Author: puckstruck

stickside

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Et Le But: Vancouver Canucks goaltender Gary Smith can’t do it all on his own on the Thursday night of February 21, 1974 at the Forum, and so that’s Canadiens’ Murray Wilson scoring his team’s final goal in a game that ended 5-2 for Montreal: you can see the puck, just, behind the butt of Smith’s stick. Marooned behind the net, that’s Vancouver defenceman Bob Dailey, while Montreal’s Frank Mahovlich circles in the corner. The referee is Bob Kilger. (Image: René Picard, Fonds La Presse, BAnQ Vieux-Montréal)

bob cole, 1933—2024

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He’ll be missed — oh, baby, will he. So sorry to hear that Bob Cole died last night in his hometown, St. John’s, Newfoundland, aged 90. The inimitable Hockey Night In Canada play-by-play man worked his last NHL game in 2019 from Montreal’s Bell Centre, with the Canadiens host the Toronto Maple Leafs. His very first call? That was 55 years ago yesterday when, on Thursday, April 24, 1969, he was in voice in a CBC radio broadcast booth as Montreal beat the hometown Boston Bruins 2-1 in double overtime. Jean Béliveau scored the winner (the only overtime goal of his career) to wrap-up a Stanley Cup semi-final in six games.

 

leafs + bruins, 1935: talking pep, a north bay nugget

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When last we looked in on the Boston Bruins and the Toronto Maple Leafs in the playoffs of 1935, they were battling hard: that’s over here.

Today we’re gazing on a pair of key goals from that same game at Maple Leaf Gardens on Saturday, March 30, 89 years ago. Focus your eye first on the image below, which shows the moment in the third period that Toronto’s Baldy Cotton scored to tie the game at 1-1. That’s (balding) Cotton departing the scene in exultation. The Bruins’ #11 is Red Beattie and beyond him, I think that might be Charlie Sands. If they appear dejected, teammates Tiny Thompson (in the goal) and (behind the net) Eddie Shore seem to be directing their energy into outrage and remonstration. As it turned out, referee Ag Smith did call off the goal, ruling that Cotton was infringing on Thompson’s crease when he scored. (Cue the aforepictured chaos.)

As previously mentioned, Toronto winger Regis (a.k.a. Pep) Kelly scored on the ensuing powerplay to tie the game. Then in overtime, the 21-year-old product of North Bay, Ontario, scored again to seal the deal for the Leafs. The top image shows one of those goals, though I don’t know which one. That’s Kelly with stick raised nearest the camera; his helmeted teammate is, I think, Joe Primeau. Tiny Thompson is the dispirited goaltender, with Eddie Shore facing him. Boston’s #4 is defenceman Bert McInenly, with Babe Siebert (#12) and Red Beattie (#11) turning away in disappointment.

(Images: City of Toronto Archives, Globe and Mail fonds, Fonds 1266, Items 36277, 36272)

ed chadwick, 1933—2024

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Sorry to be seeing news today of the death of former Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Ed Chadwick at the age of 90. Born in Fergus, Ontario, on May 8, 1933, he made his NHL debut in February of 1956 at the age of 22, when he stood into the Toronto net as a replacement for an injured Harry Lumley. Chadwick held the powerful Montreal Canadiens to a 1-1 tie that night. The following night he came up with the same result against the Boston Bruins. He went on to play in parts of five seasons with the Leafs, including a run of 140 consecutive games between 1956 and 1958. His last NHL season was 1961-62, when he was a member of the Boston Bruins. Ed Chadwick went on to serve as a scout for the Edmonton Oilers, and as such he was in on five Stanley Cups between 1984 and 1990.

 

jets setter

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Just Ducky: As a 19-year-old centreman, Dale Hawerchuk led the Winnipeg Jets in scoring in 1982-83, amassing 40 goals and 91 points — which was still only good enough for 16th place in the overall league rolls. Wayne Gretzky, 22, led the way that year with 71 goals and 196 points. This is Hawerchuk at Montreal’s Forum in November of ’82, with teammates (behind him) Dave Babych and (beside) Lucien DeBlois (maybe?). Canadiens’ Guy Carbonneau makes a cameo, too. (Image: Robert Nadon, Fonds La Presse, BAnQ Vieux-Montréal)

leafs + bruins, 1932: on their mettle

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Opening Night: Boston kicked off the 1932-33 NHL season with a visit to Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens on the night of Thursday, November 10, 1932. Tiny Thompson was in the net for Boston, Lorne Chabot for Toronto, the defending Stanley Cup champions: both goaltenders, according to the Boston Globe, were “on their mettle.” King Clancy opened the scoring for the Leafs, Red Beattie answered for the Bruins. Overtime solved nothing; the teams settled for a 1-1 result. (Image: City of Toronto Archives, Globe and Mail fonds 1266, item 28553)

leafs + bruins, 1935: few blows, but lots of hot talk and wrestling

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Danger Close: Toronto’s Baldy Cotton attacks Tiny Thompson’s Bruin net on the night of March 30, 1935, at Maple Leaf Gardens. The Bruin by him, #2, is Eddie Shore.

“It was a wild spot for a minute or two — few blows, but lots of hot talk and wrestling.”

It was on the night of Saturday of March 30, 1935 that the Toronto Maple Leafs dispensed with the Boston Bruins in a Stanley Cup semi-final, earning the right to play the Montreal Maroons in the finals (Maroons won). In the decisive game against Boston, the Bruins took a first-period lead through Red Beattie. Toronto tied it in the third through Baldy Cotton — or thought they did.

“Leaf players threw their sticks into the air,” wrote Lou Marsh of the Toronto Daily Star, “and hugged each other. The crowd stood right up and a blast of cheers split the air like an explosion. Hats flews.” But — no goal. Referee Ag Smith ruled that Cotton was in Tiny Thompson’s crease. Chaos ensued. The Leafs rushed Smith, the Bruins mobbed the Leafs. Marsh:

Cotton jabbed Thompson in the mouth and cut his sore lip. Thompson fought back. Cotton tore free and raced at the referee. He was a wild man — berserk. Players clinched and wrestled and jabbed at each other and pulled the official around.

When the fury abated, Cotton and Boston Peg O’Neil were assigned majors by referee Smith, “for fighting,” as Marsh wrote, “— or just because.” (Cotton, he pointed out, was fighting Tiny Thompson.) Boston’s Babe Siebert got an extra two for leaving the penalty box during the fight.

On the ensuing Toronto powerplay, Pep Kelly scored, with assists to Joe Primeau and Charlie Conacher, sending the game to overtime. That didn’t last long: the same combination, Kelly from Primeau and Conacher, ended the game, and the series, which finished 3-1.

Chaos Ensued: The brouhaha following Baldy Cotton’s disallowed goal. At right, that’s Tiny Thompson with Leaf #9 Charlie Conacher and (I think) Charlie Sands. Leafs’ #10 (helmeted) is Joe Primeau.

 

(Images: City of Toronto Archives, Globe and Mail fonds 1266, items 36271 and 36273)

wane check

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Ranger Recessional: Wayne Gretzky played his last NHL game 25 years ago today, bowing out as his New York Rangers fell 2-1 to the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins on this date in 1999. The 38-year-old centre played 22 minutes and 30 seconds that Sunday afternoon, leaving the ice on a shift-change at the at 5:55 p.m. EST, just before Pittsburgh’s Jaromir Jagr put a definitive end to Gretzky’s career with an overtime goal. The Rangers had failed, for the second consecutive season, to make the playoffs, so that’s all he wrote. Gretzky registered two shots on that final afternoon, and assisted on Brian Leetch’s second-period goal. The Madison Square Garden crowd of 18,200 gave number 99 a 15-minute ovation before he skated into retirement. “This is a great game, but it’s a hard game,” he told reporters. “Time does something to you, and it’s time.”

the end is nigh (begin the beguine)

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The Curtain Falls: It’s that time of year again when the NHL wraps up its regular season and launches into the long (long) march to the Stanley Cup. This Frank Duggan cartoon dates to a time (the late 1940s) when hockey playoffs used to be finishing up in springtime: it was April 19, for instance, that the 1947 Cup was awarded to the Toronto Maple Leafs. This year, the Cup Finals are slated to get started on or around June 3. (Image: Frank Duggan, Ink, crayon, graphite, printed film and opaque white, McCord Museum)

bird’s-eye maple (leaf gardens)

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Flyby: An aerial view from 1932 or so showing the Toronto intersection of Yonge and Carlton streets, with Conn Smythe’s iconic Maple Leaf Gardens prominent at the right. (Queen’s Park is at upper left.) The Leafs had taken up residence at their new digs a year earlier, in November of 1931, relocating from Arena Gardens on Mutual Street. (Image: City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1244, Item 1950)

on this day in 1940: leafs languish, rangers revel

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Another Saturday, April 13, another Stanley Cup championship: on this date in 1940, the New York Rangers powered to their third Cup win by toppling the Toronto Maple Leafs in a six-game series that ended with New York’s 3-2 overtime win at Maple Leaf Gardens in front of 14,894 fans. (They wouldn’t win a fourth Cup, of course, until 1994.) Bryan Hextall beat Turk Broda with a backhand in 1940 to end it and claim the Cup. The final four games of the series played out at Toronto’s Gardens, the circus having ousted hockey from New York’s Madison Square after the first two games. Shown here, that’s Ranger coach Frank Boucher, hatted at left, during one of the Toronto games, overseeing Neil Colville (6), Muzz Patrick (15), and Alex Shibicky (4).