[QBC]

How Referees were Invented



Near the start of the hockey era, games were played mostly in the winter. The games that were played in the summer soon became water polo matches, but that's another story.

At first, there were not many rules. Things were very wide open then, a breakaway could take hours to bring to a stop. Soon, things like the size of the hockey 'rink' were standardized. Before standardization, rinks were as large as the lakes that Pierre and his buddies played on. This made for great exercise but quickly eroded the fan base.

Rink size became the same all over Canada, players usually wore the same type of bayonets on their skates and sticks that were too curved were soon outlawed. However, players still called the shots when it came to rules about scoring and interpersonal things, such as fighting, and many players were injured in the wild and rough pre-referee days.

Trappers, the guys who wore those early baseball mitts of the same name in order to 'trap' beaver and mink, sometimes resorted to an early form of camouflage which allowed them to creep up on unsuspecting animals. Camouflage, which really means 'look like an idiot', tends to make people invisible in certain surroundings. This, contrary to popular belief, does not work in malls or in schools.

Anyway, at that time there were a group of trappers who were called referees. They wore black and white striped camouflage which was very useful in the birch woods of Canada. At that time there were two types of birch, white birch which you still see today, and black birch which was outlawed during Canada's brief but intense apartheid era. The word referee came from the French/Gaelic/Italian/Scotch/Hebrew word for "men who capture animals with a leather glove and who wear black and white striped shirts all the time and need glasses." The actual word sounds much like the Welsh word for flatulence and is generally unpronounceable.

The referees, sturdy short men who usually were quite vain and opposed to wearing glasses, watched the games from the safety of the birch forests. Pierre and his friends often saw them standing at the edge of the forest. One day, when there was a fierce battle on the ice, several referees rushed down onto the frozen lake and took control of the game. The fighting stopped and Pierre, by now an elder statesman of hockey, asked the referees to stay and control other games.

The question remains, however, as to why the referees stopped the fight in the first place. The true reason may never be known but legend states that the fight was actually started over a mink that slipped out of a referees glove and scurried down onto the ice surface. That referee, his name was Buckner as I recall, raced into the game to retrieve the mink and the players stopped fighting to help him.

Hockey's early days were shrouded in the mists of time and some of the details might be a bit different from what I have written here but it makes a good story anyway, right?

http://hockeyhistory411.com/referees.html

[QBC]

The Blackhawks are one of the Original Six NHL teams, along with the Boston Bruins, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers and Detroit Red Wings. They have won three Stanley Cup Championships and thirteen division titles since their founding in 1926.

The Chicago Blackhawks joined the NHL in 1926 as part of the league's first wave of expansion into the United States. They were one of three American teams added that year, along with the Detroit Cougars (now the Detroit Red Wings) and New York Rangers. Most of the Hawks' original players came from the Portland Rosebuds of the Western Canada Hockey League, which had folded the previous season.

The Hawks' first season was a moderate success. They played their first game on November 17th when they played the Toronto St. Patricks at what was called the Chicago Coliseum at the time. The Blackhawks won their first game by beating the St. Patricks 4 to 1. They ended up finishing the season in 3rd place with a record of 19-22-3. The Black Hawks lost their 1927 first-round playoff series to the Boston Bruins, who had made the playoffs for the first time ever.

The 'Hawks proceeded to have the worst record in the league in 1927–28. By 1931, they reached their first Stanley Cup Final, with goal-scorer Johnny Gottselig, Cy Wentworth on defense, and Charlie Gardiner in goal, but fizzled in the final two games against the Montreal Canadiens. Chicago had another stellar season in 1932, but that did not translate into playoff success.

In 1938 the Blackhawks had a record of 14–25, and only barely made the playoffs. They stunned the Canadiens and New York Americans on overtime goals in the deciding games of both semifinal series, advancing to the Cup Final against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Blackhawks goalie Mike Karakas was injured and could not play, forcing a desperate Chicago team to pull minor-leaguer Alfie Moore out of a Toronto bar and onto the ice. Moore played one game and won it, but repeating the plan with another player failed as the Hawks lost the game. However, for Games 3 and 4, Karakas was fitted with a special skate to protect his injured toe, and won both games. It was too late for Toronto, as the Hawks won their second championship. To this day, the 1938 Blackhawks possess the poorest regular-season record of any Stanley Cup champion.

[Choban]

Conn Smythe
Constantine Falkland Cary Smythe MC (February 1, 1895 – November 18, 1980) was a Canadian businessman, soldier and sportsman in ice hockey and horse racing. He is best known as the principal owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1927 to 1961 and as the builder of Maple Leaf Gardens. As owner of the Leafs during numerous championship years, his name appears on the Stanley Cup eleven times: 1932, 1942, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1951, 1962, 1963, 1964, and 1966.

Smythe is also known for having served in both World Wars, organizing his own Battery in World War II. The horses of Smythe's racing stable won the Queen's Plate twice among 145 stakes races wins during his lifetime. Smythe started and ran a successful sand and gravel business. Smythe was a big supporter of the Ontario Society for Crippled Children and the Variety Club and founded the Conn Smythe Foundation philanthropic organization.

Tim Horton
Myles Gilbert "Tim" Horton (January 12, 1930 – February 21, 1974) was a Canadian professional hockey defenceman. He played in 24 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Buffalo Sabres. He was also a businessman and the co-founder of Tim Hortons, now Canada's largest restaurant chain. He died in an automobile crash in St. Catharines, Ontario, in 1974 at the age of 44.

Not long after Horton's death, Ron Joyce offered Lori Horton (Tim's widow) $1 million for her shares in the chain, which included 40 stores by that time. Once she accepted his offer, Joyce became the sole owner. Years later, Mrs. Horton decided that the deal between her and Joyce had not been fair and took the matter to court. Mrs. Horton lost the lawsuit in 1993, and an appeal was declined in 1995. Lori died in 2000.[5] Tim and Lori left four daughters, Jeri-Lyn (Horton-Joyce), Traci (Simone), Kim and Kelly. Jeri-Lyn married Ron Joyce's son Ron Joyce Jr. and owns a store in Ontario.

[QBC]

The Kid Line was a NHL line for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1930s. It included Charlie Conacher, Harvey "Busher" Jackson and Joe Primeau. When they first came together as a line, Primeau was the oldest at 23 years old, while Jackson and Conacher were both 18. All three players are members of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Maple Leafs coach Conn Smythe, put the line together, and it helped the Maple Leafs to a Stanley Cup championship in 1932, and lead the Leafs to four Stanley Cup finals appearances over the next six years.

[QBC]

The Kraut Line was the term used to describe a trio of hockey players who played on the same NHL forward line who were members of the Boston Bruins hockey team: center Milt Schmidt, left wing Woody Dumart, and right winger Bobby Bauer. The name was devised by Albert Leduc, a player from the Montreal Canadiens between 1925 and 1933, and references the German descent of all three players, all of whom grew up in Kitchener, Ontario.

The three were famously attached and lived together in a single room in Brookline, Massachusetts. This line was so accomplished that in the 1939–1940 season, the trio was 1–2–3 in NHL scoring. Center Milt Schmidt lead the league in scoring with 22 goals and 30 assists; left wing Woody Dumart was second in the league with 22 goals and 21 assists; and third in scoring was right wing Bobby Bauer with 17 goals and 26 assists. While the line was intact, the Boston Bruins would win the Stanley Cup championship in the 1938–1939 and 1940–1941 seasons.

[QBC]

Many Hockey players replenish lost fluids after the game. Alfie Moore was in a pub drinking just before the biggest game of his life.

The Black Hawks were in Toronto with a big playoff game and no goalie. Mike Karakas, Chicago's starting goalie, was hurt. Conn Smythye wouldn't allow them to use Ranger Goalie Dave Kerr, a Toronto native, so Chicago coach Bill Stewart went to the only other goalie he knew in Toronto. At a team meeting he asked if anyone knew where Alfie could be found, someone dryly suggested they start checking the city bars, a search party shortly found him at a nearby tavern. He's been there quite awhile so it took quite a few coffees to "rinse him free of the suds".

Stewart asked his players to take it easy on him in warm up so as not to get him hurt. It was said that Stewart eyed Alfie with evil regret all through the warm up and it seemed to be with good reason as Alfie fanned on his first shot giving Toronto the lead. After Alfie saw the disappointment on the faces of his new team mates, his resolve was strengthened considerably. After that, he was invincible stopping every Leaf attack leading Chicago to a 3-1 victory.

As he was leaving the game the Black Hawk management asked him what he wanted for the one night of work he said, " Would $150.00 be reasonable?". The Hawks paid him $300.00 and put his name on the Stanley Cup.

[QBC]

If not the best goalie of all time, Jacques Plante was certainly the most important - the man who introduced the art of modern goaltending to the NHL and whose influence is seen every night a game is played. "Jake the Snake" was born in Shawinigan Falls, Quebec, and from the time he started playing, his destiny was to play for the Montreal Canadiens.

After a usual four-year apprenticeship with the Montreal Royals in Quebec senior hockey and two years with the Buffalo Bisons, Plante quickly emerged as Montreal's goalie of the future. He played a few games for the Habs in 1952-53 and 1953-54, and in his first full season began an incredible run of five consecutive Stanley Cup wins and five consecutive Vezina Trophy wins, records that have yet to be equaled.

Throughout his career he was plagued with recurring asthma and after missing 13 games due to a sinusitis operation, Plante began wearing a mask in practices in 1956. Coach Toe Blake endorsed the move cautiously because it kept his goalie healthy and happy, but he warned Plante that a mask wasn't permitted during games. However, during a Montreal versus New York game the night of November 2, 1959, Plante was hit in the face by a shot. He went off to the dressing room for stitches and when he returned he was wearing a mask. Blake was livid, but he had no other goalie to call upon and Plante refused to return to the goal unless he kept the mask. Blake agreed on condition that Plante discard the mask when the cut had healed. In the ensuing days Plante refused, and as the team continued to win, Blake became less obstinate. The Montreal record stretched into an 18-game unbeaten streak with Plante protected and the mask was in the NHL for good.

Plante was a pioneer of the style of play for goaltenders as well. While there had been other goalies before him who periodically came out of their crease to play the puck, he was the first to skate in behind the net to stop the puck for his defensemen. He also was the first to raise his arm on an icing call to let his defensemen know what was happening on the ice, and he perfected a stand-up style of goaltending that emphasized positional play, cutting down the angles and staying square to the shooter. His book, The Art of Goaltending, was the first of its kind and solidified his place in the game as not just a great stopper but a man who truly understood hockey and wanted to have an influence on how the game would be played in the future.

Plante retired in 1965 after playing two seasons with the Rangers, but he was lured out of retirement by the St. Louis Blues and the prospects of sharing the goaltending with the great Glenn Hall for the expansion team. Together they took the Blues to two Stanley Cup finals, and in 1969 Plante shared the Vezina Trophy with Hall at the ripe old age of 40. He also played with Toronto and Boston and played for one final season with the Edmonton Oilers in the WHA before becoming a scout and goalie coach in St. Louis. In 1962 he was the last goalie to win the Hart Trophy before Dominik Hasek in 1997, and he ranks among the leaders in games played and shutouts. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1978.

[QBC]

Although Johnny Bower's nickname was "the China Wall," it might better have been "Perseverance," for although he had a Hall of Fame career in the NHL, it certainly didn't adhere to the traditional notion of what a life in pro hockey should be about.

Bower grew up in rural Saskatchewan, the only boy in a family of nine children. He was dirt poor and never had the proper equipment. He made his goalie pads from an old mattress; he made pucks, "cow pies," from horse manure; his dad would look for suitably crooked tree branches to shave into sticks; a friend gave him his first pair of skates because his father couldn't afford to buy him a pair; and still he refined his game to become one of the best goalies of all time. In 1940, when he was 15 years old, Bower lied about his age for the first time, though not the last, in order to enlist in the army. He was sent to a training camp in British Columbia and was eventually called up by the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders and shipped to England. Four years later, he became sick during his service and was discharged in 1944, at which time he resumed his junior career with Prince Albert.

From there he began a career in the American Hockey League, which is where most goalies start out. The difference was that Bower played for Providence and Cleveland for an incredible eight full seasons before playing a single NHL game. In 1953-54, he played the entire season for the Rangers, but then spent most of the next four seasons right back in the minors, having lost the starting job in New York to Gump Worsley. During his 14 years in the minors, he won the Les Cunningham Award as the AHL's best player three times and the Hap Holmes Award for top goaltender another three times.

Bower's big break came in the summer of 1958 when the Leafs, for whatever reason, claimed him from Cleveland at the Intra-League Draft. Bower was at first reluctant to join the Leafs, even though they had finished in last place the previous season, telling them he could be of no help to the team. It was only after being threatened with suspension that he showed up for training camp that fall, and within days he had established himself as the team's number one goalie at age 34. He was to play a total of 12 years with the Leafs.

Bower, like his other five Original Six brethren, became famous for his fearless play. Maskless, he never shied away from an attacking player and in fact patented the most dangerous move a goalie can make - the poke-check. Diving head-first into the skates of an attacking player at full speed, Bower would routinely flick the puck off that player's stick and out of harm's way. One time he got a skate in his cheek, knocking a tooth out through his cheek. He suffered innumerable cuts to his mouth and lips and lost virtually every tooth in his mouth from sticks and pucks, but almost to his last game, he never wore a mask. And under the confident eye of coach Punch Imlach, Bower got better and better. He led the Leafs into the playoffs his first season with a miracle comeback ending to the schedule, and then lost two finals in a row before winning three consecutive Stanley Cup championships - 1962 to 1964.

At this time, Bower's career seemed precarious. Imlach noticed that Bower was having trouble with long shots and ordered his keeper to undergo an eye exam. Sure enough, he was short-sighted. But Bower refused to retire and kept right on going, teaming with Terry Sawchuk to win the memorable 1967 Cup with Toronto's Over-the-Hill Gang of players, led by the 43-year-old Bower himself.

After he retired in 1970 as the oldest goalie ever to play in the NHL, Bower remained with the Leafs for many years as a scout and then goalie coach, putting the pads on and helping Leaf goalies in practice. At one injury-riddled time during the 1979-1980 season, he came within a whisker, at age 56, of dressing as the team's backup. A member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, Bower is one of only a select few to have his number honored by the Leafs.

[QBC]

Arguably the greatest hockey game ever played......

As I was too young to remember the Summit Series, I do remember watching this game and how much excitement and trepidation it cause in all the adults that came over to my Mom and Dads to watch the game and bring in the new year.

[mvpvault]

QBC wrote:

Find cool stuff from hockey's history!

Really a great stuff with cool pics and captions... Totally, I am impressed