A Love Letter to the Time Hockey was Unique

How about the Original Six?

This is a love letter to the time hockey was unique.
Don’t get me wrong, it is still  a fabulous sport, played by athletes who are hard-working, blue-collar performers whogive it their all, all the time.
There are no divas, or prima donnas in hockey.
They are not selfish. It’s refreshing.

The Original Six was the way the National Hockey League was constructed before the age of expansion.

Expansion became  a welcome way of life for all sports. It gave growing cities an opportunity to adopt professional teams and it has been a rousing success. Cities take pride in their teams!

I thought of the Original Six when this year’s NHL’s Conference Finals was established.

Washington and Tampa Bay in the East. Vegas and Winnipeg in the West.

Vegas, as in Las Vegas.

The latest expansion team in any sport, the Vegas Golden Knights, in their very first year in the league, are one series away from a chance at winning the Stanley Cup.

It’s happened only once before.

But it was different.

In 1968, the St. Louis Blues faced the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Finals. But that season was the first expansion year ever for the NHL.

Six new teams were added to the Original Six. Those six formed it’s own division and competed in their own Stanley Cup playoff series, with the survivor going against one of the Original Six in the Finals.

In the third year of this format the Blues played the powerful Boston Bruins for the Cup, and the Bruins trounced the Blues in four straight games.

The image of the legendary Bobby Orr, in an unusual horizontal-looking move, scoring the winning goal in that fourth game remains one of the greatest photos in sports history.

Bobby Orr

 

The six expansion teams were the Blues, Minnesota North Stars, California Seals (playing in Oakland), Los Angeles Kings, Philadelphia Flyers, and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

In this year’s Conference Finals, three of the four have been around awhile. Only Vegas is new.

For the record, the Original Six were really not the original teams in the NHL which goes back to 1918.

From 1942 until that first expansion in 1968, the NHL was made up of the Original Six.

The Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings, Boston Bruins, New York Rangers and the Chicago Black Hawks were the six.

They played each other 14 times a season. The Stanley Cup playoffs matched teams finishing first and third, and the clubs who were in second and fourth place. The two survivors would face-off for the Stanley Cup championship. All three series were best of seven.
The last two teams in the standings were shutout of the playoffs.

What was so intriguing were the rivalries and familiarity involved. The familiarity extended to the faces of the players. It was a time before the advent of
helmets, which has been critical to players safety, but has eliminated the view of features and expressions. It added so much drama and excitement to the matchups.

Often the battles got out of hand.

In the 50’s, the Canadiens, with Maurice “The  Rocket” Richard, Jean Beliveau and Boom Boom Geoffrion went toe-to-toe with the Red Wings, led by Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay and Alex Delvecchio. There were many other stars on both squads.

 

Gordie Howe

 

In the nine-year span from 1952-1960, Montreal won six times, including five straight Cups from ’56-’60, while Detroit captured the other three.

The Canadiens also won six times from 1971-1979.

Often celebrations and protests extended to the streets. as they did twice in Montreal, resulting in violence, and vandalism.

Ugly scenes indeed.

In 2008 peaceful celebrations following the Canadiens seventh-game victory over the Bruins in an early round series resulted in police cars being burned and stores looted.

In 1955, Maurice Richard, Montreal’s brilliant star was suspended for the remainder of the season, including the playoffs, following a violent altercation late in that campaign when The Rocket hit a linesman.

The Montreal fans protested that the suspension was too severe. The penalty to Richard was administered by Clarence Campbell, the NHL president, who attended the very next game in the Montreal Forum after the ruling.

Rocket Richard

 

A riot ensued that spilled into the streets. There was considerable property damage, injuries and 100 arrests.

Peace was only restored when Richard issued a personal plea accepting his punishment.

The fight that started it all began when a Boston Bruins defenseman tried to provoke him by holding, hooking and slashing the Canadiens’ star.

Hal Laycoe, who had played for the Canucks hit Richard in the head with his stick requiring five stitches to close the cut.

Richard preceded to hit Laycoe in the face and shoulders with his stick Remember, no helmets in those days. One of the linesman attempted to break up the fight, only to be knocked unconscious after Richard punched him twice in the face.

After a hearing in the office of league president Campbell, the suspension was declared.

I don’t point to this incident as the reason why the NHL during the years of the Original Six was so appealing.

It’s an example of the intensity that prevailed.

Actually fighting is without doubt hockey’s least attractive feature.

Now, we witness the final rounds of this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs, especially with only expansion teams in the running, some whom have  been in existence for many years.

It is a good time for one who remembers, to look back at a 26-year era when the Original Six was special.