"Total Hockey"
THE STANLEY CUP MYSTIQUE
Milt Dunnell
When Lynn and Muzz Patrick discovered the Stanley Cup in a cardboard box
down in the basement of their home in Victoria, British Columbia, they
did what
any grade-school-age students would be likely to do — especially if their
father
happened to be Lester Patrick, already a legend in hockey.
They got themselves a nail and attempted to add their names to those of
the already
anointed. Not being blessed with the powers of Nostradamus, they couldn’t
even
guess their names would be engraved there eventually as members of the
New
York Rangers.
More than 70 years later, three Russian-born players, their names freshly
cut into
the Cup, were holding it aloft to the thunderous cheers of 62,000 fans
attending a
soccer match in Moscow. Among those paying homage to the Stanley Cup was
Boris Yeltsin, head honcho of all the Russians.
The caper of Lester Patrick’s kids didn’t even make the local prints, of
course, but
the pilgrimage to Moscow of Igor Larionov, Vyacheslav Kozlov and Viacheslav
Fetisov was big news, even in areas that still hadn’t entered the debate
on the
neutral zone trap.
Thoughtful citizens were prompted to comment on the mystique of this trophy
which the three members of the Detroit Red Wings had lugged back to Moscow.
Wasn’t that the same bowl that a group of Ottawa celebrants once drop-kicked
into the Rideau Canal, after they had closed one bar too many? Nobody seemed
to
accuse them of being iconoclastic. In fact, people laughed about it when
the tale
was rehashed at smokers and banquets.
Yes, it is the same old basin, the one that Lord Stanley of Preston left
for
hockey-crazed colonials when he completed his gig as the sixth Governor-General
of Canada. But absolutely nobody, drunk or sober, is kicking the Stanley
Cup
around any more. Those days definitely are over. And you can take this
to the
bank: the Stanley Cup probably is the most popular sports trophy in the
world at
the moment.
Certainly, it is the most recognizable. And it got that way strictly on
merit — no
costly promotional campaign of flashing lights and crashing cymbals.
It comes closer to being The People’s Cup than any other trophy in sport.
They
stand in line for hours to get a look at it, to study the names of hockey
idols past
and present. The secret of its popularity is its availability. It goes
where there are
people. It’s friendly.
During what qualifies as the most successful barnstorming tour in the history
of
professional sport, the Stanley Cup traveled more than 40,000 miles in
50 days,
commencing with the 1998 NHL All-Star Game in Vancouver. In stops at 29
cities, it helped charities to raise more than $2 million. And it didn’t
find a town that
wouldn’t just love to have it back.
You might even guess the trustees now responsible for its custody studied
the
treatment of some other sports cups and decided that mistakes had been
made.
They might even have known the saga of the America’s Cup, the Stanley Cup
of
yachting. It long enjoyed the title of being the most prestigious prize
in sport. But
how many would recognize it?
Yes, there are some startling parallels between the America’s Cup, and
the
Stanley. Both have backgrounds in Britain. An English yacht club commissioned
the
design of the America’s Cup as the prize for an 1851 race around the Isle
of
Wight. After an American yacht won it, the trophy, a bottomless silver
ewer that
cost $500, narrowly escaped being thrown out as trash from the home of
a wealthy
sailor.
When the overbearing and unpopular New York Yacht Club came into sole
possession of the cup in 1857, the pompous directors knew exactly what
to do
with it. They secured it to a table in their palatial quarters with a 40-inch
bolt.
That’s where it stayed for 132 years, while the yacht club, frequently
revising the
rules to their own needs, ran up what was accepted as the longest winning
streak in
sports history.
And good for the New York Yacht Club. But how many of the unsalty millions
in
the streets got to see the sport’s most publicized award? And good for
the trustees
of the Stanley Cup, who realize they have something special and want the
whole
world to help them enjoy it.
Another historic trophy that spent too much time in seclusion, especially
during its
early years, is the Davis Cup. Dedicated to the purpose of stimulating
friendly
international interest in tennis, the big silver dish failed in its purpose
mainly because
of early domination by the Australians. By 1910, both the U.S. and Britain
were
pleading for a greater display of the cup, in order to revive flagging
interest. Where,
exactly was the Cup? It was on a sideboard at the home of Norman Brookes,
one
of the great Aussie players.
Yes, the National Hockey League has been criticized for taking over an
award that
the donor, Lord Stanley, directed should be for the championship of amateur
hockey. At the time, there was no professional hockey and his lordship
had no
reason to expect there ever would be. His intention was to promote the
popularity
of hockey, which he and his family had learned to enjoy. It would be difficult
to
argue that the NHL has not done that. It has used the Stanley Cup to create
enthusiasm for the sport in areas that previously were considered barren
territory.
And there’s more to come. Igor Larionov might have been more of a prophet
than
he intended to be when he spoke during that night at the stadium in Moscow.
He
said: “We (the Red Wings) have millions of fans who rooted for us all the
way. It
would be unfair not to bring this Cup and show it to them.”
Those millions of fans — and millions more like them in Sweden and Finland
and
the former Czechoslovakia — are not going to be content to watch the tube
indefinitely, especially after what happened at Nagano. They will want
a piece of
the action. Who’s to say that European teams won’t be competing for the
Stanley
Cup in the future?
Can’t happen, you say? Less then 25 years ago, a deuce would get you 10
that a
European player never would win one of the major awards in the National
Hockey
League. You would have been laughed out of the pub for suggesting a scenario
such as the Jaromir Jagr story. Four score years before that, the thought
of an
American team winning the Stanley would have been seen to be equally
far-fetched. However, probably buried in the archives, there may be one
of the
most important decisions ever made concerning the trophy. The Pacific Coast
Hockey Association had granted franchises to Portland and Seattle. Was
either
one of these U.S.-based clubs eligible to play for Lord Stanley’s award?
Quietly, it appears now, William Foran, a trustee of the Cup, announced
the
decision. The Stanley Cup, he said, was emblematic of world championship
in
hockey and no longer was a challenge trophy, open to bids from organizations
or
individuals with stars in their eyes.
If Foran had decided otherwise, the Stanley Cup might have disappeared
down the
same faint trail left by the Allan Cup, once the coveted chalice of senior
hockey in
Canada. For many years, it has suffered anonymity. Seattle, of course,
did win the
Stanley Cup in 1917, becoming the first team based in the U.S. to do so.
Those first winners deserve to be remembered. Unlike later winners, their
names
were never inscribed on the Stanley Cup. So here they are, the 1917 Cup
champion Seattle Metropolitans: Harry Holmes, Roy Rickey, Ed Carpenter,
Jack
Walker, Bernie Morris, Cully Wilson, Frank Foyston, Jim Riley and Bobby
Rowe.
That guy, Morris, scored six goals in one game! In today’s NHL, who wouldn’t
like to be his agent?
Unfortunately, it is true that some of the most colorful chapters in any
sport took
place during the era in which dreamers could challenge and play for the
Stanley
Cup. That can’t happen now. But reason had to set in somewhere.
There is nothing in the background of any other North American sport that
compares to the 1905 bid for Stanley’s hardware. It was pure Hollywood
stuff
outlandish, ridiculous, senseless, laughable — but still admirable.
The gold diggers of the Yukon had a dream. It turned out to be a nightmare
but
give them credit for trying to prove something they believed — or maybe
just
suspected. They had a hockey team that could beat the great Ottawa Silver
Seven.
Taking off from Dawson City, allegedly by dog team on December 9, 1904,
they
covered an estimated 4,000 miles by boat, train, even by foot, before they
arrived
at Ottawa on January 12, 1905. Part of the expenses came out of their own
pockets. There was no per diem to take care of shoeshines.
The Silver Seven proved to be impatient hosts. Their attitude was: You’re
here.
Let’s get this over with. The gold digger crew scored four goals in the
two-game
series. Ottawa scored 32. Ottawa star Frank McGee couldn’t seem to get
warmed
up in the opening game and the Yukoners boasted they had his number. McGee
scored 14 goals in the second game. Another dream shattered.
There were even nasty rumors that the Silver Seven doctored the ice to
ensure that
little Rat Portage (Kenora) did not upset the giants to make another absurd
shot at
the Cup come true. Rat Portage had pulled out all the stops for its bid,
hiring some
of the best players of the day and equipping them with the new tube skates
that
were fitted with thin blades.
In the opening game, the Ottawa Silver Seven got an alarming surprise.
Those new
blades really did work as speedy Rat Portage trounced their hosts by a
score of
9-3.
In the second game, however, the thin blades seemed to become a handicap.
They
sank into the soft ice. One explanation of the ice was that the rink had
been flooded
shortly before the face-off. There also was some mention of salt. Things
like that
did happen. And play became so rough that Mike Grant, the referee, donned
a
hard hat. So much for the question of who wore the first helmet in hockey.
Ottawa won the second and third games. The Portagers went home, poorer
but
smarter. They had expected to profit handsomely from the proceeds but that
didn’t
work out either. Total receipts were $7,791 before expenses were deducted.
That
was an Ottawa count, of course.
So spare the sighs of regret for the old days. The truth is that competition
for the
Stanley Cup, before the NHL took over and got it organized, was pretty
much a
turkey shoot.
Dawson City may be out of Stanley Cup orbit today but Detroit is in. Los
Angeles
and Miami are in. Moscow may not be too far away. Take your pick when it
comes to return on the entertainment dollar.
And that is not to say the NHL system has been flawless. There seldom has
been a
dumber ruling in a major sport than Frank Calder, the first president of
the NHL
made in 1925 when he fined and suspended the entire Hamilton club for demanding
$200 per head for taking part in the playoffs.
But the magic of the Cup was powerful even then. The Hamilton franchise
was sold
at once to New York interests. Maybe the purchase money did come from
rum-running, as was alleged, but the New York Americans, as they became
known, demonstrated that hockey belonged in New York. Madison Square
Garden jumped into the action and the NHL got one of its strongest franchises,
the
New York Rangers.
Chicago and Detroit followed within a matter of months in a flurry of expansion.
But even the booming NHL had trouble weathering the Depression and World
War II.
Jobs were scarce and times were hard in the early 1930s but people still
responded to events such as Mud Bruneteau’s goal of March 25, 1936 in
Montreal — at 2:25 in the morning! It gave the Detroit Red Wings a 1-0
win after
176 minutes and 30 seconds in the longest game of Stanley Cup history.
That
broke the record of 104:46 of overtime set at Toronto on April 3, 1933,
when
Ken Doraty of the Maple Leafs scored the goal that beat Boston 1-0. These
were
events that helped people forget their troubles, at least briefly.
A student of the occult sciences may even be tempted to conclude the good
old
Stanley Cup enjoys powers to make chicken salad out of chicken feathers.
A
reference point would be the 1942 playoff season.
By this time, the league had dwindled to six teams. Money was plentiful
but butter
and automobile tires were rationed. Hockey players were in a different
kind of
uniform and the question was whether hockey would be able to hang on until
peace
was restored. There was no doubt about the public’s attitude. You had to
know
somebody in order to get a ticket.
But the game needed a shot in the arm. Enter Hap Day as freshman coach
of the
Toronto Maple Leafs. Hap really was far from happy. His team was down three
games to zip in a best-of-seven set with the Detroit Red Wings, managed
and
coached by one of the shrewdest men in hockey, Jack Adams.
It’s hockey history now but it was front page news then how Day shook up
his
lineup and avoided elimination by winning the fourth game of the series,
right in
Detroit. The ceremonial champagne had to accompany the Red Wings back to
Toronto.
But the Leafs won again. This time, it was a 9-3 blowout and the Red Wings
realized they were in trouble. And they never did get into that champagne.
Day, a
teetotaler, fell off the wagon after the Leafs won the series four games
to three. He
dipped a finger into the bubbly and licked it.
The series became increasingly tense, of course, and a lively sidebar was
provided
when Adams got onto the ice during the fourth game at Detroit. League president
Calder, who was on hand, somehow got the idea that Jolly Jack was about
to
tackle the referee, Mel Harwood. Adams said that conversation was all he
had in
mind. Adams was suspended.
Day went on to win the Cup in three successive seasons — the first time
it had
been done since the NHL took over Cup custody in 1926. It all added up
to a
publicity boom and applications for franchises from cities such as Cleveland,
Los
Angeles and San Francisco. All were rejected while the six-team league
sailed
serenely into an era of prosperity.
Even more momentous events were on the horizon to maintain the wave of
popularity that the Leaf-Red Wings series had touched off. Can any coach
in
today’s game picture himself looking along his bench and seeing Jacques
Plante,
Doug Harvey, Tom Johnson, Jean Beliveau, Boom Boom Geoffrion, Dickie
Moore, Rocket Richard, Bert Olmstead, Henri Richard and Butch Bouchard
— all
them Hall of Famers?
A better question might be whether any general manager today could picture
meeting such a payroll at current prices. Toe Blake had them all when he
took his
place behind the Montreal Canadiens bench for the first time in 1956. Rocket
Richard, alone, was pro sport’s best box-office property.
Toe was able to get his players to produce. Beliveau scored five goals
in Toe’s first
playoff series. It was against the New York Rangers. In the finals, against
Detroit,
he potted seven more. Olmstead contributed eight assists in the two sets.
As just about every hockey fan knows, Blake won the prized jug in his first
five
tries behind the bench. It never had been done before and it almost certainly
never
will be again. Free agency, player agents and huge salaries have combined
to make
Toe’s kind of team merely dream material.
Toe had to beat five other teams on his way to the Cup. Future coaches
may have
to defeat as many as 40 or even 50. The Europeans will be coming and the
Asians
are looking. One thing that can be said with assurance is that no city
will
monopolize the Cup as Montreal did through the glory years of Blake and
Scotty
Bowman.
That was a 15-Cup jog — of which eight were won by Toe’s teams and five,
including four in a row, by Scotty’s. Never had two better rosters ever
been
billeted in the same town over a comparatively short period of time than
those two
dynasty teams. And, if it were possible to match them up in a series today,
where
would you put your pesos?
Would you go with the Pocket Rocket, the real Rocket, the Boomer (Geoffrion)
and Le Gros Bill (Beliveau) or would it be with Bowman’s crop of Hall of
Famers?
Blake may have had a bit of an edge on offense, but Bowman wasn’t exactly
desperate in that area either. With sharpshooters such as Guy Lafleur,
Steve Shutt,
Jacques Lemaire and Yvan Cournoyer, in full flight, no goalie ever liked
to see the
Bowman bunch coming.
Defensively, it had to be said that Bowman was not suffering either. In
front of
goalie Ken Dryden, he sent out Serge Savard, Larry Robinson, Guy Lapointe
and
Brian Engblom who were among the game’s greatest rearguards. Only one
member of that group (Engblom) has escaped Hall of Fame attention. Robinson
shares a record with Gordie Howe for most years in the Stanley Cup playoffs
—
20.
At the end of the century, there will be a flurry of polls to declare the
greatest feats
of Cup achievement. Even people who never saw any of the top teams play
will be
invited to participate. Just tap out a 1-900 number and vote.
In any serious poll, the Bowman and the Blake teams will get serious consideration.
Any coach will say that winning an important trophy is tough enough. Defending
it,
they’ll say, is even tougher. No other team ever did a better chore of
defending
than the Blake and Bowman clubs.
Al Arbour’s powerful Islanders of the early 1980s will get some votes and
they will
be well-earned. The Isles were not deep in marquee players but they are
showing
up in the Hall of Fame. Denis Potvin, Bryan Trottier, Mike Bossy and goalie
Bill
Smith already have made it.
In Mike Bossy, they had one of the most consistent goal-getters in Stanley
Cup
history. In three successive seasons, he scored 17 playoff goals, a feat
not even
Wayne Gretzky has duplicated. Twice during the Isles’ triumphs, Mike’s
teammate
Bryan Trottier was the leading scorer in the playoffs.
Partly because their achievements are so recent, but mainly because they
have to
be regarded as one of the finest teams ever assembled, the Edmonton Oilers
of the
Gretzky era will score heavily in the aforementioned end-of-century polls.
It’s inevitable that they will be compared to the Canadiens of Blake and
Bowman
stewardship. Were they even better than those powerhouses? And where would
they rate alongside those Detroit clubs of the early and mid-1950s?
Maybe it’s all but forgotten now but the Red Wings of 1952 were hell on
wheels
when guys such as Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay and Sid Abel were in full bloom.
They swept the Canadiens and the Maple Leafs in eight straight games with
goalie
Terry Sawchuk logging four shutouts in Detroit. You know that record is
for all
time because there now are at least 16 teams in the playoffs.
The Edmonton Oilers, of course, don’t have those four- and five-year winning
strings to match the Bowman and Blake credentials. But five Stanley Cup
possessions in seven years will get anyone’s attention, especially since
there are so
many more teams to beat since expansion.
Even a casual glance at the Oilers’ roster will impress any pollster. Wayne
Gretzky,
already acclaimed in one recent survey as the best player of the last 50
years, leads
off. Then consider these names: Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Glenn Anderson,
Randy
Gregg, Kevin Lowe, Paul Coffey, Grant Fuhr, Esa Tikkanen, Marty McSorley,
Dave Hunter, Mike Krushelnyski. The beat goes on. If they are not the best
team
to come along, they at least are going to create some arguments in the
bistros,
where such decisions are challenged.
And they have left their skatetracks in the playoff computers. Since Gretzky
holds
most of the offensive records in the regular season, it’s only right that
many of the
Stanley Cup laurels are his, too. His 122 playoff goals should stand for
a long time
unless Mark Messier and Jari Kurri enjoy huge late careers with teams that
come
up big in the playoffs. Gretzky’s 260 assists look safe enough, too. His
career
points — 382 — can go to the bank. His closest pursuer, Messier, is almost
100
points behind him.
Polls may be nothing but window dressing, the critics are going to argue.
They’ve
got it all wrong when they say it about Stanley Cup polls. This is the
People’s Cup.
And what the people say does matter.
For more than 100 years the Stanley Cup trophy has been the game’s talisman,
a
focal point shared by players and fans. The shimmering silver bowl, collar
and
barrels have been displayed everywhere from Miami to Moscow where they
have
been admired and photographed by hundreds of thousands. The Cup’s escapades
— usually in the possession of a member of a winning team — are an
action-adventure story all on their own. It’s been the star of the show
at small-town
rinks and on late-night talk shows, all the while conveying the pride and
joy of
having reached hockey’s pinnacle.
Excerpt from;
http://www.totalhockey.com/features/ch13.html
The complete article
can be found in "Total Hockey - The Official Encyclopedia of the National
Hockey League" page
46.