Hockey History

As Manitoba celebrates its 150th birthday in 2020, it’s another great chance to reflect on the exquisite hockey history that the keystone province possesses. In "Manitoba Hockey: An Oral History", hear stories directly from the players that helped shape the great game of hockey from the...

The California Golden Seals: a Tale of White Skates and Red Ink, and One of the NHL’s Most Outlandish Teams covers the franchise’s entire history, from its championship years in the Western Hockey League, to its relocation to Oakland, to its excruciatingly slow death in Cleveland. Several people...

Two hockey historians have self-published a book about what was undoubtedly the ultimate hockey promotion. Don Pillar of Port McNicoll and Aubrey Ferguson of Oakville are life-time collectors of Bee Hive hockey pictures who started seven years ago to pool their knowledge and put together a book...

Hello, fellow hockey geeks! The 1979 Challenge Cup between the NHL All-Stars (=the best of Canada plus three Swedes) and the Soviet National Team is one of my favorite cold war era hockey series ever. For starters, look at the rosters; Guy Lafleur, Mike Bossy, Bobby Clarke, Gilbert Perreault...

About the book: Having captured five Stanley Cup championships since 1991 – more than any other team since then – it’s easy to forget that the Pittsburgh Penguins were once one of hockey’s most laughable organizations. Born in 1967 as a National Hockey League expansion team, the Penguins...

Since it's being referenced a lot lately as a comparable to the current situation, a rundown of what happened in 1919: By the time the Stanley Cup finals were played in March, the Spanish flu pandemic was actually on its 3rd wave. The worst of the pandemic took place in late 1918; it was the...

The Lost Shifts Ep. 2: Mark Messier, the Anti-Canuck - Vancouver Is Awesome In the storied mythos of the Vancouver Canucks, Mark Messier is undoubtedly the team's greatest villain. No coach, no general manager, nor any other player remains as reviled as the notorious Messier. If one were to...

The Lost Shifts Ep. 2: Mark Messier, the Anti-Canuck - Vancouver Is Awesome In the storied mythos of the Vancouver Canucks, Mark Messier is undoubtedly the team's greatest villain. No coach, no general manager, nor any other player remains as reviled as the notorious Messier. If one were to...

NHL season officially canceled Can't believe 15 years have passed. I remember getting the bad news when I got home from school and ESPN was showing Gary Bettman announcing that the season would be cancelled followed by a video shown below.What was interesting about the whole thing was I...

The Immaturity Keeping Alexander Mogilny Out Of The Hockey Hall Of Fame - By Kevin Wong; December 1, 2019; @CambieKev on Twitter Note: This is a career retrospective focusing on some of Alexander Mogilny's controversies as an NHL player, written for historical purposes and to remind readers...

This is a presentation I have wanted to create for quite a long time. I am proud to finally be able to share it with everyone. The film, titled Pavel Bure: A Rocket Through Time, is an 85-minute retrospective about the career of one of the NHL's most dynamic, electrifying, compelling figures of...

The History of Professional Hockey in Victoria is available in the Victoria area from Bolen Books, Munro’s Books, and Tanner Books. It is available online through Friesen’s at The History of Professional Hockey in Victoria at the FriesenPress Bookstore and from major online booksellers. About...

It is not an unpopular opinion to say Alex Ovechkin's 2007-08 season is the best of the 2000s. I was curious to see how it would grade by WAR. I also wanted to test how a peak Pavel Datsyuk's all around game would compare to Ovechkin's dominant goal scoring. So I went component by component...

It has taken a few years from the idea to the realization, but finally we're able to get this project off the ground: In association with the Society for International Hockey Research (SIHR), HFBoards presents the History of Hockey book feature. The SIHR will offer their writing members the...

As of August 28th (which it nearly is now in Japan), it's been 32 years since Canada Cup 1987. What a great tournament and some great memories. I was a kid of 11 then, and Rendezvous '87 and this tournament were my first exposure to international hockey. I thought it'd be fun to re-view the...

My top 10 list (not in a definitive order, but in a sort of order): Tikkanen-Gretzky-Kurri (Edmonton Oilers) Aka Finnish Sandwich. I don’t know if it was even the best of Gretzky’s lines, but a very well balanced version of the Oilers’ top line it was in my opinion; one offensive wizard and...

I thought it would be neat thing to take a look at the early European players who got attention from North Americans. Players that were put on negotiaion lists of NHL clubs, were invited to training camps or just generally were commented on that they could play in the NHL. When time permits I...

With the trade deadline approaching, this always becomes a topic of discussion, so let's see how many moves we can list that can be directly attributed to a team's Stanley Cup win. The first trade that always springs to mind as being the quintessential trade deadline move was the Islanders'...

We all know that Al Iafrate does not like empty net goals. The story goes that Iafrate was in clear but elected to shoot the puck in the corner rather than into the open net and when asked about it afterwards was quoted as saying: "empty net goals are for [sissies/pansies/wussies/losers/and...

The following is my attempt to categorize the Conn Smythe winners since 1980 (the start of the four-round era). I'm using four tiers, which can roughly be categorized as Godlike; strong victory; solid victory; and undeserving. There's still a range within each tier, but when I tried to divide it...