Old Farts Thread

[Maggie3and Me]

I thought we should have a thread where some of us old farts, like me, bigjack.BENNETWOLF,2,,5,10, Vodka Fish, and all the guys with good stories could come to. No specific topic needed, as long as it is about old time hockey. When one of us remembers something post it. If we have information we want to share with the rest of the class, but, does not fit a topic, come here and post it.

Between all of us we have such a wealth of hockey information this would be a place to post and share memories and stories.

Anyone is welcome to post here as long as it has to do with old time hockey.

P.S. If I mentioned all the names like boobs, srehm1 bigjohnson, canukfan,etc., there would be no room for posts, plus you know who you are.

[Maggie3and Me]

Posted by bigjack at All Time Dirtiest Actions Thread.

So true and the young posters here don't like me. They only know what they hear and read and think that because a guy is bigger and skates fast, that makes him a great hockey player. They also have no clue about how massive expansion has ruined the NHL. John Davidson, on his first trip back to NY two years ago, said on the air that there is not enough hockey skills today to fill more than two lines and that the 3rd and 4th lines do nothing but skate fast and all out and check and have no finishing skills! He said even the 2nd lines are weak in many cases and I laughed and thought "BRAVO" and it's only something that I have been saying for years.
To me, the last decent year was 1992 and then they began with all the massive expansion and coaches like Roger Neilson were smart and saw how a San Jose was getting destroyed and knew the only way to compete in Florida with the Panthers was to play tight, tight checking boring hockey with holding, clutching, grabbing and that was the key to staying competitive!
The other expansion teams saw that as they entered the league and did the same thing and presto boring unskilled crappy hockey!
Neilson was smart and was only doing what Scotty Bowman did with St Louis in the late 1960's and early 1970's. The Blues made it to 3 straight finals out of the West playing a trap and relying on Glenn Hall and Jacques Plante! They all talk about the trap or 3rd man high but Bowman was using that in Montreal as his defensive system all throughout the 1970's! The difference is that his teams were loaded with great skilled players and his 3rd lines consisted of guys like: Risenbrough, Lambert, Tremblay, Houle, Mondou etc. Montreal was so good that a guy like Pierre Larouche was being benched by Bowman after being a 50 goal man in Pittsburgh!
Today a Derek Sanderson, Sheppard, Risenbrough, Kindrachuk, Bridgman, Stemkowski, Ullman, Lorentz to name a few were all 3rd line or 4th line centers and today would be 1st or 2nd line centers. Toronto was average in the early 1970's and yet had guys like: Keon, Sittler, Ullman, Harrison at center ice! Who has that kind of talent today and they were an average team!
The other thing is the goalie equipment today is ridiculous! Look at what Tony O wore or Dryden and compare that with what they wear today!
This isn't hard to see or comprehend at all if you know hockey but all I get is the guys are bigger and stronger and skate fast!
Big Deal!

Guys,

This is the kind of post I thought we could put here and talk about. It deals with a lot of things that we remember, from equipment to expansion. The
older players compared to the players of today.

It is not meant to duplicate another, just a place to post some of what we remember.

Thanks bigjack

[blockerpunch]

Thanks for posting that, I remember that particular post and I just want to say that as a younger poster on this site bigjack is one of my favorite posters out of all the guys on here, his posts are informative and if the Rangers are involved there is absolutely no one with a more bulletproof assessment of their history. It is awesome to be able to learn from guys like him who have a great hockey sense and understanding of the history of the game. So not all young guys 'don't like' you bigjack!

As someone who truly appreciates (appreciated) real tough hockey it is a real kick in the balls to see how the game has gone from one direction to where we are now. I grew up with Clark and Probert as the players I looked up to. Hextall was my favorite goalie (my dad bought me a poster of him when i was 6 because I idolized him and emulated his style as a goalie) and now to be 25 years old and see the way the game has changed is ALMOST as brutal for me as it must be for you guys who have been able to enjoy an even cognizant experience of old time hockey!

Its funny I think I know more about hockey players from the early nineties than I do now because that's when I collected hockey cards and really idolized NHL players, followed everything even more closely. Now I care more about old hockey than I do about what is happening in the game, that's why I post in The Remember When Forum, because I learn more about the game I loved here than the game I wish still existed everywhere else.

Remember When is the best part of this site hands down Maggie3and Me you are a great addition to this site too, thanks for all your contributions so far!

[Maggie3and Me]

blockerpunch,

Thank you for the kind words and I agree with you about bigjack and a lot of the other posters here.

When bigjack talked about the goalie equipment, I chuckled. I remember seeing goalies like Glenn Hall, Terry Sawchuck, Ed Giacomin, Gump Worsley, to name a few, play with out masks. In fact Jacques Plante was the first to wear a mask in 1959, while he was with Montreal .Their equipment as far as pads and gloves and blockers were also quite a bit smaller.

These are some of the things I wanted people to come here and share. I think that by talking about any thing and not having to stay to a topic gives us a chance to speak to a lot of different things. Sometime another persons post might trigger a memory you have. Here, would be a place to share those memories with fans of the game, both young and old.

I hope to see you here a lot. We all have a lot to contribute.

M3M

[fansince65]

As an old fart we have to take into account the evolution of the game , over the last 50-60 years the game has changed so much we old timers have a hard time remembering what they call the "good old days".

We remember things like when you got a two minute penalty you had to serve the full two minutes , but the Montreal Canadians were capable of scoring two or three goals in that length of time so they changed the rules .
The Montreal rule..
Teams used to sign players to a playing card , along came Bobby Orr , the Bruins had him all sowed up (under contract) at 14 years old , thus no other team could touch him , they implemented the draft of junior players because they thought this was unfair , changed the way players were scouted and signed forever , the Bobby Orr "rule".

Some teams used to carry two/three tough players (the enforcers) they were their to keep the game "honest".
Along came Bettman with his ideas to clean up fighting in the game , thus the "instigator rule" ..

The game has evolved over the years to what we have today , expansion has watered down the talent pool to the extent that players that could not make the ECHL in the old days are now playing in the NHL .
The evolution of the game that I played and love as an old fart will continue to evolve , in the next 5-6 years we will see a ban on all fighting , the next thing they will do is try to remove body contact from the game ..
The things in this post most have come to pass , If you don't like the evolution of the game as it is going "find another sport" because it is going to become a no body contact game within the next ten years ...

Just the opinion of an "OLD FART" !!!!

[bigjack]

I guess I qualify as a young old fart! I am 46 and missed the 1942-67, 6-team NHL. My old man always told me about the fierce rivalries and competition and how everybody played each other 14 times with many jobs being up for grabs and the checking was tight.
I began watching and learning in the 1969/70 season and have seen how expansion has ruined the product and coaches who coach not to lose instead of coach to win and that has ruined creativity and skills.
It's so ironic but I picked up my latest THN today and there is an article about how the Gretzky deal to LA may have hurt hockey 20 years ago and how massive expansion to the sun belt to go to new markets diluted the game and talent pool and brought on holding and boring non-creative hockey! I have been writing this for 4 years here and saw it in this week's THN.
Guess what, 30 teams and 700 jobs has ruined the NHL pure and simple! When I saw Neil Smith draft a Manny Malholtra 10 years ago as the number 7 pick if I remember right, I knew how low the talent pool had fallen! Malholtra is one of these modern athletes who is big, strong, in great shape, can skate like the wind, but he is clueless with the puck and has no hockey sense as an offensive player! He is the epitome of most of today's players!
About 5 years before Smith drafted Niclas Sundstrom at around the same position as Malholtra and he was another guy who could skate but had no hands and offensive creativity. I have written here about 25 times how I watched poor Gretzky in 1997 in his first year in NY score 97 points with 72 assists but he should of had 140 points easily with 115 assists.
Sundstrom was one of Gretzky's linemates and he ruined more great passes being clueless around the net and not having a clue how to finish a play. Sundstrom had his "big" year with Gretzky scoring 24 goals and 52 points and the bastid should of scored 44 goals and 92 points with little effort!
It was just brutal to watch how Gretzky would make a great pass and some as*hole would ruin the play and either not score, not receive the pass cleanly, or miss the goddamn net! This sh*t goes on all the time today with no hands or skills hockey players making believe they are NHL players!
Have you seen some of these powerplays today and the defenseman who are the "quarterbacks" of the powerplay! Utterly clueless and lacking in skills and they always write about the great coaching today and I almost never see guys in front of the net and point men just putting shots on goal. No instead they pass it around the perimiter for 4 hours and never get a shot on goal or blast it 300 MPH and miss the net and it goes around the boards and out!
For 15 years, I'd watch a Denis Potvin use a wristshot from the point on a powerplay and never miss the net and yet today the wristshot is a thing of the past as is the backhand! Phil Esposito always said it isn't the speed of the shot that beats goals but how quickly it's released and how accurate the shot is!
Lastly I have railed on guys like: Kovalev and Nedved in NY as more of these so called great modern athletes who are morons when it comes to hockey sense. Kovalev is a 65 point scorer and should be a 100 point score with his skill set but is an idiot. The object of the game is to score, not be fancy and look pretty and then miss the goddamn net and not score. Guys like Kovalev are like this or a Nedved who they said had a powerful shot but half the time he missed the goddamn net so what good was it!
I'd watch a Mike Bossy on the Island and the guy was so smart and skilled and knew how to finish and had all the shots and then I'd watch a Kovalev at the Garden and he'd ruin more plays with stupidity and selfishness and not having a clue and just shake my head and want to vomit!
Where are the fundamentals today and hockey sense? The great players like a Crosby or Ovechkin have it but alot don't and then half the players have no business being in the NHL. All they do is skate like hell and check!
Boring!

[fansince65]

Bigjack you and I have had a few disagreements before (Adam Graves is one) but for what I call one of the young posters you have a ton of knowledge and I respect your opinion like no other .

When you say 700 players is today's NHL you are right on the money on how watered down the talent is today as compared to the six team era .

Ask your dad if this is not fact , in the six team era teams carried 9 forwards 5 d-men and one goaltender , that's 15 players on each team , 6 teams 90 players in the NHL and the whole world to pick that 90 players from .

Their are not 90 players in the game today that could make up 6 teams of the caliber of player that played back then !!!

Just the Opinion of an Old Fart !!!!!

[2,5,10GameMatch]

At 39, I qualify as an "old fart", come onnnnnnnnn!

I'd still put most 20 something's in their place!

[haz-ben]

Being a fan for the majority of the last 35 years I to am saddened (to say the least) at the way the sport has declined. I grew up in Detroit and my favorites as a kid were Dryden, Rutherford, Larson, Maloney and LaFleur. It was always exciting to watch, that is until the late '90's early 00's. My biggest problem is the lack of physicality, no one hits (that much). There used to be several huge hits during a game. Now, you see these "hits of the week" compilations and there might be one good one. Clearing the crease is another sore spot with me. If an opponent is in the crease whacking at your goalie, you had better put him on his Dupa or die trying. I realize today that the rules have changed and any "viscious" checks or "touching" in the crease will get you 2 minutes. That doesn't mean we have to like it. I also agree with you guys that the talent level has dropped. That's one reason why they changed the rules. To give these guys a better chance to score. And finally, it always seems that to market the game better, the existing fan base always gets screwed. Keep the game the way it is and show the people why it's already being watched. I find it hard to believe that in a world where cage fighting and "wrestling" are huge in popularity, that the public can't stomach the violence of ice hockey. No other sport can come close to the intensity of a "good" hockey game.

[fansince65]

Originally Posted by Maggie3and Me

blockerpunch,

Thank you for the kind words and I agree with you about bigjack and a lot of the other posters here.

When bigjack talked about the goalie equipment, I chuckled. I remember seeing goalies like Glenn Hall, Terry Sawchuck, Ed Giacomin, Gump Worsley, to name a few, play with out masks. In fact Jacques Plante was the first to wear a mask in 1959, while he was with Montreal .Their equipment as far as pads and gloves and blockers were also quite a bit smaller.

These are some of the things I wanted people to come here and share. I think that by talking about any thing and not having to stay to a topic gives us a chance to speak to a lot of different things. Sometime another persons post might trigger a memory you have. Here, would be a place to share those memories with fans of the game, both young and old.

I hope to see you here a lot. We all have a lot to contribute.

M3M

M3M : goalies (some) used to use a baseball catchers MIT , blockers were wood covered with leather and stuffed with horse hair (to cut down on rebounds) the goalie pads were all stuffed with horse hair (got heavy as he!! when wet)..
This summer I sold a pair of CCM Tacks that were 50 years old at a yard sale had a pair of gloves (all leather) just as old that were in mint condition , the guy that bought them could not stop shaking when he got them , he said his grandfather had been looking for the skates and gloves for a long time .

The equipment was no even close to today's bulletproof stuff that all the players wear today , when you look back at the equipment ( still have my elbow pads and jock) and compare it to the equipment players wear in the game now you wonder how the He!! we ever survived , but then one word pops right in your mind "RESPECT" for each other .....

[haz-ben]

Originally Posted by fansince65

M3M : goalies (some) used to use a baseball catchers MIT , blockers were wood covered with leather and stuffed with horse hair (to cut down on rebounds) the goalie pads were all stuffed with horse hair (got heavy as he!! when wet)..
This summer I sold a pair of CCM Tacks that were 50 years old at a yard sale had a pair of gloves (all leather) just as old that were in mint condition , the guy that bought them could not stop shaking when he got them , he said his grandfather had been looking for the skates and gloves for a long time .

The equipment was no even close to today's bulletproof stuff that all the players wear today , when you look back at the equipment ( still have my elbow pads and jock) and compare it to the equipment players wear in the game now you wonder how the He!! we ever survived , but then one word pops right in your mind "RESPECT" for each other .....

Ahh yes that old equipment. My first pair of skates were more tape than leather. Absolutely zero protection from puck abuse. I still have the garter belt and small shoulder pads etc. They have been getting a laugh in the locker room for 20 plus years now. (I've only played a couple times in the last 10 years though)

[canuckfan]

Great stuff in here guys - I always appreciate and enjoy reading what other older posters have to say, and some of the best hockey discussions on this site take place right in this forum. In the past guys like bigjack have helped me out immensely with questions regarding hockey from the 70s - there are some things you just can't find in a book, and depending on the knowledge of smart, reliable, and experienced hockey fans like you can find here can be just as good a source as any!

Anyhow - while I'm not by any means an "old fart" (just turned 30) I've been a fan for over 20 years and love to contribute where I can.

But my future father-in-law, however, is well into his 70s and has a wealth of hockey knowledge and terrific memories. He has a story that I love to retell to others that I enjoy so much. When he was a kid growing up in Calgary, one of the tougher neighborhood kids who could be a bit of a bully was Bill Gadsby, future HHOF defenseman for the Redwings, Hawks and Rangers - played over 20 years in the NHL from '46 to '66. Mean and tough, Gadsby ruled and terrorized a local outdoor rink in the winters and had a habit of throwing other kids off when he wanted to play. One winter my father-in-law was tossed unceremoniously off the ice in one such occassion by Gadsby and was told to get lost - before he left, he threw a hard packed snowball at Gadsby and nailed him right in the ear. He has told me before that Gadsby shouted and roared so loudly that he knew he was in big trouble, and Gadsby chased him all the way home, pacing around his house for the better part of an hour waiting for my father-in-law to come out, before giving up and going back to the rink.

Safe to say, my father-in-law was looking over his shoulder for the rest of that winter and was very careful going to that rink to play hockey. Years later, my father-in-law travelled to Chicago to see a Hawks/Wings game and caught up with Gadsby after the game while getting into his car - both had a laugh when recalling the snowball incident - Gadsby said "That was you? You little SOB..."

Anyhow - I love this story and I love hearing him tell it over and over. I thought it would be appreciated in this thread with some guys who might remember something about Gadsby - a true original 6 tough guy. He was just as mean growing up in Calgary as he was playing in the NHL.

[jkidd]

Hey fellas - I figure this is a hell of a place as any to get some info.

Talking with my old man after watching the Oil/Wild game over the weekend, and he brought up a North Stars player I've heard of, and read about, but don't have in a lot of the footage I have form the NStars. He said Erik Reitz kinda reminded him of in progress, and its a shame the team gave up on him so soon.

Brad Maxwell.

From what I read about him, a decently skilled guy that wasn't afraid to mix things up. Played before the North Stars started dressing a truly formidable lineup with the likes of Tinordi, Churla and McRae.

What do you guys know or think about him?

[2,5,10GameMatch]

Originally Posted by jkidd

Hey fellas - I figure this is a hell of a place as any to get some info.

Talking with my old man after watching the Oil/Wild game over the weekend, and he brought up a North Stars player I've heard of, and read about, but don't have in a lot of the footage I have form the NStars. He said Erik Reitz kinda reminded him of in progress, and its a shame the team gave up on him so soon.

Brad Maxwell.

From what I read about him, a decently skilled guy that wasn't afraid to mix things up. Played before the North Stars started dressing a truly formidable lineup with the likes of Tinordi, Churla and McRae.

What do you guys know or think about him?

Brad Maxwell was a very solid defenceman, with a great slapshot and plenty of aggression, good sized guy for his time, rangy, versatile and a left handed fighter....

One of those guys who would fight anyone and usually win, he had a lttle known classic with Bob McGill in around 82, footage is quite rare but they bombed away at each other, heads snapping back with good landing punches, Maxwell with the left, McGill with the right. awesome fight....

I'm not so sure Minnesota gave up on himm "too soon". he had at least 5 good years there, every team need's a Brad Maxwell.......

I've told this story before but when he played with Toronto, I was at a game with a friend, we were sitting way up in the greens but the building (MLG) was quiet this moment, as it was most nights because the Leafs were just plain terrible at this time frame....anyway the face off is in the opposing end and Maxwell takes his spot awaiting the puck drop at the point as to then my friend yells very loudly "Hey Maxwell, why dont you put the fukkin' puck in the net"!, now I'm sure that 95% of the building heard it and some chuckled, then Maxwell stood straight up from his crouch and looked right at us, with this look of "Ok loudrock, watch this fukker"!, so on the ensuing puck drop the bisquit comes right to Brad and he RIFLED IT! for a goal, skating by giving us that look like "there now shut it azzhole you got your goal"!, was classic, the whole building was buzzing from that, another guy stood up and yelled "Ok do it again"! and the buzz and laughter got louder.

[jkidd]

Originally Posted by 2,5,10GameMatch

Brad Maxwell was a very solid defenceman, with a great slapshot and plenty of aggression, good sized guy for his time, rangy, versatile and a left handed fighter....

One of those guys who would fight anyone and usually win....

Ahhh, thanks for the info 2,5. Greatly appreciated. Thats generally what I read about him, but, well, we know how some writers put a little too much into their reviews. I find it a lot better to get it from guys that were either fans, or haters of the players.