Who would still be a star?

[revolverjgw]

Do you mean that literally?

Never saw him with a smoke on the bench or ice myself.

.

Take a close look at his famous goal against Minnesota. You can clearly see him chomping on a cigar as he goes up the middle and then he arrogantly blows a ring of smoke right in Shawn Chambers' face. It's right there on the tape.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Take a close look at his famous goal against Minnesota. You can clearly see him chomping on a cigar as he goes up the middle and then he arrogantly blows a ring of smoke right in Shawn Chambers' face. It's right there on the tape.

Oh god, I wish someone with video editing skills would make this happen

 

[billybudd]

Danny Briere, Claude Giroux, Cliff Ronning, Derek Roy, Matt Read, Brad Marchand, Andy Miele, John Gaudreau, Brian Gibbons, Brian Gionta, Pelle Lindberg, Brian Little, Hakan Loob, David Deharnais, Patrick Dwyer...

Gibbons? Really? You consider a guy who played with the league MVP and scored about the same number of goals as 6'4, uncoordinated, facepuncher Kevin Westgarth to be proof of concept that small players don't often fail because of their size at the NHL level?

In addition, half or more of these guys are well above the height range I specified.

 

[Boreal01]

Stan Mikita comes to mind.

 

[crobro]

Rick Middleton as a 2nd line force.

 

[LeBlondeDemon10]

Gibbons? Really? You consider a guy who played with the league MVP and scored about the same number of goals as 6'4, uncoordinated, facepuncher Kevin Westgarth to be proof of concept that small players don't often fail because of their size at the NHL level?

In addition, half or more of these guys are well above the height range I specified.

Yeah, Giroux is, but he's only 172 lbs. Cut him.

 

[double5son10]

Not a chance. It was not uncommon for half a team to be between 5'7 and 5'9. No amount of "equipment" or "training" would normalize the disadvantages this would put them in in the modern era. A few of these smaller players would squeak through, but only a few.

Someone like Robinson would be a lock, however.

Just out of curiosity I took a look at the four playoff teams who made the playoffs in the final year before the '67 expansion: Toronto, Montreal, New York & Chicago. Players 5'9" & under. It's a pretty impressive list (I excluded players that played less than 20 games):

The Skaters:
Dave Keon, Ron Ellis, Bob Baun, Henri Richard, Yvan Cournoyer, Claude Provost, Dick Duff, Rod Gilbert, Bernie Geoffrion, Reggie Fleming, Bill Hicke, Stan Mikita, Pat Stapleton, Kenny Wharram, Lou Angotti, Wally Boyer
The Goalies: Bruce Gamble, Charlie Hodge, Gump Worsley, Rogie Vachon, Charlie Hodge, Denis DeJordy

I wholeheartedly agree that a smaller skater has more of an uphill battle to stick. They'd better have good wheels & above-average skill. That said I didn't find that there were ANY teams with 1/2 their players under 5'9", usually there were only a handful per team. Conversely, most teams from the era had few players over 6'1". Mostly, as is the case today, they were made up of players within the average height range. What's missing is the behemoths of today. There aren't any comparables to Chara of course but also thankfully no John Scott's either. The above list includes 8 HOFers (yes, I know Duff is questioned, but Vachon and Provost are continually cited as players who should probably be in, so call it a wash). Now compare that list to this one from a couple of years ago on the tallest players in the league:
http://www.sportingcharts.com/articles/nhl/tallest-players-in-the-nhl.aspx
There's Chara and Pronger, surefire HOFers, and a few decent players like Gill, Boyle, Bishop, Antropov, maybe Myers if he turns it around. I'm not sure who you'd argue from this list of O6 era undersized players would "squeak through" but there's certainly a helluva lot more skill & hockey sense in the former list than the later.
I agree on Robinson. Not many big men who could skate and had skills like Big Bird.

 

[LeBlondeDemon10]

I think many here are undervaluing the impact nutrition and healthcare has had on the generations since professional sports began. Men that grew to 5'9 in 1965 are more than likely to grow to 5'11 now. There will always exceptions, but statistics show the average human being as grown in height and weight due to better nutrition. On the other hand, our population has reached a crisis in rates of obesity.

 

[Knave]

I think many here are undervaluing the impact nutrition and healthcare has had on the generations since professional sports began. Men that grew to 5'9 in 1965 are more than likely to grow to 5'11 now. There will always exceptions, but statistics show the average human being as grown in height and weight due to better nutrition. On the other hand, our population has reached a crisis in rates of obesity.

Yes but 5'11 is small for a defenseman (read any detailed piece about Karlsson as an example).

The average for NHL players is around (by around I mean it's at least 6'1) 6'1 and it's at 6'2 if we're talking defence/goalie.

The average for males in Canada/US is 5'9-5'10. If you want to stretch it and say young men... it's 5'10-5'11.

We're still talking of at least 2 inches difference between NHL players and young men on average.

The modern NHL favors bigger, taller, faster and stronger (balanced as best you can). Like it or not if you're short - even with talent you can be overlooked. It's easy to list success stories who made it to the NHL.... because nobody is interested in looking up all the stars in the OHL (or WHL/QMJHL/etc) who toiled away in the AHL (or Europe) with little success in the NHL chances they got.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Just so i'm with you here: How many outdoor rinks was there in Canada in 1940?

And how much more common was there for kids to play on the pond as compared to say 1990?

What other means of honing your hockey skills back in the days am i missing here?

well the province of BC is a good place to look at this question as most of the population lives in areas were there is little to no freezing of ponds in the winter time thus a very limited number of players...well until a certain point.

BC has an extremely low number of NHL players before 1960 and even 1970 when a small jump occurs and then the alrger jump in the 80's which continues today.

http://www.hockey-reference.com/friv/birthplaces.cgi?country=CA&province=BC&state=

What changed?

It certainly wasn't the weather as I grew up in the lower mainland in the 70's and 80's were I can count on one hand the number of actual days we could skate on natural ponds.

What did change is organized minor hockey just got plain bigger and more organized and we see the increase in both quality and quantity coming through.

Basically what we have here is a new talent stream that has made the NHL more competitive, this new stream has been also taking place in the Atlantic provinces and the United states and Europe at different times and rates but it's all basically post early 80's for the most part.

 

[Big Phil]

I'm not really a fan of Bieksa's game and I was attempting to display two ends of the spectrum...one where Horton would be viewed as just as elite today as he was when he played, and the other where he is viewed as a fairly average NHLer if he played today.

My point with Bieksa was that he can play different styles and if he was in a weaker league we'd have to use the "eye test". He may appear as an incredibly dominant two-way physical defender in a lesser league but in the current NHL it's arguable that he's even top 50. Horton may very well fall in a similar category if he played today.

You can't use Norris finishes for Horton and Bieksa and act like they're equal because from what we know they are clearly not. Horton played in what amounts to an all-Canadian league and he was born in 1930 so his peers/competition also came from that time when hockey in Canada still had lots of room to grow. It's simply not fair to Bieksa or any current NHLer to hold them to that standard cause so much has changed and the talent pool has grown so much.

I'm a little confused here, Horton played in the original 6. He played against the best 120 players in the world. They also played against him 14 times a year. Pretty hard to have secrets those days. Where is this "weaker" league he played in?

 

[danincanada]

I'm a little confused here, Horton played in the original 6. He played against the best 120 players in the world. They also played against him 14 times a year. Pretty hard to have secrets those days. Where is this "weaker" league he played in?

There's nothing to be confused about here. Yes, the O6 was a condensed league due to having so few teams. Let's not pretend it had a huge talent pool to pick from though. A player like Horton was born near the start of the Great Depression and grew up during WW2. For the most part his peers/competition were born before the baby boom as well. The population of Canada was low during that era and so were birthrates, with hockey participation inevitably following suit.

It was basically only Canadians playing as well, of course. Very few Americans, no Europeans, Russians, etc. I know some around these parts like to act like the O6 teams were full of "all-stars" but in reality they were made from a very shallow talent pool so having only 6 teams made a lot of sense. It's not pure coincidence that NHL expansion took place when those baby boomers were coming of age in the late 60's. Expansion of the NHL was at least partially motivated by supply and demand, in terms of markets, fans, and available talent.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

There's nothing to be confused about here. Yes, the O6 was a condensed league due to having so few teams. Let's not pretend it had a huge talent pool to pick from though. A player like Horton was born near the start of the Great Depression and grew up during WW2. For the most part his peers/competition were born before the baby boom as well. The population of Canada was low during that era and so were birthrates, with hockey participation inevitably following suit.

It was basically only Canadians playing as well, of course. Very few Americans, no Europeans, Russians, etc. I know some around these parts like to act like the O6 teams were full of "all-stars" but in reality they were made from a very shallow talent pool so having only 6 teams made a lot of sense. It's not pure coincidence that NHL expansion took place when those baby boomers were coming of age in the late 60's. Expansion of the NHL was at least partially motivated by supply and demand, in terms of markets, fans, and available talent.

Two of Tim Horton's 1st Team All Star nods were in a 12 team league after the expansion. Not sure who brought him up to talk about the supposed weakness of a six-team league, but they picked the wrong poster boy

 

[Killion]

... but they picked the wrong poster boy

I'll say. Horton more than capable of bodily picking up Zedeno Chara & tossing him over the glass like fiddlesticks. You dont pull on Supermans Cape.

 

[danincanada]

Two of Tim Horton's 1st Team All Star nods were in a 12 team league after the expansion. Not sure who brought him up to talk about the supposed weakness of a six-team league, but they picked the wrong poster boy

That's not why his name came up originally. He supposedly could play any style of game, which is probably true, but so can a lot of current players and it doesn't necessarily make them elite.

 

[danincanada]

I'll say. Horton more than capable of bodily picking up Zedeno Chara & tossing him over the glass like fiddlesticks. You dont pull on Supermans Cape.

Tim Horton was listed as 5-10, 180 lbs, which is the same as Tobias Enstrom. Was he actually bigger than this?

 

[Iain Fyffe]

I prefer to play this game in reverse. Rather than assuming the current version of the game is the standard against which older players should be measured, use 1900 instead. Take a modern player, take away his modern skates, his pads, his composite stick, all his advanced training, his nutritionist, his conditioning coach, and put him on choppy ice to play a 60-minute-long shift. The offside rule would certainly mess up his offence as well. I don't care how big and strong the guy is, if you are literally just pulling him from his own time and dropping him in the past, he's going to suffer big time.

Imagine how the goaltenders would suffer. Tiny, tiny pads compared to now, not allowed to go to the ice to make a save, no trapper, no blocker. No mask, no helmet. No modern goaltender plays in a way that would be legal in 1900.

This is why we judge players relative to the era in which they actually played, so that we don't have to make great big assumptions.

 

[Trottier]

I tried to find a reference to Lemieux smoking between periods, but couldn't find one. Didn't look too hard though. Did find that some ancient guy named Jaromir Jagr used to smoke (which I wasn't aware of).

The Isles dynasty team had a little alcove just outside their lockeroom, where Denis Potvin, Mike Bossy and couple of other guys smoked between periods. I still find that amusing.

 

[Killion]

Tim Horton was listed as 5-10, 180 lbs, which is the same as Tobias Enstrom. Was he actually bigger than this?

No Sir. 5'10" & 180lbs and he played like a man 6'6" & 240lbs. Size is irrelevant when you know your angles. Geometric pressure points. Triangulations. Youve heard the saying "ya, he's only 5'8", but he plays a lot bigger"? Well thats how come. Old school. And in Hortons case, made of pure tungsten steel. Legendary strength & stamina.... theyve replaced the need for the knowledge & crafts of playing the angles & timing with raw brute size. Zombie hockey. Puckchenko.

 

[BluejacketNut]

Great debate, this is the conversation I was looking for but poorly worded the question in the original post.

I think the biggest difference in the time frame I was referring to, is the goaltending, most noticeably the equipment. Sticks are a big difference as well. While skates are much lighter, how much of a difference is there in the edge cuts from that era? But the goaltending is certainly a cause for high scoring numbers that made many players successful. Looking at the equipment difference is unbelievable.

 

[LeBlondeDemon10]

No Sir. 5'10" & 180lbs and he played like a man 6'6" & 240lbs. Size is irrelevant when you know your angles. Geometric pressure points. Triangulations. Youve heard the saying "ya, he's only 5'8", but he plays a lot bigger"? Well thats how come. Old school. And in Hortons case, made of pure tungsten steel. Legendary strength & stamina.... theyve replaced the need for the knowledge & crafts of playing the angles & timing with raw brute size. Zombie hockey. Puckchenko.

On the Habs website, Serge Savard listed his components to the ultimate player. For power he named Tim Horton saying, "Tim grabbed me by my jersey one time and lifted me off my feet. He was the strongest player I ever played against."

 

[Killion]

^^^ Ya. Savards 6'3" & weighed like 210 when he was playing... and when a touring Soviet Team saw Horton playing in the 60's, they thought he was the greatest player theyd' ever seen. So no, not a good example to be pulling out & wondering if he'd cut it in todays game.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Two of Tim Horton's 1st Team All Star nods were in a 12 team league after the expansion. Not sure who brought him up to talk about the supposed weakness of a six-team league, but they picked the wrong poster boy

And in those early years the original 6 had an easy go of it as the expansion teams were really hampered for several years.

The competition, aside form Orr is also extremely weak in those 2 years.

 

[Hardyvan123]

I prefer to play this game in reverse. Rather than assuming the current version of the game is the standard against which older players should be measured, use 1900 instead. Take a modern player, take away his modern skates, his pads, his composite stick, all his advanced training, his nutritionist, his conditioning coach, and put him on choppy ice to play a 60-minute-long shift. The offside rule would certainly mess up his offence as well. I don't care how big and strong the guy is, if you are literally just pulling him from his own time and dropping him in the past, he's going to suffer big time.

Imagine how the goaltenders would suffer. Tiny, tiny pads compared to now, not allowed to go to the ice to make a save, no trapper, no blocker. No mask, no helmet. No modern goaltender plays in a way that would be legal in 1900.

This is why we judge players relative to the era in which they actually played, so that we don't have to make great big assumptions.

all of this is great but the first part is probably untrue, the modern guy would adapt very quickly to the poor conditions but of course you took away all his training, which would include playing hockey one would think so maybe not.

all that being said the last part is what caught my eye and it's easier to be a big fish in a small pond than a big one in a sea and that's where the largest problem lies.

simply comparing guys against their peers and then assuming all eras should be given the same, or close to the same, weight is faulty and it really gives a significant advantage to one end of the spectrum over the other end.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

all of this is great but the first part is probably untrue, the modern guy would adapt very quickly to the poor conditions but of course you took away all his training, which would include playing hockey one would think so maybe not.

all that being said the last part is what caught my eye and it's easier to be a big fish in a small pond than a big one in a sea and that's where the largest problem lies.

Right, 2014 players would instantly adapt to any other time period, but older players wouldn't. At least you're consistently.

simply comparing guys against their peers and then assuming all eras should be given the same, or close to the same, weight is faulty and it really gives a significant advantage to one end of the spectrum over the other end.

Don't you ever get tired of beating the same strawman?