Tom Connors
• “Hit Somebody” by Warren Zevon
• “Gordie and My Old Man” by Grievous Angels
What NHL team staged a contest between live bears and its players?
It’s hard to believe, but in December 1998 the once-mighty Edmonton Oilers in a bid to boost fading fan interest actually had three of their Russian players — Mikhail Shta-lenkov, Andrei Kovalenko, and Boris Mironov — hit the ice against a trio of bears borrowed from a Russian circus. The much-diminished Oilers, as represented by the aforementioned Russians, were at least able to drub the bears, which were pretty hapless on skates and in helmets.
How did the Boston hockey team get the name “Bruins”?
In the 1920s, Charles Adams held a city-wide contest to name his new Boston hockey team. Because the colours of his Brookside Department Stores were brown and yellow, he insisted that the team wear those same colours. He also wanted the team to be named after an animal known for its strength, agility, ferocity, and cunning. The public contest came up with the Bruins, meaning a large, ferocious bear.
Who are the Hanson brothers?
The Hanson brothers — Jeff and Steve Carlson and Dave Hanson — first found celebrity in 1977 in the Paul Newman film Slap Shot as hard-hitting, rabble-rousing hockey enforcers, the kind of players much beloved by broadcaster Don Cherry. In Slap Shot the trio play the fictional Hanson siblings (Jeff, Steve, and Jack). The two Carlsons and Hanson were actual hockey players in the minor leagues (and in the case of Steve Carlson and Dave Hanson, the NHL, too). In fact, Jack Carlson, another brother, had to bow out of the film because he was called up to play for the Edmonton Oilers (then in the World Hockey Association). Dave Hanson took his place. Interestingly, there is another character in the movie called Dave “Killer” Carlson, played by Jerry Houser, who is somewhat based on the real Jack Carlson and Dave Hanson, both of whom had the nickname “Killer” as players. The Carlsons hailed from Virginia, Minnesota, and first played for the Marquette Iron Rangers in Michigan. The real Dave Hanson was born in Cumberland, Wisconsin. Steve and Jeff Carlson and Dave Hanson made two wretched sequels to Slap Shot and continue to make public appearances as their fictional alter egos.
When did “Coach’s Corner” first appear on Hockey Night in Canada ?
The bombastic, flamboyantly dressed Don Cherry made his debut on Hockey Night in Canada in the “Coach’s Corner” segment in 1980 with Dave Hodge as his sidekick. In 1987 Hodge was replaced by Ron MacLean, who has been Cherry’s foil ever since. Always controversial, Cherry toiled in minor-league hockey as a defenceman from the 1950s to the early 1970s, finishing his playing career with the American Hockey League’s Rochester Americans, a team he also coached for three seasons. He parlayed the minor-league coaching stint into a chance in the big time as head coach of the Boston Bruins, a job he held for five seasons (1974–75 to 1978–79). During the seventh game of the Stanley Cup semifinal with the Montreal Canadiens in 1979, Cherry made the mistake of allowing too many Bruins on the ice, earning a penalty for the team. The Canadiens capitalized on the error during the subsequent power play when Guy Lafleur scored the tying goal. The match went into overtime and the Canadiens’ Yvon Lambert scored again, winning the game and eliminating Boston. The Habs went on to play the New York Rangers in the final and ended up winning the Cup. Cherry was fired. He bounced back briefly, though, in 1979–80 as head coach of the wretched Colorado Rockies but was fired after one season.
Six Top All-Time Hockey Broadcasters
• Foster Hewitt (1902–1985)
• Danny Gallivan (1917–1993)
• René Lecavalier (1918–1999)
• Howie Meeker (1923– )
• Bill Hewitt (1928–1996)
• Dick Irvin, Jr. (1932– )
When was hockey first broadcast on television?
Amazingly, the very first television broadcast of hockey occurred on October 29, 1938. The British Broadcasting Corporation aired the second and third periods of a game between the Harringay Racers and Streatham at London’s Harringay Arena. Perhaps equally surprising, the very first telecast of hockey in North America didn’t happen in Canada but in the United States. On an experimental station set up by NBC at Madison Square Garden, the network broadcast a game between the New York Rangers and the Montreal Canadiens on February 15, 1940. Not many people got to see the telecast, since there were fewer than 300 television sets in New York City. The first televised NHL game in Canada finally transpired on October 11, 1952, when Hockey Night in Canada debuted on the tube in French with a game between the Chicago Black Hawks and the Montreal Canadiens called by René Lecavalier at the Montreal Forum. The Habs lost to the Hawks 3–2. Three weeks later, on November 1, Hockey Night in Canada aired its initial English-language broadcast as Foster Hewitt provided the play-by-the-play for a game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Boston Bruins at Maple Leaf Gardens. The Leafs beat the Bruins 2–1. Just the last half of the game was broadcast, a policy that continued until 1968 for regular-season matches.
When did Foster Hewitt first say “he shoots, he scores”?
On March 22, 1923, Foster Hewitt uttered his signature “he shoots, he scores” in his first radio broadcast, a playoff game between intermediate hockey clubs from Toronto and Kitchener at the former’s Mutual Street Arena. The broadcast was done for CFCA in a glassed-in booth near the penalty box. A month before Hewitt’s CFCA broadcast, on February 18, Norm Albert, an editor at the Toronto Star, made the very first radio broadcast of a hockey game. The senior-league match between clubs from North Toronto and Midland, Ontario, turned out to be a 16–4 blowout in favour of Toronto. On January 7, 1933, Hewitt was heard for the first time coast-to-coast on radio when he welcomed listeners with “Hello Canada and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland” for a game between the Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings, which the former won 7–6.
When were the first hockey cards issued?
In 1910–11 Imperial Tobacco released the inaugural set of catalogued hockey cards in a 36-card collection. The cards showcased coloured pictures of the superstars of the era such as Georges Vézina, Cyclone Taylor, and Lester Patrick and were placed in packages of cigarettes. A complete mint set of these cards is now worth thousands of dollars.
What famous explorer played hockey in the Arctic?
A recent discovery in a letter from British Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin to Roderick Murchison, dated November 6, 1825, records: “Till the snow fell the game of hockey played on the ice was the morning’s sport.” Franklin’s men were wintering during his second Arctic expedition at Fort Franklin (now called Deline) in Canada’s Northwest Territories on the shore of Great Bear Lake in October 1825. However, it isn’t clear if the people participating in this activity were wearing skates. More likely, they were playing field hockey. Still, that doesn’t stop Deline today from laying claim to hosting the very first “hockey” game in North America. As for Franklin, on his final expedition in 1845 to locate the Northwest Passage to Asia, he and his men disappeared in Canada’s Far North. They were last seen by Europeans on July 26, 1845. It appears Franklin perished on June 11, 1847, off King William Island in the Arctic Ocean.
