Hockey History

Hockey My Door to Europe By DENIS GIBBONS The purpose of the book was to reveal how international hockey changed my life in the sense of opening my door, not only to Europe but also to the rest of the world. In my teens I was interested in the game, only with respect to superstars...

Since writing last week about the Gilmour brothers, I’ve been spending some of my lockdown time trying to find the story of how Billy Gilmour and his daughter escaped from Nazi-occupied France. If their account actually appears somewhere in print, perhaps it was told in an Ottawa or Montreal...

According to Wikipedia (if I counted them up correctly!), there have been 299 sets of brothers who’ve played in the NHL from the league’s beginning in 1917 through 2019–20. Of that group, 47 sets of brothers have played together on the same team, but only 10 have won the Stanley Cup together...

The ice hockey team of the Skating Club of Brooklyn, colloquially known as the Brooklyn Skating Club, appeared as one of the four founding clubs during the inaugural 1896–97 season of the New York based American Amateur Hockey League (AAHL). The three others being the Brooklyn Crescents, the St...

Few fans get to be as lucky as I've been. While working on the 'Toronto Maple Leafs: Official Centennial Publication,' I interviewed about 100 players, past and present, and finished each conversation with, "What did it mean to play for the Maple Leafs?" The answers were quite incredible...

Can you think of a player that needed just one more great year - or even just one great playoff run or something else happening to them - that would have given them a rightful spot in the HHOF? Here are a few that come to mind: Theo Fleury - He might still get in. But if he finishes that 2001...

Hi everyone, With international hockey on our minds and the World Juniors tournament underway, I've been asked to present about Father Bauer and the Great Experiment: The Genesis of Canadian Olympic Hockey, which came out in April 2017. Thanks for the opportunity. Here's the synopsis that I...

Eduard Georgievich Ivanov (1938-2013) was a staple on the defence of the Soviet national team from 1962/3 until 1966/67. A curious episode from the 1964 Olympics in Innsbruck, however, has led some to falsely assume he played as a forward in that tournament. The confusion was caused by no-one...

About the book: Whether you're a die-hard booster from the early days of Conn Smythe or a new supporter of Randy Carlyle, these are the 100 things all Maple Leaf fans need to know and do in their lifetime. Authors Michael Leonetti and Paul Patskou have collected every essential piece of Maple...

You’d think something as simple as who was the first goalie in hockey history to wear a mask would be an easy question to answer. It’s not. In fact, it’s been surprisingly difficult to nail down. Jacques Plante — though he popularized the concept for modern goalies — was certainly not the first...

The Fastest Game in the World: Hockey and the Globalization of Sports is a history of the global sport based on research in multiple countries and multiple languages. The author was a history professor for two decades, and the book has the foundation of an academic work, with research done in 20...

Various family constellations have been part of the ice hockey world throughout the history of organized competition, most often made from a set of brothers. The Montreal Hockey Club (AAA), for instance, the first club to capture the Stanley Cup in 1893, had the Hodgson brothers, Billy and...

In his SIHR blog entry from April 5 ("A Londoner upsets the Reds – Wembley Lions versus the Soviet Union 1955"), Stewart Roberts takes a look at the series of games the Soviet national team played in England in November and December 1955, most notably the narrow 3-2 win over Wembley Lion on...

For the seasons 1926-27 to 1929-30, NHL coaches were polled for their all-stars of the season to create all-star teams. I've posted the 1926-27 and 1927-28 teams previously. The 1929-30 teams are new to me and I don't think they have been posted here. (thanks to Pam Coburn for the article). I...

Lion in Winter - Great Britain at the Olympic, World and European Championships 1910-1981. A 652 page comprehensive volume that took seven years of research and writing, describing in detail the exploits and game-by-game action, with statistics, by the players who donned the GB strip over...

About the book: Distinguished sportswriter Elmer Ferguson called him the “greatest defensive” defenseman of his day. The NHL’s revered chief referee Cooper Smeaton ranked him ahead of his defense partner, Eddie Shore. Legendary manager of the Boston Bruins, Art Ross, wouldn’t sell him “at any...

Book Feature. Andrew Holman: A Hotly Contested Affair – Hockey in Canada A Hotly Contested Affair: Hockey in Canada is a collection of documents that trace the history of Canada’s national winter game from its “founding” in Montreal in the mid-1870s into the early twenty-first century. Composed...

Philadelphia has been a hockey town since 1897. Before and even during the Philadelphia Flyers' tenure, other teams--the Ramblers, the Quakers and the Firebirds, among others--called the city home, for better or for worse. The first of its kind, this comprehensive history covers the teams and...

This book reveals for the first time the remarkable story of how Canadian players came to Sussex on the south coast of England in the mid-1930s - in the midst of the Depression in Canada - and formed the Brighton Tigers, one of the founder members of the English National League, the country's...

Daniel Mahoney: The Most Wonderful Times: Memories of New York Rangers Alumni About the Book: This book contains ten interviews the author conducted with New York Rangers Alumni in the mid-1980s. Always interested in the history of the Rangers, the author actively sought out some of the...