
A Ken Dryden hockey card from the time period… and Ken and my brother Jonathan at a Dan Diamond bonspiel attempting to replicate Dryden’s famous goalie stick pose with curling brooms.
Dryden had seen the Soviet team in action for the first time when he joined the Nats for the 1969 World Championships in Sweden in March. He would face them for the first time on December 20, 1969. Dryden writes that the game was in Victoria, but it was actually in Vancouver. The Nats beat the Soviets the next night in Victoria 5-1 with Wayne Stephenson in goal, but in Vancouver on the 20th, they’d beaten Dryden and the Canadians 9-3.
“Rod Seiling,” says Dryden of his Team Canada teammate in his new book, “had played against the Russians with the national team, Red Berenson [another new teammate] with the Belleville McFarlands, and a few others against touring Russian teams as juniors. And when I said the Russians were good, I knew they were — I’d lost, 9-3, in Victoria! Some of the others might have known too. [Brian Glennie, who was with Team Canada, had played at the 1968 Olympics.] But the Russians had only been good against the national team and junior teams, few of whose players ever played a minute in the NHL. This was Team Canada. These were NHL stars, the best in the world. So, I knew, but really, I only kind of knew.”
As for me, at the age of eight … I knew nothing!
I didn’t even know there was such a thing as international hockey. Had no idea of the string of Soviet successes. I’m not 100 percent certain I actually remember the announcement that was made in April of 1972 that the series would happen, or the unveiling of the roster in June. But I certainly do remember the fuss about Bobby Hull being ineligible for the team because he’d left the NHL to sign with the World Hockey Association. And I remember all the talk of how Canada would beat the Russians in all eight games.
Dryden with the Nats facing the Russians in Vancouver, from the Vancouver Sun, December 22, 1969.
I believed it
Why wouldn’t I?
Like I said, I knew nothing about international hockey. I’d watched the Apollo moon landings, but I really knew nothing of the Space Race either. The Russians might as well have been men from the moon as far as I knew. We played hockey in Canada. No one else did! There were plenty of American teams in the NHL … but all the players were Canadians.
Of course we’d win all eight games!
Game one was played on September 2, (a Saturday night) in Montreal. We watched in Toronto at my Zweig grandparents’ apartment. My grandfather had died at the end of August. This was still a night of sitting shiva, the weeklong mourning period in Judaism. I was at the apartment with my mother and father and my two brothers. I remember my father’s Uncle Abe being there too. I think Uncle Saul as well. (They were my grandmother’s brothers.) I’d been to my grandfather’s funeral just five days before … but the memories are completely separate.
What I remember from that night is the excitement of Canada’s two quick opening goals; Phil Esposito after just 30 seconds, and Paul Henderson’s goal six minutes later. I don’t remember when it dawned on us that the Soviets were starting to take over. I do remember it was 4-2 for them after two periods, and that the heat in Montreal was making our guys look slow, sweaty, and tired. (Did I realize how much it was the Russians making us look slow, sweaty, and tired? I don’t remember.) I do remember Bobby Clarke scoring in the third period to cut the lead to 4-3, and that it was all downhill after that until the 7-3 final.
Was I stunned?
I can’t really say that I was.
When you’re eight years old, I think you take the world as it comes.
I don’t remember anything hockey from the Sunday off day, but Monday was Labour Day so Tuesday was a school day. For that reason, I was only allowed to watch the first period of game two from Toronto on Monday night. I may have listened to more on the radio after going to bed, but I’m sure I didn’t know the final score (Canada won, 4-1) until I woke up on Tuesday morning. I don’t remember talking about it at school … although we must have! I do remember talking to my friend, Alan Rusonik, later in the week about the Soviet national anthem. We all liked that!
On September 6, I likely watched only the first period of game three from Winnipeg as well. That one ended in a 4-4 tie. What I actually do remember about that game came the next day, when a young woman who was going to Seneca College arrived at our house. She would be living in a bedroom in our basement that school year, and helping to look after my brothers and me. The first thing I remember Cheryl saying to us was, “Don’t you think they should be playing overtime in a series like this?”
I knew I was going to like her!
But, of course, that tie game would later help in the dramatic finish.
A recent real estate picture of the house at 44 Beardmore, where my cousins used to live.
Game four, in Vancouver, was played 50 years ago tonight, on September 8, which was a Friday in 1972. We watched that one at our cousin’s, the Freedman’s, house. As it wasn’t a school night, I guess we were allowed to stay up and watch it all, but I can’t say I remember too much of this one either.
I do remember the booing.
Especially when Frank Mahovlich fell on top of Soviet goalie Vladislav Tretiak … and took way too long to get up off him.
I must have seen Phil Esposito’s speech after the game, where he basically took Canadian fans and media to task for the boos and bad press. I’ve seen the clip many times in recent years, so it’s hard to be sure what I know and what I remember. It’s possible that I mainly remember it from pictures in the book Twenty-Seven Days in September, which came out in 1973, and which I’m sure I studied more closely than any school book I ever read.
After the Vancouver game, the series took a two-week break before it resumed in Moscow. The Canadian players had a few days off, and then travelled to Sweden for a pair of exhibition games with the Swedish national team. There was no coverage of those games here in Canada, but I do remember the bad press and the Swedes accusing the Canadians of being thugs.
Game five, the first game in Moscow, was played on September 22. Another Friday. I watched the opening ceremonies, with the exchange of gifts and flowers, while I was home for lunch. Definitely saw Espo slip and fall, then bow to the crowd. And then it was back to school.
At some point that afternoon, probably after recess, I remember just walking out of my classroom. Mr. McMinn’s class was up the hall. His kids were what we called “the slow learners.” They had a TV in their room. I suppose they used it to watch Sesame Street, or other educational programs on TVO. This afternoon, they were watching the hockey game!
I sat in the hallway, outside the door, and listened.
I can still sort of see myself, sitting there.
I don’t really remember what I heard, but I know that Canada blew a 4-1 lead in that game and lost 5-4. Still, the noisy gang of 3,000 Canadian fans in the stands cheered the team off the ice. Team Canada trailed the series 3-1-1 … but the tide was about to turn.
I don’t remember if, back in Canada, we knew what was going on in Moscow at the time. Over the years, we’ve heard about the phones ringing all night. The food (and beer) disappearing. (I feel like I knew about that at the time.) I also don’t remember any discussion of Bobby Clarke’s slash to the ankle of Valeri Kharlamov in game six. In fact, for some reason, I don’t remember much of game six at all. It was played on a Sunday afternoon, Toronto time. I remember hearing some of it in the car while running errands with my father.
I have no idea why I wasn’t at home watching.
Around the back of Snowcrest, my public school. That’s the gym on the left, and what we called the “open area” on the right. The upper windows at the back were my classroom in grades five and six. I was pacing this pavement anxiously at recess during game eight.
Radio would play a big part in my following game seven on Tuesday afternoon. Once again, I watched the early part of the game on TV at lunchtime, but this time I brought a transistor radio to school with me. I remember listening to it while walking in the school yard. Might still have been lunch time, but definitely at recess later.
It was 2-2 after two periods … and Canada needed to win this game to have a chance to win the series in game eight. Back at my desk in our classroom, I turned the radio down, but I didn’t turn it off. Our teacher, Ms. Tadman (the first Ms. I ever knew) didn’t seem like a hockey fan (I remember her as a terrible skater), but she said something to me along the lines of, “if you’ve got a radio, turn it up so we can all hear.” Which I did … and we listened to Canada score a 4-3 victory. The series was tied 3-3-1.
Two days later, for the eighth and final game, Ms. Tadman brought a TV into our classroom!
Again, I don’t really know what I remember because I saw it that afternoon or what I remember because I know it happened. There were all the bad penalty calls early in the game. There was J.P. Parise nearly swinging his stick at the referee. Later, there was the goal judge failing to turn on the light to signal a Canadian goal, and the players skating across the ice to rescue Alan Eagleson from the Soviet police after he’d protested.
As for the score, it was 2-2 after one period, but it was 5-3 Russia after two.
One of the things I remember for certain was that, when it was time for recess, the school made us go out and play. Normally, recess was my favourite part of the day, but that day, I wanted to stay inside and watch the game! I guess because we’d have the TV in our classroom, I hadn’t brought my radio this time so it was 15 minutes of pacing outside and waiting to get back in!
Prudential Insurance Great Moments painting of the Paul Henderson goal along with Henderson’s Team Canada hockey card.
I don’t know for sure, but I think I saw the early third-period goal by Phil Esposito that cut the lead to 5-4, and I’m certain I saw the later goal from Yvan Cournoyer that tied it 5-5. But another thing I remember for sure is that when our school day ended at 3:10, the game wasn’t over yet.
Ms. Tadman didn’t make us leave this time … but I know that plenty of kids left anyway!
Were they crazy!?!
Of course, I stayed. And I saw Paul Henderson’s goal with 34 seconds left.
I watched Canada hold on for the 6-5 victory.
I remember throwing things into the air.
I can’t honestly say if that was after the goal, or after the game ended.
Maybe it was both times.
But it doesn’t matter.
Clearly, after 50 years, I can’t remember it all … but I’ll still never forget it!
