The official publication date is still October 1, but more and more book sites are noting that The Mammoth Book of Hockey Trivia is now in stock. If you don’t have one yet, you can order it here, or get it at any place you like to buy your books. And if you do have it, and like it, feel free to give it an online review.

I didn’t get a lot of guidance from the publisher when I started working on this book. The key thing was, “give us lots!” So, I did. I think the manuscript I submitted was 125,000 words, and more was added to bulk it up. But, in the end, we had to cut some things too. The book still comes in at 496 pages, so there’s lots to read. Some of the cuts included a short chapter on NHL Captains, and since I’ve still got all the information and I’ve got this web site, I figured I’d post some of it here…

RULE 6
Rule 6 in the NHL rule book is about captains and alternate captains. One Captain shall be appointed by each team, and he alone shall have the privilege of discussing with the Referee any questions relating to interpretation of rules which may arise during the progress of a game. Either one Captain and no more than two Alternate Captains (we always referred to them as assistant captains), or no Captain and no more than three Alternate Captains are permitted. The designated players shall wear the letter “C” or “A” approximately three inches (3”) in height and in contrasting color, in a conspicuous position on the front of his sweater. No co-Captains are permitted.

C IS FOR CAPTAIN
It was for the 1947–48 season that the NHL rule book was updated to say a team captain shall wear the letter “C” on the front of his sweater. Captains in hockey pre-date the NHL in 1917, and have likely been part of the game since the beginning, but prior to 1947, there was no requirement for a public display of who was a team’s captain. Some NHL captains had already been wearing the letter previously, as can be seen in some team pictures and newspaper photos from the 1946–47 season. It’s said that the practice evolved from soccer, in which captains wear armbands.

GOALIE CAPTAINS
JOHN ROSS ROACH
John Ross Roach was the first of six goalies in NHL history to officially serve as team captain. Roach was captain of the Toronto St. Patricks for the 1924–25 season. According to The Toronto Daily Star on November 18, 1924, Roach had been the unanimous choice of his teammates at their first practice of the season the day before.

THREE IN 1932–33
On October 31, 1932, at an NHL meeting in Toronto, the league added a rule compelling teams to have a captain on the ice at all times. If the regular captain was on the bench, a pro-tem leader would be named and the referee advised. In order to comply with the rule, three teams named their goalie to be their captain for the 1932–33 season. Alec Connell of the Ottawa Senators was identified as team captain in The Ottawa Citizen on November 3, 1932. Montreal Canadiens manager Leo Dandurand named George Hainsworth as captain on November 9, 1932. Roy Worters of the New York Americans also served as team captain that season.

CHARLIE GARDINER
On November 7, 1933, newspapers reported goalie Charlie Gardiner had been elected captain of the Chicago Black Hawks for the 1933–34 season. “If Major Frederic McLaughlin’s promise was all they needed,” the papers said, “Chicago Black Hawks would be just as good as in possession of the Stanley Cup right now. After seeing Charlie Gardiner elected captain yesterday, the Major, owner of the Chicago club, predicted this year’s edition of the Hawks would bring Chicago its first world championship.”

Charlie Gardiner became a bright spot on a weak Chicago team when he broke in with the Black Hawks in their second season of 1927–28. In 1930–31, he helped lead Chicago to the Stanley Cup Final and was named to the First Team the first time an NHL All-Star Team was selected. Gardiner won the Vezina Trophy and was also a First-Team All-Star in 1931–32. As team captain in 1933–34, he earned those honors again and led Chicago to the Stanley Cup as Major McLaughlin had predicted. Gardiner is the only goalie in NHL history to have his name engraved on the Stanley Cup as team captain.

Tragically, barely two months after leading his team to the Stanley Cup over the Detroit Red Wings on April 10, 1934, Charlie Gardiner was dead at the age of 29. He had played the entire 1932–33 season while suffering from tonsillitis and was never quite able to beat the disease despite repeated hospital visits. The infection grew steadily and spread to his kidneys. His health problems flared up throughout the 1933–34 season, often leaving him in severe pain, yet he played through it. Gardiner passed away on June 13, 1934, in Winnipeg, the city he had grown up in after coming to Canada from Scotland with his parents as a boy. The attending physician attributed Gardiner’s brain hemorrhage to the tonsil and kidney infections. He ruled out any link to hockey injuries.

BILL DURNAN
The records of both the Montreal Canadiens and the NHL have long noted that Bill Durnan shared the captaincy of the Montreal Canadiens with Toe Blake in 1947–48. However, Durnan and Blake first shared the captaincy a year before, in 1946–47. A team picture long identified as being from the 1947–48 season shows both Blake and Durnan with a C on their sweater, but the photograph was actually taken in 1946–47. (The picture includes both Buddy O’Connor and Frank Eddols, who had both played for the Canadiens for several seasons but were traded to the New York Rangers on August 19, 1947.) Analysis done by author Pat Laprade and Carl Lavigne, former manager of research for the Canadiens, shows that Blake and Durnan often shared the captaincy throughout the 1946–47 season. In checking the game sheets for 54 of the 60 games played during the 1946–47 season, Durnan and Blake both have the C next to their names 36 times. In total, Durnan was listed as captain on the game sheets 47 times and Blake 43 times. Further checks were made in newspapers from the time and it was often seen that for the same game there was a photo of Durnan and another of Blake both wearing the C.

Toe Blake was first named captain of the Canadiens for the 1940–41 season. After sharing the duties with Bill Durnan in 1946–47, Blake resumed the captaincy alone for the 1947–48 season. Of the 32 games Blake played that year before suffering a career-ending broken right ankle in a game against the New York Rangers on January 10, 1948, a check of the game sheets for 26 of them revealed Blake as the captain every time. After Blake was injured, Murph Chamberlain initially replaced him as captain, but Durnan soon took over — although the C was sometimes exchanged between them. In 13 game sheets that were checked after Blake’s injury, Durnan was shown as captain nine times compared to four for Murph Chamberlain. When Durnan is listed as captain, Chamberlain is the alternate captain and vice versa.

THE DURNAN RULE
Bill Durnan was the top goaltender of his day, starring with the Canadiens from 1943–44 through 1949–50. He won the Vezina Trophy in each of his first four seasons in the NHL and in his last two seasons as well. He was also named to the First All-Star Team in each of those six seasons and helped the Canadiens win the Stanley Cup in 1944 and 1946. As captain, it’s long been said that when Durnan left his crease to discuss calls with the referee — as was his right as team captain — other teams protested that he was slowing the pace of the game and giving the Canadiens unscheduled time outs. On June 8, 1948, some Canadian newspapers reported on a recent meeting in Montreal between the NHL, the minor professional American Hockey League, United States Hockey League and Pacific Coast Hockey League, plus the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association. Among the new rules agreed to was that a goalkeeper would be penalized if he left his net to argue a decision with a referee. In amateur leagues, goalies would receive a minor penalty, while in the pro leagues a goalie would be fined $50. The newspaper stories noted, “Even if he is captain or alternate captain he will not be allowed to wander about the ice protesting.” However, the NHL would add a new provision to its rules about captains in the rule book in 1948–49. “No goalkeeper shall be entitled to exercise the privileges of Captain or Alternate Captain on the ice.” This new regulation is sometimes referred to as the Durnan rule. The current NHL rule book states: “No playing Coach or playing Manager or goalkeeper shall be permitted to act as Captain or Alternate Captain.”

ROBERTO LUONGO
No NHL goalie had served as his team’s captain since Bill Durnan with the Montreal Canadiens in 1947–48 until Roberto Luongo was named captain of the Vancouver Canucks in 2008–09. Luongo was captain though the 2009–10 season. Henrik Sedin took over as captain after Luongo stepped down before the 2010–11 season. “He should be proud of himself,” Sedin said. “He did a good job for us. If this is going to help him be a better goalie, I think we like that as a team.” On the ice, Luongo’s role as captain was mainly symbolic since NHL rules forbid goalies to wear a C and to engage with the referees. Luongo had a C painted on the chin of his mask and defenseman Willie Mitchell served as the liaison with officials.

It’s been 42 years now since I last went back to school, and pretty much 20 since I even had a child going back to school. And for pretty much 22 years from 1996 to 2018, summer was my busiest work time of the year. Even so, I still find the days after Labour Day to be pretty depressing. And yet, after a summer of inactivity on my web site, here I am back at it again…

I pretty much refrain from turning my own sporting interests from baseball to hockey until early October at best and usually not until after the World Series — especially since the Blue Jays have climbed back into wild card contention and are proving fans with “meaningful games in September” — but I do have a hockey book coming out soon, so hockey it is today.

As I mentioned in some of my last posts in the spring (May 22 and June 4), The Mammoth Book of Hockey Trivia is out this fall. Book releases aren’t as exact as movie releases. The true date really depends on how quickly books are delivered from the printer to the publisher’s warehouse, and then how quickly they are sent from the warehouse to various booksellers, and then how quickly the booksellers actually start selling them. The official release date is still October 1, but I know of at least one friend who pre-ordered the book in July and has received his copy already. So, feel free to order your own copy right now!

The book is a trivia book in the dictionary definition of the word in that it’s full of facts and figures, not questions and answers. But at 496 pages, it is pretty mammoth. And today, I’m featuring a few stories from Chapter 10 about the history of the goalie mask (which I had to fight a little bit to make sure was included in the book when all was said and done). It’s a topic I’ve covered on my web site in years past (December 2, 2020 and March 11, 2015), though I was surprised how many years past! These stories today are from the early 1920s — which I still have trouble wrapping my brain around being more than 100 years ago! Two of them basically occurred within a few days of each other.

Herbert Lyons was a goalie with a team called the Greys in Montreal. He was pictured in The Montreal Star on February 4, 1922, wearing a full catcher’s mask and with a caption saying, “Unique apparition which will appear during the matches of the Mount Royal Hockey League in the Arena tomorrow afternoon.” The newspaper notes Lyons “had his nose split some time ago,” and would be wearing the mask to protect his injury. Lyons’ story was also reported on that same day in The Calgary Herald and his masked picture appeared in The Daily Province in Vancouver on February 14. Only The Montreal Star followed up with a report of the Saturday game in its Tuesday edition on February 7 … and it turns out he didn’t go through with wearing it. “Lyons, Grey’s goaler, appearing on the ice with his mask could not stand the teasing from spectators and discarded it at the beginning of the game.”

At almost the same time Herbert Lyons wasn’t wearing his mask in Montreal, Iver Anderson of the Duluth Hornets was wearing one in a United States Amateur Hockey Association game against the Cleveland Indians in Duluth, Minnesota on February 7, 1922. The previous night, also against Cleveland, Anderson was hit in the mouth one minute in to the third period on a shot by future NHL star Nels Stewart and had four teeth knocked out. The Cleveland coach offered Duluth their substitute goalie, but Anderson refused to leave the game. Duluth was losing 3–2 at the time, and Anderson allowed another goal a few minute later “while still in a groggy condition,” according to the game report in The Duluth News Tribune, but his team rallied for a 6–4 win.

Other Duluth players had been banged up as well in the game that night, and the team was beaten 5–0 by the Indians in their February 7 game. “[T]here is no use in saying that Anderson was not in fit condition to play,” reported the News Tribune. “Everyone who saw him knew that much. Spending a sleepless night in a hospital; passing all afternoon in a dentist’s chair Anderson returned to the game last night. He wore a baseball catcher’s mask and this did not help him in keeping his eyes on the puck.”

Two nights later, Iver Anderson was back in action in Winnipeg for the Duluth American Legion team when they were defeated 11–7 by the Manitoba all-stars. “Anderson of Duluth wore a baseball catchers’ mask and had difficulty in keeping his eye on the puck,” read a report from Winnipeg that ran in The Duluth News Tribune on February 10. Whether or not he wore a mask for the rest of the season, Anderson would put one on again early the next season on the night of December 30, 1922. Prior to a Duluth legion game with a team from the Canadian Soo (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario), he was hit in the face with a practice shot. “Anderson received a bad cut over his left eye,” said the News Tribune in its story on December 31, “but returned to the game with a baseball mask and football headgear.” He played well that night in a 2–1 loss.

Iver Anderson is an interesting story. The Duluth News Tribune said of him on November 1, 1922, that he was “the first player to use a baseball mitt during actual play in the net,” and the accompanying picture makes it clear he was wearing one. After he left Duluth to play with the St. Louis Flyers of the American Hockey Association for the 1928–29 season, The St. Louis Star and Times shed more light on Anderson’s baseball background. A story in that St. Louis newspaper on December 12, 1928, claims Anderson had been a baseball catcher and knew little about hockey until he was pressed into action by a hockey team whose goalie was out with the flu.

“To say Anderson made a hit in his first appearance is so mild it’s actually libelious,” says the story. “He was a wow, a panic. He played a good game, but that wasn’t what knocked the customers out of their chairs. He scored on his interpretation of what the well-dressed goalie should wear. His left hand was buried in his old catcher’s mitt. In his right he carried a hockey stick half the regulation size, which he explained was less cumbersome and far more sensible than that usually carried.” Though it gets some of the details wrong, the St. Louis paper also gives a brief outline of Anderson wearing his baseball mask in his Duluth days.

Unfortunately, Iver Anderson was no longer wearing a mask on February 1, 1929, when he was playing for St. Louis while back in his hometown of Duluth. Early in the second period, Anderson was hit in the face again and injured badly. Anderson returned to action for the Flyers’ final home game of the season in St. Louis on March 1, 1929. It was already known that he would retire at the end of the season, and he gave up 12 goals in a 12–2 loss to the Tulsa Oilers. He did not play on the season-ending four-game road trip to Tulsa, and though there were reports in November of 1929 that St. Louis wanted him at least as a back-up goalie, Anderson never played again.

Back in 1921, better protection for goalies had been on the agenda when the Ontario Hockey Association met for its annual convention on Saturday, December 3. OHA executives did not vote in favor of the goal crease, which had already been adopted in an earlier meeting of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association, but they did agree to let goalies wear a mask if they chose to. Rule 15 in the OHA rule book dealt with goalies. Previously, when it came to equipment, the rule for many years had stated, “He may wear pads, but must not wear a garment such as would give him undue assistance in keeping goal.” Now, a sentence was added saying, “He may wear a mask to protect his face and head if he so desires.”

Still, no OHA goalie was known to wear a mask until Len Crook of Belleville in 1923. Crook played goal for four different Toronto teams in the senior division of the Ontario Hockey Association from 1916 through 1922, but his off-ice job as an employee of the Canadian Bank of Commerce took him to Belleville in the spring of 1922. The Daily Intelligencer in Belleville would repeatedly misspell his name as Crooks, and in the newspaper’s story on January 11, 1923, of the team’s 8–3 win over Brockville the night before, it was reported “Crooks stopped a nasty shot from the corner which struck him in the mouth splitting both lips and loosening his teeth.” Crook was unable to continue, but returned for the next game when Belleville beat Queen’s University 4–1 on January 15. Just over a year after the OHA had passed its rule allowing goalies to wear masks, Crook became the first one known to do so. He played at least one more time with a mask in Belleville’s next game on January 26.

After the 1922–23 season in Belleville, Len Crook returned to Toronto for a new job with the Bank of Nova Scotia and retired from hockey. There is never a specific description of the type of mask he wore, but the The Toronto Star on January 11, 1924, notes Crook had finished the 1922–23 season with a headgear and mask and that he believed the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association should make such gear compulsory for every goalie. “The way players drive that puck nowadays makes it dangerous,” said Crook. “Some day someone will stop one with his temple and you know flowers are dear in the wintertime.”

Still, it was not until the 1958–59 season that the NHL added a line to its rule book stating: “Protective masks of a design approved by the Rules Committee may be worn by goalkeepers.” Jacques Plante began wearing a mask in games the very next season although it would not be until the 1974–75 season that every goalie in the NHL wore one. As late as 2009–10, the NHL rule book only said masks “may” be worn by goalkeepers. The wording wasn’t changed to “must be worn” until 2010–11.

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If you’re looking for a different kind of hockey book, here are two interesting ones people contacted me about this summer.

For Toronto Maple Leafs fan interested in some light-hearted though factually accurate relief from the team’s Stanley Cup struggles since 1967, there’s 60 Years of Disappointment by Richard Spiegel.

And, if you’ve got a young reader on your shopping list, there’s That’s Mein Boy: The Alex Levinsky story by Rabbi Ron Isaacs. Ron is a long-time New Jersey rabbi who was born in Toronto and has numerous books — mainly about Judaism — to his credit. (As some of you may recall, I wrote about Levinsky on my site back in 2024.)