I watched game 5 in a series between Boston and Montreal from 1978! I remember that series clearly! I was living with my grandparents that year. In the summer I had taken so many thousands of shots on my Christmas present hockey net from the cement slab path between my grandparents' front and back doors that I had become quite adept at patching holes in that net. I wore the fuzz right off a few dozen tennis balls so they were just black rubber. And I probably bought a superblade a month for my Koho shaft. And needless to say I had developed an absolutely wicked shot! Particularly my snapshot. I took pride in that.
Then winter came and I tried my best to teach myself how to skate. I had the skates but needed to find some frozen water. I found a patch in the back yard creek that bordered my grandparents' property and the neighbours', but it was only just long enough to get two strides. I was not yet good at stopping so I practiced right leg first stopping. I tried a few left leg stops too once in a while, but with little success. The school I went to, John Knox Memorial Christian School, had a rink between it and the church next door. Kids could use it at recess and sometimes after school. I went to Stockaders, a kind of boyscouty sorta thing, in the church one day a week and afterwards, while waiting to get picked up and driven home, I strapped on the blades and practiced. But my grandparents lived on Hamilton Mountain and the school/church was way down in Fruitland, so I couldn't use it often.
One day shortly after Christmas I took a long walk (which is redundant on Hamilton Mountain. EVERYTHING was a long walk away!) to the radio tower down the road just past Rosie's farm. I was in grade 6 and Rosie was a few grades ahead of me but I still went over to her place for a visit now and then. Her family had a real farm with animals and crops so it was interesting. My grandparents didn't really farm any more.
I tied my skate laces together so I could throw them over one shoulder. I took my good, curved blade, wooden stick that I'd received for Christmas, and a smaller, cheaper, straight bladed one that I had bought just in case. I put a few stocking stuffer pucks and hockey tape into my pockets and started walking. I couldn't shoot pucks at my net because the netting would just break. Besides, the net was too awkward and heavy to bring on this long a journey. I'd say it was close to an hour's walk.
At the radio tower, where there was a puddle of swampy, standing rainwater that had frozen over. It was much larger than a hockey rink although in sections cattail stalks and thick, wild grass made for bad skating. There was a nice sized clear spot in the middle though and when I arrived there was a man skating on it. He was a smooth skater and he could raise a puck with his slap shot. Both were things I hadn't mastered by that time. So I joined him and we took some shots at a wooden section of fence or old door that was sticking through the ice. It was roughly the size of a hockey net and though it was not perfectly rectangular, it was a good enough target for us. I think it might have been set in the ice for this very purpose because there was another one on the other side of the ice and there were so many skate marks on the ice I knew they couldn't all have been made by just this one man.
The man offered some advice for me on how to get my speed on my shot by getting more flex on my stick. He told me I needed to practice crossover turns and stopping both ways. He also showed me how to raise a slap shot. My slap shot was not as hard or saucer-like as his, but it was the first time I had raised the puck with anything but my wrist shot. So it was a great day for me.
It turned out that this guy was my grandparents' next door neighbour. I hadn't recognized him! They had come over a few times during the summer of the year I lived with my grandparents, to give them some of their homemade wine and I think once to borrow a tool from my Grampa, but I didn't really talk to them much. I was probably busy taking shots on my net, practicing handstands or high jump, or maybe raking the grass. Grampa always cut it with his prized riding mower.
Later that winter, or really, closer to that spring, I was invited over to his house to watch the Canadiens vs. the Bruins at the neighbours' place. He turned out to be a really great guy! I cheered for the Canadiens and he cheered for the Bruins. But that just made for some good, manly trash talking. And his wife brought down really great snacks! We were watching on the basement TV. I remember all that, though I don't remember their names. I think I watched that whole series next door. If I remember correctly, and I do cuz I Googled it, the Canadiens won it. It was a tremendous series! I thought it was Lafleur, but, no, it was Mario Tremblay with the series winner.
The game I watched on Canada Day was game 5. Boston had won two home games and so had Montreal. This was in the Montreal Forum and Dick Irvin and Danny Galavan were announcing with guest colour man Chico Resch. There were commercials too! So very, very few, but there were commercials. Some for Molson Light. (4.5%) Remember that song? Molson Light has got heart, miles and miles and miles of heart. If yer gonna brew a beer with great taste, there's only one place to start. Molson Light has got heart. Course you're right to try a light beer. But it's gotta have the heart. If it doesn't have the flavour, then you're beat right from the start - there's nothin' to it but to brew it - You gotta have taste to put a smile upon your face... and on it goes. I wonder who wrote that. There were ads for the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton that year. North Star running shoes. Oh how I dreamed of owning a pair of North Stars! Some for the wonderful Ford Pinto (ha ha ha). One with a mustachioed man speaking to a bottle of Canada Dry he just pulled out of a creek, "Canada Dry, I was ready for you!" Molson Export Ale - Keeps on tasting great. Then there was one for... are you ready for this?... Molson Brador! I totally forgot about that! And Molson Diamond Lager? I've NEVER heard of THAT! Do you remember? Member? Member? Possibly the best commercial though was for a BJ Thomas album. Record or 8 track. Available at Dominion, Towers and participating Mac's stores!
Larry Big Bird Robinson did his best impression of Bobby Orr that game. The Habs were getting outshot badly in the first when he took it upon himself to just rush the length of the ice and put one in. A beauty! Then he did an Orrian spin move to shake a checker and open some ice to pass to Mondou for the second goal. He got robbed of another assist too. Dave Newell and Leon Stickle had their hands full with the Canadians out ahead of the Don Cherry coached Bruins and sure enough there was a brawl when the game was out of reach. Good old time hockey in the good old days!
I had watched Boston vs. Toronto earlier in the week too. I'm into watching old hockey games on YouTube these days. I usually miss hockey during the summer. 1968 Boston vs. Toronto. Bobby Orr's Rookie year. What a game! While watching I took notes on how different the game was back then. These are 32 of the things I noticed. I'm sure there were other differences too.
1. No helmets. 2. Cheevers had a mask but Johnny Bower didn't. And Cheevers got hit in the face by a stick that game too! 3. LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG shifts! Orr made an end to end rush at least a minute into a shift, then stayed out for another minute after that! These days you won't ever GET a minute into a shift and if you go to the other end, you're gassed, get off! 4. Guys chewing gum not chewing their mouthguards. Nobody HAD mouthguards. Course, nobody had TEETH to guard either. 5. No ads on the boards. Nothing. Blank. White.
6. Cheevers came out to the left face-off dot one time to play the puck and another time he almost got to the blue line! 7. Tube skates. Of course there were many equipment differences but this was the most noticeable to me. Apart from the lack of head protection.
15 years old
8. Two cameras. Some plays you had to take the word of the announcer for what was happening because the cameramen didn't catch it. That announcer? Foster Hewitt. 9. No organ at Maple Leaf Gardens! It was eerily quiet! There was one guy incessantly shouting "Bobby Orrrrrrrrr…" but otherwise just noise for close calls and goals. 10. Few, if any, shifts on the fly! Only changes during breaks in play.
11. Two guys threatening to fight came at each other with their sticks raised like they were going to carve each other's heads up! 12. Goals from the blue line no big deal. A couple or 3 in this game. 13. Goalies rarely off their feet. 14. Three officials. 15. Play called immediately when a player freezes the puck along the boards.
16. I didn't notice a single one-timer and NOOObody played their off wing. 17. Touch icing; Cheevers shot puck into crow resulting in no penalty; two line pass called. 18. Stick handling was abysmal! 19. Perfect ice surface. Not a bad bounce to be seen. 20. Not a single, solitary broken stick.
21. Extra netting in the net. 22. No giant score clock. 23. Fourth lines rarely used. Probably as a result of the long shifts. 24. Minimal play in front of the net. 25. This game was tied... and it just ended!
26. Players much lower on the bench and closer to the boards. Again most likely due to the lack of shifting on the fly. 27. Very few instant replays. 28. No names on jerseys, only numbers. 29. No high numbers. 30. Bell (fire alarm) to end periods.
31. Very solid boards with no give to them. 32. Low glass. 33. No netting above the glass.
Our great game really has changed over the years! I like some of the changes and dislike others. But I have to say watching the old games makes me nostalgic for the old Canada. Like our game, our country has changed over the years too. Some of the changes have been good, but unfortunately I feel like the majority have been bad. Or do I concentrate on only the good things in the past and forget the bad things? I think it says an awful lot that I had to watch hockey on Canada Day while living in Korea and drinking Korean beer. No, I really think the changes have largely been for the worse. In BOTH cases the worst changes have been in favour of capitalism, commercialism and greed.
I really hope my country smartens up so I can one day live there again! As they say, in the old days there were empires run by emperors and kingdoms run by kings. Now we have countries run by ----- I just don't think it has to be that way. So on this Canada Day I raise a mug of foreign beer whilst in a foreign country and say, "Here's to Canada! May the people sack up soon and get it back to the better country that it used to be!"
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