George Gardner

california goalin’

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Sealing The Deal: Charlie Hodge poses for a 1968-69 promotional photo in his second season with the Oakland Seals, in which he and Chris Worthy backed up Gary Smith.

Born in Lachine, Quebec, on a 1933 Friday sharing this date, Charlie Hodge played a part in six Stanley Cup championships won by the Montreal Canadiens in the 1950s and ’60s. Twice he won the Vézina Trophy, in 1964 and again (this time in tandem with Gump Worsley) in 1966. After nine seasons in Montreal, he was claimed by the Oakland Seals in the NHL’s 1967 expansion draft. He spent two years in California before the Vancouver Canucks took him when they joined the league in 1970. He played a single season in Vancouver before calling it quits, sharing the net with Dunc Wilson and George Gardner. Charlie Hodge died in 2016 at the age of 82.

blazer focus

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Face Time: The WHA’s Blazers made a home in Vancouver for two seasons in the early 1970s, neither of which was particularly successful. (Pre-B.C., the franchise played a year in Philadelphia; afterwards, they transformed into the Calgary Cowboys for two final campaigns.) In 1973-74, the four goaltenders who shared the guard of the Vancouver nets included Pete Donnelly and George Gardner. In 1974-75, the man pictured here mostly took over, Don McLeod, playing a league-leading 72 games over the course of the season while allowing 233 goals (also tops among his peers). Nobody’s goals-against numbers were exactly stellar in the high-scoring WHA that year: Ron Grahame of the Houston Aeros led the pack with 3.03 average, while McLeod (3.34) finished tenth-best, just back of Edmonton’s Jacques Plante.