Since I began this blog, I’ve had an ongoing series called “Fascinating Facts’, which are various little tidbits and are all true. Here’s a compilation of many of them as I get ready to go to Calgary to see my kids: I once phoned Hall of Famer and ex-Hab Bert Olmstead in Calgary just to [...]

Right now, 36 years ago in 1972, Team Canada was not having a nice time with the Russian National Team. They were clobbered in Montreal and booed in Vancouver. They were tired and frustrated, and things looked bad. But in they end, as we all know, they pulled it out.  But it wasn’t just on-ice things going on. [...]

  Fascinating Fact #1…..Kyla Bremner, a woman wrestler competing for Australia in this year’s Beijing Olympics, is a native of my town, Powell River, BC. She’s on the Australian team because her mother is Australian. But make no mistake, she’s a Powell Riverite. Fascinating Fact #2……I recently saw a documentary on Russian Czar Peter the [...]

Fascinating Fact #1.  I asked my wife who the most handsome player in the NHL is, and she said it’s a tie between Jose Theodore and Sheldon Souray. She also said, however, that Max from Dancing With The Stars beats everybody. Everybody but me, I think she said.  Fascinating Fact #2.   Babe Ruth transcends all [...]

Fascinating Fact #1  I saw Bobby Orr twice in my home town of Orillia. Once, when I was sitting in the park down by the lake, he and his wife strolled by. He had a hockey school with Mike Walton in Orillia at this time.  The other was out at one of the local beverage [...]

Fascinating Fact #1.  It’s just what I always suspected. Patrick Roy is a moron. Fascinating Fact #2.  In the early 1940′s the Montreal Canadiens were bringing in less fans than the senior league Montreal Royals. The Habs were averaging only about 1500 people in those days. Fascinating Fact #3.  Guess what changed in Montreal? What [...]

Fascinating Fact # 1   I owned a sports bar for awhile in Powell River, and during this time the infamous Hanson Brothers came to town for a promotional thing at the arena. Afterwards, they came into my pub and at midnight, I locked the doors and drank beer and talked hockey with them until about [...]

Facinating Fact #1.  Montreal drafted Mark Napier instead of Mike Bossy. Fascinating Fact #2. Scotty Bowman, when coaching the Habs in the 1970′s, would usually be a real  miserable soul after the team had won. But when the team lost, he was a nice, happy person. The general consensus was that Scotty liked to play games [...]

Fascinating fact #1. Bep Guidolin played his first NHL game in 1942 with Boston. He’s the youngest player ever to play in the league, at 16 years old. Fascinating fact #2. Floyd Curry attended his first Montreal Canadiens training camp in 1940 at just 15. He didn’t make the team but it’s still quite a feat. [...]

Facinating fact #1.  In Ottawa in the 1970′s, there was a tremendous fastball team called Turpin Pontiac (maybe they still exist), who were one of the best ball teams in Canada. They had a horn-rimmed glasses-wearing pitcher named Joe Belisle who looked like Dennis the Menace’s father. He probably weighed about 140 pounds and skinny [...]