On this day, August 17th, in 1966, the Beatles played an afternoon show in Toronto at Maple Leaf Gardens.

I was there.

I was 15 years old and had a summer job on a highway, but the boss let me go early and I went down to Toronto from Orillia with a disc jockey my sister worked with at a radio station. She had got word to me just that morning that he was going and would I like to go with him. I didn’t have a ticket, but believe it or not, the show wasn’t sold out and I got a $5.50 ticket in the the very last row of the floor.

That fall, hockey season began of course, and the next spring, the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Habs in six games to win their last Stanley Cup.

The Leafs were an old team with guys like Terry Sawchuk, Johnny Bower, Red Kelly, and Allan Stanley, but Montreal wasn’t that young either. Henri Richard was 30, John Ferguson 27, Claude Provost was 32, Dick Duff 30, Ted Harris 30, Jean-Guy Talbot was 34, Jean Beliveau was 35, and the goalies, Gump Worsley and Charlie Hodge, were 37 and 33 respectively.

Of course, Montreal also had the kiddies. Yvon Cournoyer was all of 22. Claude Larose was 23. Jacques Laperriere 24. And Serge Savard and Carol Vadnais were just 20.

The Beatles were fairly young. John and Ringo were 26, Paul 24, and George 23.

The Habs have continued on over the years in glorious fashion. The Beatles remain in the hearts of millions.

And the Leafs have continued to suck.

 
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 Great. Peter would often go incognito to Europe, with a shaved mustache and old hat, and the documentary showed a painting of him in this mode. And lo and behold, he looks a dead ringer for deceased Russian hockey star Valeri Kharlamov.

Fascinating Fact #3….Maurice Richard wore number 15 before he changed to number 9, which was the weight of his daughter Hugette when she was born. (9 pounds). (I think you already know this, though.)

Fascinating Fact #4……When the Rocket was playing for the Verdun juniors in 1939, he took boxing lessons in the off-season. He became so good at it that he was entered into a Golden Gloves competition, but a damaging punch in the nose by his coach prevented him from participating.

Fascinating Fact #5…..New York Astrologer and psychic Monte Farber, bragging about the accuracy of his predictions, claims to have predicted that the New York Giants would beat the Green Bay Packers and win the Super Bowl. I’ve saved the clipping about his other prediction, which I’ve kept on my fridge since the spring, because I’m curious if he’s going to be right or not. He predicts the New York Yankees will face the San Francisco Giants in the 2008 World Series. Right now the Yankees are about five games back, and the Giants ten.

Fascinating Fact #6…..Leaf star Darryl Sittler and his wife Wendy were staying at Paul Henderson’s house and looking after their three daughters when Henderson scored those big goals during the 1972 Canada-Russia Summit Series.

Only 62 days until the Montreal Canadiens, chomping at the bit, suit up in Buffalo for their opening game of the 2008-2009 season. They’ll look splendid, these men in their red, white, and blue uniforms, the same kind as worn before by Howie and Maurice and Jean and Guy. They’ll be fast. Their passes will be perfect. Their shots will find the back of the Sabres’ net. It’ll be their first win in a long line of wins in the season.

The second win will come the next night when they take the short hop into Toronto, where a third of the crowd will cheer for them, and where again, they’ll be fast, their passes will be perfect, and their shots will find the back of the net.

62 days to go. We’ll go through the Beijing Oympics. The mosquito bites will heal. The evenings will become shorter. Kids will have new lunchpails and school clothes. A few more weeks and cottages will be boarded up for another year. Baseball will wind down. Football will be in full swing. There’ll be a chill in the early morning.

The boys are golfing now. They’re barbequing. They’re sitting in their back yards and having the neighbours over. Ryan O’Byrne is behaving like a saint.

Every day they work out. They practice on ice and on floors. They lift heavy things, and they run. They do all the things players of yesteryear rarely did.

They’ll be ready when they go to Buffalo.

This is the year they can win the Stanley Cup. They know it, I know, and most Habs fans know it.

And Buffalo fans will know it when the game is over, 62 days from now.

Of course, if Sundin signs with Montreal, please disregard this photo.

Another old game was on the tube the other night, this time from April, 1971, and it involved the Toronto Maple Leafs hosting the Boston Bruins at Maple Leaf Gardens. But forget about the usual cast of characters. There was only one player to watch, and it was Bobby Orr, in his prime.

The first thing you noticed about Orr is that even though he was a defenceman, he was the most beautiful skater on the ice, a notch above the rest. He would take the puck from behind the Bruins net, wind up, and in only a few strides, it seemed, he was entering Leaf territory, skating like the wind, skating like he was still on a frozen lake back home in Parry Sound, and outskating even the quickest of the quick like Dave Keon and Darryl Sittler.

When Orr bumped into someone, the other went down because Orr was as solid as a rock. His shot was low and accurate. He played the power play, killed penalties, took his regular shifts, and mesmorized at every turn. The Toronto crowd booed him every time he touched the puck, but that’s what happens when you’re a player of his calibre.

Time after time he would rush with the puck, and when the occasion was called for, he would turn sharply, retreat, and start over. The Russians in the 1960’s and ’70’s were known for this, but never did any of them do it at full speed the way Orr did. And for the Russians, it was a practised play. Orr did everything on instinct. He was Michelangelo, Pavarotti, Fred Astaire, and Northern Dancer. He was born to be better than everyone else.  

Don Cherry has always maintained that Orr was the greatest ever, and I have no qualms with this statement. He was such a beautiful player who made everyone else look ordinary. What a shame his career was cut short with knee problems. What a shame he didn’t play in the 1972 Canada-Russia series.

And what a shame he never played for Montreal. Imagine.

I work with a woman named Sandy who likes hockey. She’s a Canucks fan, but she’s still a nice person. Her and I have an annual bet on who will finish with the most points in the season, the Habs or the Canucks, and I collected a sweet five bucks from her last year.

But the thing that Sandy really is is outspoken. She says what she thinks. Her father taught her to say what’s on her mind as long as she doesn’t hurt anyone. She’s fun. Sometimes outrageous. She reminds me of an old friend, Frank, in Ottawa.

And things will bother her. 

Sandy said this to me yesterday, with more than a hint of anger in her voice. ”i want you to write in your blog about who does Mats Sundin think he is? He’s waiting like this, screwing up a bunch of teams (Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver) who don’t know if he’ll choose one of them or not, and so they’re all in limbo. I mean, this isn’t Wayne Gretzky here. Sundin’s good but he’s not God.  How hard can it be to decide about something like that and not keep these teams hanging? It’s ridiculous. Who does he think he is?

“And another thing,” she went on. “You should also ask, who does Markus Naslund think he is, saying what he said after he left the Canucks. All that about he didn’t have anybody good to play with. He’s finished anyway. He was a lousy captain. And he’s not Wayne Gretzky either. In fact, in my opinion, he was never very good.”

(I didn’t have the balls to tell her Naslund didn’t have anybody good to play with last year.)

The North American agent for Mats Sundin, above, denies a claim that the centre will play play for the Vancouver Canucks next season. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)A Swedish newspaper has reported that Mats Sundin has agreed to a deal with the Vancouver Canucks, but the centre’s North American agent has denied the claim.

J.P. Barry, Sundin’s North American agent, has confirmed to CBCSports that the report by Dusan Umicevic in Sweden’s Daily News is false.

In an interview with a Vancouver radio station earlier this week, Canucks general manager Mike Gillis expressed confidence that Sundin, who became an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career on July 1, would still accept the club’s offer of a two-year contract valued at $20 million US.

Sundin has been the subject of intense interest from several other clubs including the Montreal Canadiens, Detroit Red Wings and the New York Rangers. A return to the Toronto Maple Leafs also remains an option.

The Swede has posted 555 goals and 766 assists for 1,321 points in 1,305 NHL games with Toronto and the Quebec Nordiques. He was selected first overall by Quebec in the 1989 draft and traded to Toronto five years later.

Sundin, 37, has yet to play in a Stanley Cup final. He earned $5.5 million last season on a one-year deal that included a no-trade clause.

Maple Leafs general manager Cliff Fletcher had given Montreal and the New York Rangers permission to talk to Barry prior to July 1 in hopes of working out a deal.

The Vancouver offer would make Sundin the highest-paid player in the NHL. Sidney Crosby of Pittsburgh and Alexander Ovechkin of Washington currently top next season’s salary list at $9 million US apiece

My dad was born in 1920. He’ll be 88 in a couple of months.

He told me yesterday he really misses hockey from days gone by. About Foster Hewitt on the radio on Saturday night, telling him how Turk Broda was making a sprawling save, about Blake and Richard, Bill Barilko and Busher Jackson and all the grand old players from way back when.

Saturday night was a big night, he said. And when television came along, the only problem was the game started at the beginning of the second period.

After that he said he didn’t understand all the money players are making now.

Then we changed the subject and went on about chasing Nazi war criminals in South America.

I just watched game three on the NHL Network of the 1962 Stanley Cup finals between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Toronto Maple Leafs ( the Hawks won 3-0 but the Leafs eventually won the series in six games).

I love watching the old stuff. In this game, a young Bobby Hull, wearing number 7 (he first wore number sixteen, then went to nine), skated like the wind and blasted away with that cannon he had. Goalies Glenn Hall and Johnny Bower weren’t wearing masks. Frank Mahovlich skated in big swooping strides. Reg Fleming and Tim Horton got in a scuffle, then went and sat side by side in the penalty box, which players did in those days, even after major scraps. And big, heavy bodychecks were the order of the day.

The game was at a jam-packed Chicago Stadium, and when Stan Mikita scored, fans tossed balloons and the odd fedora on the ice. Toronto announcer Bill Hewitt (Foster’s son) did the play-by-play, and in 1962, he was still a little rough around the edges. He got smoother in later years. And he worked alone, without a sidekick.

Watching games like this is a joy for me. It reminds me of when I was a schoolboy, collecting hockey cards and hockey coins, and dreaming of someday playing in the NHL just like these guys.

I wish they’d show more of these old games. And this is what should’ve been on during those long breaks between games in this year’s playoffs.

Really old games are a beautiful thing. We need more of them.

I’m not like Mats Sundin. I have to go to work today. So do you.

I think Mats Sundin will sign with the Montreal Canadiens. And it’s only because the main rival to the Habs for Sundin’s services are the Canucks. Thank goodness it’s the Canucks. Everyone else has spent their allowance.

And even though Vancouver has offered Sundin three million a year more than Montreal, the bottom line is, Sundin wouldn’t mind winning a Stanley Cup, which the Canucks won’t be doing anytime soon. And his previous team? There’s a thousand jokes about that.

But the Habs will. Maybe even next year. Sundin knows this, of course, and anyway, what’s a lousy three million? Sundin lights his cigars with that kind of money.

I do however, think it’s a little rude on Sundin’s part to make teams wait. He’s a good player but he’s not the Rocket. And I’ll bet he’s enjoying the attention.

Just retire at 40 or 41, Mats. Consider yourself lucky that teams like the Montreal Canadiens are willing to pay you seven million dollars and give you a chance to win the Stanley Cup, something that was only a hallucinatory dream in Toronto. And of course, Mats, that along with your aging birth certificate comes aging bones, and if you go on the injury shelf, Montreal still pays you your millions.

So it’s a win-win for you. You probably don’t play a lot, you win a Stanley Cup, and you make your seven million. WHAT”S THE PROBLEM? 

Retire at 38 years old and turn down millions of dollars? Imagine?

How many of us can do that?