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smokes show

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Habs no 10 that year 6 Georges Mantha no 14 Maroons 17 Dutch Gainor

Fresh Favourites: A cigarette ad from Montreal’s Forum Hockey Bulletin and Sports Magazine from the NHL’s 1934-35 season with an unknown artist’s impression of Maroons and Canadiens at play. No Canadien wore #10 or #14 on his sweater that year, but #6 was Georges Mantha’s. The regular Canadien goalkeep was Wilf Cude. For the actual Maroons, #14 was Dutch Gainor. The two teams first clashed that season on November 24, ’34, with the Maroons prevailing by a score of 3-1. But while Maroons finished nine points ahead of their local rivals in the final league standings, it was Canadiens who claimed the George Kennedy Cup, awarded annually in those years to the team that won the all-Montreal season series. In 1934-35, Canadiens dominated Maroons with a 4-1-1 record.

squeeze play

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Spread It Generously: Born in Humberstone, Ontario, on a Saturday of this date in 1925, Ted Kennedy won five Stanley Cup championships with the Toronto Maple Leafs, and a Hart Trophy, too, in 1955. That same year, he and his family came out in favour of the new Bee Hive Corn Syrup Squeeze-Pak.

bill barilko’s house of champions (and tvs and leeches)

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It was on a Saturday of this date in 1951 that Toronto Maple Leaf defenceman Bill Barilko scored that famous goal of his — the one that’s celebrated in song and on west-end Toronto underpasses (below), whereby he beat Montreal Canadiens goaltender Gerry McNeil in overtime to win Toronto its fourth Stanley Cup in five years. When he wasn’t patrolling the Leafs, Barilko and his older brother Alex owned an east-side business on Toronto’s Danforth, endorsed (above) by some of his teammates in the early 1950s. In ’51, Barilko Bros. would sell you a 17-inch Admiral TV console with built-in (and I quote) Dynamagic radio and triple-play automatic phonograph for $750 (installation extra). They also were ready to fill all your live bait needs: $1.25 would get you 100 dew worms or 25 frogs. Leeches? 85 cents a dozen. The Barilko’s would ship them to you, province-wide, too, worms and  frogs and leeches; I don’t know about TVs.

phil esposito: frankly, I had my doubts

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Call It Macaroni: From the early 1970s, Phil Esposito makes the case for Kraft Dinner at the airport. Out on the tarmac. With a side salad.

Hall-of-Fame centreman Phil Esposito is 79 today, so many happy returns of the rink to him. Born in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, on a Friday of this date in 1942 a year before his goaltender brother Tony made his debut, Phil was the first NHLer to score 100 points in a season (ending up with 126 in 1969). In 1971, he set a new mark for goals in a season, with 76. Along with a pair of Hart trophies and five Art Rosses, he won two Stanley Cups, both with Boston. He played 18 years in the NHL, mostly with the Bruins, though he was a Chicago Black Hawk before he was traded to Boston 1967 and then, after another trade, this one in 1975, he joined the New York Ranger.

When hockey writer Andy O’Brien visited with Esposito’s parents in 1970 for a profile for Weekend Magazine, Patrick Esposito confided that, early on, he wondered whether his elder son had what it took to make the NHL.

“Frankly, I had my doubts,” he said. “He was big and tall but he was weak on his ankles. However, he could handle the puck, and even when he was playing juvenile he led the league and had everybody talking about him. He kept on leading leagues but, no, I never felt quite certain he would make it.”

Test Drive: Esposito suggests a Volkswagen in 1980.

also famed for prize apples

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Brew Maestro: Frank Boucher was nearing the end of his coaching tenure with the New York Rangers in 1948 when he went to bat for America’s ancient lager. Born in Ottawa on a Monday of this date in 1901, Boucher belonged to a hockey dynasty, of course, and was a star centreman before he got around to coaching. Elected to the Hall of Fame in 1958, he was a two-time Stanley Cup winner with the New York Rangers. In recognition of his skilled and gentlemanly conduct, he also earned the Lady Byng Trophy so many times — seven in eight years in the 1920s and early ’30s — that he was awarded the original trophy outright (Lady Byng donated another). Boucher’s best year on the bench was his first, 1939-40, when he steered the Blueshirts to a Stanley Cup championship. After that, the war years were mostly a struggle for the Rangers, and they missed out on many playoffs. They did make it back to the post-season in ’48, though they ended up losing in the semi-finals to Detroit.

fellows, don’t risk coffee nerves

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Take It From Chuck: If you were drinking the hot mealtime drink that New York Rangers’ netminder Charlie Rayner was drinking in 1951, well, sounds disgusting: “made from healthful wheat and bran,” Postum promised a “vigorous grain-rich flavor.” “Delicious with cream and sugar!” Why? A Ranger stalwart for eight seasons, Rayner started his NHL career in 1940 with the other team in town, the Americans, and guarded their goal again in ’41-42 when they moved (if in name only) to Brooklyn. Elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1973, Chuck Rayner died on a Sunday of this date in 2002. He was 82.

le voilà, le gros bill

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A Boost From Gros Bill: Born in 1931 in Trois-Rivières on the last day of August (it was another Monday), the incomparable Jean Béliveau. He was 38 in 1970, the year before he helped the Montreal Canadiens win another Stanley Cup, his tenth as a player. Like certain milk cartons, he was tough, strong, and durable, but after that ’71 Cup, Béliveau called quits on his 20-year NHL career.

hockey smokers: herbie lewis

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Lighting Up: Born in Calgary on a Monday of this date in 1905, Herbie Lewis started playing left wing in Detroit in 1928, turning out over the next decade for all three of the city’s NHL incarnations, Cougars, Falcons, and — from 1932 — Red Wings. He captained the team during the 1933-34 season, and assisted in the effort, in ’36 and ’37, that won them back-to-back Stanley Cups. Lewis was inducted in the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1989. And? I guess he liked to smoke Camels, all the live-long day — during meals, even! — commending them here, in ’37, for easing his digestion and upping his all-around well-being.

can’t beat a canadian bulky for style, said henri richard

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You can argue, go ahead, that the 1970s marked the golden age of hockey players styling handsome sweaters: you’ve got Bobby Hull, after all, to stand up and make your case, and John Ferguson, too. For me, though, I’m stuck in the ’60s, which is when Montreal’s Highland Knitting Mills were spinning their own marvels (below), even as (above) Henri Richard joined with Portland, Oregon’s own Jantzen International Sports Club to tout their newest wool cardigan in colours spanning the … “masculine range.” Can you see that the “stripes are newly designed in richer, muted tones,” or maybe not so much? No, me neither. Do real pros (and good amateurs, too), leave their flashiness on the ice, but never their flair? So many questions. All I know is that when it comes to sweaters, necklines rise and fall as knits and patterns adjust for tastes and times. I get that: styles shift. But can we agree that it’s just plain wrong that in the year 2020 we all can’t go out and get fitted for our very own Canadian Bulky?