Lew Freedman - The Original Six: How the Canadiens, Bruins, Rangers, Blackhawks, Maple Leafs, and Red Wings Laid the Groundwork for Today?s National Hockey League

Copyright 2016 by Lew Freedman

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Brian Peterson

Cover images: iStock

Print ISBN: 978-1-61321-949-2

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61321-952-2

Printed in the United States of America

Lew Freedman is a longtime journalist and sports book author. He has written more than ninety books, including Clouds Over the Goalpost, A Summer to Remember, The Rise of the Seminoles, and Knuckleball, among others. He has also worked as a newspaperman for numerous papers, including the Philadelphia Enquirer, Chicago Tribune, and Anchorage Daily News .

Currently a writer for the Cody Enterprise in Wyoming, Freedman and his wife Debra split their time between Wyoming and Indiana.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

T HE FANS STREAMED through downtown Toronto on their way to an early-season hockey game at the Air Canada Centre. It was a long time before first-puck drop between the Maple Leafs and the visiting Colorado Avalanche.

Still, you could tell where everyone was headed after stopping for dinner, for a brew, or a snack in the restaurants, bars, or shops nearby. They call the weekly television viewing of National Hockey League games across the country Hockey Night in Canada . But really, every night a home game is scheduled it is Hockey Night in Toronto.

The same is true in Boston, Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Montreal. In those cities, hockey is in the DNA of the citizenry. Maybe a little more rooted here, maybe a little less there. Those are the teams that constitute what is termed The Original Six. They are the cornerstone franchises of the NHL, the ones that go way back, well before the establishment of many of the leagues other teams.

For decades in the twentieth century those clubs were the whole league, a six-team league small in size, but intense in passion. There never was an easy night when the Leafs, Bruins, Red Wings, Blackhawks, Rangers, and Canadiens played. There was so much familiarity respect was bred more than contempt.

Being a hockey player at the top level in North America was as much fraternity as profession. It may also have been considered a brotherhood, but the type where brothers battle one another in the living room and overturn the coffee table and occasionally break a lamp with their bodychecking.

In 2016, there were thirty teams in the NHL, twenty-three in the United States and seven in Canada. That represents expansion of twenty-four teams, a 500 percent larger league. Hockey even thrives in the Sun Belt, in American cities such as Dallas and Los Angeles. Yet despite the thousands of skaters who benefited from the expansion opportunities and the millions of fresh followers the sport created, a somewhat indefinable hold on the spirit of the game is retained by the Original Six, especially among older fans.

Mention names such as Maurice Rocket Richard, Frank Mahovlich, Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe, Andy Bathgate, or Phil Esposito and old-timers get misty-eyed and nostalgic. Oh, the memories.

Yes, they play serious NHL hockey in St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Nashville, but there is a little bit louder buzz in those teams arenas when an Original Six team comes to town. There is more excitement yet at the Joe Louis Arena when the Blackhawks visit the Red Wings. They have been playing against one another so long, since 1926, and so often, going on 900 meetings. Just another game? Not quite. It is history speaking out loud at the face-off, tradition in the flesh.

High in the arenas there are banners signifying championships won and names of Hall of Famers who played long before the other twenty-four teams were born. Heck, long-gone grandparents in the same family watched the Original Six in their colorful, memorable sweaters. Later generations still cheer Grandpas team.

Theres a long tradition of great hockey between the two, said Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman of Chicago-Detroit. Its an intense rivalry.

Thats one rivalry. Toronto-Montreal is another. Boston-New York (in any sport), still another.

I was a child of an Original Six team. I grew up in the Boston area and the Bruins were Our Team. Later, they came to be known as the Big Bad Bruins. But in the 1960s they were just bad. For eight straight seasons, beginning with 195960 and ending with the 196667 season, the Bruins did not make the playoffs. That was in a six-team league with four teams qualifying.

In some ways, Boston didnt seem to even care, because losers or not, the fans still came to the Boston Garden and filled it to the rafters. Those rafters were enveloped in a sort of cloud because arena smoking was still allowed. The smoke rose and those in the $2 upper balcony seats sometimes had foggy views. But that year Bobby Orr came to town and after that things were all right.

I lived in Chicago when the Blackhawks hit bottom, drawing an announced 10,000 fans to the 20,000-seat United Center. Then the Blackhawks got Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews and after that things were all right there, too.

There were so many Maple Leafs jerseys, jackets, and caps in view as the 19,800 fans filed into the Air Canada Centre for that game against the Avalanche that I wondered why apparel was still for sale in the gift shops. It appeared fans had it all already. But I suppose there was always Christmas for relatives.

Maple Leafs games are always sold out. I came by a ticket for $100 US on the secondary market. Looking at a map I thought my seat was in a balcony halfway up from the ice, but when I began climbing it was as if I was scaling Mount Everestthe summit was always just over the next ridge. No one nearby, despite not wearing ropes, keeled over, however, from altitude sickness.

When I reached my seat I was in the next-to-last row of the building. Silly me, my binoculars were at home.

A few pre-game vacant seats to my left sat Paul Ayres, forty-one, an elementary school teacher, and his son Ben, eleven. This was the youngsters first live game after only following the Leafs on TV. Soaking in the scene, his eyes were as wide around as the tires on my car.

Like so many Ontario residents, Paul Ayres was a lifelong Leafs fan even though the Leafs hadnt won a Stanley Cup since 1967, since seven years before he was born. When Ben was born Dad put the family on Torontos season-ticket waiting list. The Ayreses were number 7,796. Before the 201516 season started, after eleven years of patience, the team contacted Ayres to tell him his turn had come to buy two tickets.

The only problem was that Ayres really couldnt afford the indulgence on his salary. He asked the Maple Leafs what happened if he passed. They told him he would go to the bottom of the list, then 15,000 names long.