Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores (2 page)

The Duke and the Tampa Bay Lightning

Hype and Pucks in New York

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Paris Hilton: Hockey Player

Sitcom Hockey

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Welcome to Hockeyville

THE LAST PAGE

 

 

* * * * *

 

—Mario Lemieux

 

W
ELCOME, HOCKEY FANS!

What do a bunch of West Coast pop culture geeks know about hockey? That's the challenge our friends in Canada gave us back in 2005 when we published the first
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores
. They even bet us four loonies and a case of Molson that we couldn't do it, but we surprised them with a colossal compendium chock full of facts, figures, and trivia tidbits. Hockey has changed since then, though, and Uncle John wondered recently if it would be a good idea to update our book for all our new fans.

THEY SHOOT! THEY SCORE!

So last winter, when most of us at the BRI were spending too many chilly weekends glued to our sofas watching
Hockey Night in Canada
on satellite, Uncle John called us “a bunch of slovenly Americans” and encouraged us to get out there and actually
play
some hockey instead…for inspiration.

We still didn't have any ice, so once again, it was shinny—road hockey—for us. We headed out to the frozen concrete in front of the BRI with our taped-up sticks, a couple of old tennis balls, and two plungers for goal posts. After some annoying vehicular interruptions (“CAR!”), we got right to it, impersonating our favorite hockey heroes on our ultimate dream teams: “
Gretzky passes to Lemieux, Lemieux streaks past Hull, Messier races in and steals the puck, he passes to Jagr who hammers it at the net, Crosby reaches for it…he SCOOOORES! And they win the Stanley Cup!
”

After the game, the BRI AllStar Shinny Team got to talking about the updated edition: playing hockey
was
pretty fun, and reading more about it was bound to be a blast! So we decided to dust off our old copies of
Shoots and Scores
and plunge into all the new hockey trivia out there to see if there was enough to update
and expand the book. After a bucket of fries with vinegar and three cups of cocoa each (well, Amy had tea), eureka! We discovered that there was!

UJ DRAFT DAY

So we enlisted the help of all the hockey fans we know (“hockey experts,” they call themselves), and they came up with more than 70 new pages of interesting stories, hilarious history, fascinating quotes, and at least four entirely useless facts.

So get ready for the puck to drop. There are no refs in this game (though we do mention a few in the book…), but please try to stay out of the penalty box. Enjoy! Game on!

And as always…

Go with the flow, eh?

—Uncle John and the BRI Staff

Want to know why you call your favorite hockey team the Stars, the Flames, or the Devils? Read on.

• The
Calgary Flames
inherited their name from the Atlanta Flames when that franchise was sold and relocated to Alberta in 1980. The original team was named after the fire that General William T. Sherman's Union troops set in Atlanta as they blazed their way across the South at the end of the U.S. Civil War.

• The name of the
Columbus Blue Jackets
was also inspired by Civil War history. It's a reference to the blue uniforms worn by Union soldiers and celebrates the fact that Ohio contributed more soldiers per capita to the war than any other state in the Union. (Ohio is also the home state of pyromaniacal General Sherman—see above.)

• The
Dallas Stars
were not so-named because Texas is the “Lone Star State.” The franchise was originally the Minnesota North Stars, named for Minnesota's state motto: “L'Etoile du Nord” (French for “star of the North”). The team moved to Dallas in 1993, but left the “North” part behind.

• The
Nashville Predators
are named in tribute to the saber-toothed cat bones that were found in 1971 in downtown Nashville when workmen were excavating land for the construction of a new bank.

• When the NHL's Colorado Rockies relocated to New Jersey in 1982, they renamed themselves the
New Jersey Devils
for a mysterious, evil, winged creature called the “Jersey Devil” that, legend says, roamed the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.

• The inspiration for the name
Tampa Bay Lightning
actually comes from the weather. According to the
St. Petersburg Times
, Tampa is the “lightning capital of the nation.” In June 1993, at the conclusion of the franchise's first NHL season, more than 21,000 cloud-to-ground lightning flashes occurred within a 50-mile radius of Tampa Bay.

Are you ready for some…er…interesting hockey?

P
RIEST v. SEMINARIANS

Every February, priests from across the U.S. and Canada congregate at the St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary (a Roman Catholic high school in Winona, Minnesota) for meetings on religious topics. They also have a hockey game. Every year since 1988, the visiting priests form a team and face off at a local ice arena against a team of kids from the school. “When they all meet at center ice and do their Latin prayer,” says rink manager Jim Martin, “it really is surreal.” Best part: many of the priests choose to play in their robes. (The priests have beaten the kids just twice in the game's history.)

SEEING V. NON-SEEING

If you ever get a chance to see the Toronto-based Ice Owls play hockey, the first thing you'll notice is that the game sounds different. That's because the puck is hollow…and filled with bits of metal that make it rattle as it moves across the ice. That's so the Ice Owl players, who are either vision-impaired or completely blind, can hear it. The Ice Owls have been around since 1972, and every year they play in benefit games all over Canada. (You can find their schedule on their Web site.)

TISSUE DONORS V. TISSUE RECIPIENTS

In April 2011, two hockey teams faced off in Halifax, Nova Scotia. One team was made up of people who had donated organ tissue to people in need of transplants. The other: people who had received organ transplants. It was the second annual “Donor v. Recipient” hockey game, brainchild of Halifax-based “Life: Pass It On,” an organ donation advocacy group. Among the players on the recipient side: goalie Trevor Umlah, whom the organization's Web site describes as an “ice hockey goalie with a slow glove hand, gaping 5-hole, cystic fibrosis, and brand new lungs.” Winner of the 2011 game: Everybody. (Although the score was Recipients, 3, Donors 2.)

As the largest trophy awarded by any major North American professional sports league, the Stanley Cup has a lot of surface area—lots of room for names to be engraved…and lots of room for errors.

• Hockey Hall of Fame goalie Jacques Plante won the Cup six times and his name suffered four different misspellings: Jocko, Jack, Jacq, and Plant.

• A few other Hall of Famers also experienced misspelled names: in 1951, Toronto's Ted Kennedy became Kennedyy; in 1952, Detroit's Alex Delvecchio became Belvecchio, and teammate Glenn Hall became Glin. (Hall shouldn't even have been included that year; he didn't play for Detroit until the next season.)

• Dickie Moore won six Cups with the Montreal Canadiens, and his name was rendered five different ways: D. Moore, Richard Moore, R. Moore, Dickie Moore, and Rich Moore.

• Pete Palangio appears twice on the Cup, despite winning it only once. His name was accidentally engraved twice as a member of the 1938 Chicago Black Hawks…once correctly and once as Palagio.

• Even the names of the teams themselves weren't foolproof. According to the inscription, the Cup was won by the Toronto Maple “Leaes” in 1963, by the “Bqstqn” Bruins in 1972, and the New York “Ilanders” in 1981.

• Edmonton Oilers owner Peter Pocklington tried to pull a fast one on the NHL when his team won the Cup in 1984. As a tribute to his dad Basil, a huge hockey fan, he sneaked his father's name into the list of team names. Alas, the NHL caught up to him and had the name “Basil Pocklington” deleted by having X's engraved over each letter.

• In 1996 Adam Deadmarsh of the Cup-winning Colorado Avalanche became the first player inscribed on the cup in NHL history to be honored with a correction. His name was initially spelled “Deadmarch.”

Like all professional team sports, hockey keeps track of its players' distinguished statistical achievements. But what about those not-so-distinguished records? Here are four that show just how dangerous the game is.

S
MILE!

With all the high sticks, punches thrown, and flying pucks, having teeth knocked out is a constant occupational hazard for NHLers, and no one knows this better than New Jersey Devils defenceman Ken Daneyko. During his career (1983–2003), he lost a record total of twelve teeth (seven lower and five upper). Say cheese, Ken!

A NOSE FOR THE GAME

Washington Capitals great Rod Langway was the classic blueliner: big, strong, and hard-hitting. He absorbed a lot of hits too. So much so that during his 15-year career, he suffered at least 10 broken noses—an unofficial NHL record. One of the early breaks was doled out by the elbow of none other than Mr. Hockey himself, Gordie Howe.

A STITCH IN TIME

• Goaltending great Terry Sawchuk first wore a facemask in 1962 and continued to do so for his final eight years in the NHL. But during his first 12 years, he played with no facial protection at all…and racked up an NHL record of 400 stitches on his face. This included three directly on his right eyeball.

• And what about the most stitches in one sitting? The NHL record of 300 was set by Buffalo Sabres goalie Clint Malarchuk in 1989, when the skate of Steve Tuttle (of the St. Louis Blues) slashed his jugular vein during a collision at the net. The gash was so severe that Malarchuk wasn't sure he was going to make it: “I did think I was done,” he said years later. “Somewhere I'd heard that if you cut your jugular vein you've got a matter of minutes, like three minutes. I was going through the minutes preparing to die.” Fortunately, he didn't, thanks to the quick thinking of the
team's trainer who reached into Malarchuk's neck and pinched the jugular to stop the bleeding. After this accident, goalies started to wear neck protectors.

HEAL THYSELF

Montreal Canadiens captain Doug Harvey holds the record for the only NHL player to remove a cast from a teammate's limb. In 1961 Harvey and fellow Canadien Bernie “Boom Boom” Geoffrion—whose leg was in a cast to heal torn knee ligaments—were on a train bound for Chicago for Game 6 of the Stanley Cup semi-final. The Canadiens were facing elimination and the pair was feeling desperate. Boom Boom wanted to play. So he and Harvey decided it was time for the cast to come off. “Doug got a knife from the train kitchen and the two of us sneaked into the ladies' room,” Geoffrion recalls. “I watched my captain saw away at the heavy plaster of paris cast. The way the train was bouncing around it was a miracle I wasn't cut.” Geoffrion played in Game 6, but to no avail. Chicago went on to win the series, and later, the Cup.

* * * * *

UNDERWATER HOCKEY

It's not what it sounds like—oh wait, yes it is. It's hockey played underwater. Two teams of 10 players each don snorkels, masks, and fins, and use small—about one foot long—slightly curved sticks of wood or plastic to push a heavy puck (made of metal) around the bottom of a pool. To score, they need to get the puck into their opponent's 10-foot-wide goal. Other than that it's just like hockey.

The game was invented in 1954 by Alan Blake of Portsmouth, England, and today it's played all over the world. There's even a “World AquaChallenge Association” that is recognized as the “governing body for Underwater Hockey.” (We're guessing the game doesn't translate very well to TV.)

Hockey players often choose their jersey numbers for a reason.

#99: JOE LAMB

In the years before NHL expansion, the most exalted jersey number was probably #9 since three of the era's greatest scorers wore the digit: “Rocket” Richard, Gordie Howe, and Bobby Hull. Called up in 1977, by the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds of the Ontario Hockey League, 16-year-old Wayne Gretzky wanted to wear the number 9 in honor of his childhood hero, Howe, but the number was taken. So young Gretzky settled on 99 instead, a choice that gave birth to what is now the most famous and revered number in the game.

But Gretzky was not the first NHLer to wear this unusual jersey number. The original #99 belonged to Joe Lamb, an unspectacular but respectable forward who played for seven teams over 11 seasons. He wore a variety of jersey numbers during his career, but was assigned #99 for his 1934–35 tour with the Montreal Canadiens. Hockey historians have suggested that the Canadiens may have used #99 as a practice jersey that eventually made a few appearances in games on the backs of journeymen players, starting with Lamb. After he left the team, two other Habs, Desse Roche and Leo Bourgault, also wore the number. In all, only five NHL players other than Gretzky have worn #99, but no one else ever will. The number was retired leaguewide after Gretzky retired from playing in…1999.