Rick Ley may have grown up to become a hardrock defenceman for the Toronto Maple Leafs, New England Whalers, and Hartford Whalers, but he started out as a goalie, as you can see in the bottom paragraph on the left side, when he earned his sixth shutout as the first place Raiders turned back the [...]

Everyone’s going on and on about this being Gordie Howe’s birthday, and that’s fine. Happy birthday Gordie. But what about Claude Bourque? What’s he, chopped liver? Claude Bourque was born on this day, March 31, 1915, and if he wouldn’t have died in 1982, he would’ve been alive and really old now. Bourque was the [...]

Former Hab Alex Kovalev is packing it in after 20 years in the bigs. He’d given it a shot this year in Florida but managed just 14 games before Father Time gave him the final nudges to exit stage left. Kovalev played four full seasons with Montreal between 2005 and 2009, plus 12 games prior [...]

Gordie Howe was in Montreal for an Eaton’s appearance tour in the 1970′s, and while there he did a T.V. taping session with singer Anne Murray. The taping was at the Forum, and Anne wore Howe’s sweater while Howe wore John Ferguson’s. Murray was quoted in Gerry Patterson’s book “Behind The Superstars” as saying to [...]

My almost complete (missing four) 1954-55 Parkhurst set. And yes, it’s not a mint set and that’s fine. I like them just the way they are. Detroit won the Stanley Cup this season, defeating Montreal four games to three in the finals. But the Canadiens were without Maurice Richard, who was on the sidelines serving [...]

Ron Green in Orillia sends along an interesting story from TheStar.com – Hockey Is In Tom Scanlan’s Bones  – about a fellow who bought game-used sticks once owned by the 42 players who scored at least 500 goals in the NHL. The sticks were up for auction last June from Classic Auctions in Montreal. 42 [...]

It was July 18, 2007 when Powell River’s Gary Lupul died of a heart attack at just 48 years old. I was shocked. He was a close friend of mine, and he seemed in good shape. It was a horrible time for many people, because Gary was loved by many. There were those who didn’t [...]

Immediately following their stunning game-eight victory, Team Canada had to hit the road to Prague to play the Czechoslovakian national team the next night. This should have been better thought out by Hockey Canada, with an escape clause written into the contract. The team was both emotionally and physically spent, and it was unfair to [...]

I can remember my parents talking about it when I was a kid. The day one of the Toronto newspapers put the Rocket in a Leafs sweater, just for fun. Maybe it was around that time in 1953 when Leafs owner Conn Smythe was telling people that he’d be willing to part with $100,000 for the [...]

Thanks a lot to Beatnik for sending the video below. It was Glenn Hall in nets for the Hawks who was the victim on the night the Rocket notched his 500th regular season goal, which was the first time a player had reached that milestone. I had breakfast with Hall once when he was in Powell River [...]