Mikey D

I watched an HBO special the other night on the “Broad Street Bullies”, the moniker given to the Philadelphia Flyers hockey teams from the early 70’s. I had heard of them, but never really knew much about them (Bobby Clark was their star player…and that’s about it). But after watching that special, that was some group. They literally beat the shit out of their opponents. They were one of the first teams that brought guys in specifically for toughness. Remember the create-a-player option in NHL Hitz, and how you could make a defenseman an “enforcer”? Yeah, I’m pretty sure that term originated from the Broad Street Bullies.

It was actually a pretty smart strategy. The team was never as skilled as some of the others in the league at the time, so they had to do something to get the other teams off their game. So they used intimidation- and it worked. When they infused more talented players, like Bobby Clark, their style of play led to back-to-back Cup wins in the mid-70’s. They also became one of the most villainous teams in the league at the time, as they pretty much rewrote the record book on penalty minutes by individuals and by a team (I think the records still stand to this day). Those teams made the Red Wings-Aves rivalry games look like pussy shit. At the same time, the team opened the door for guys like Bob Probert to have long and successful careers in the league.

But one thing the special made me realize was that I know very little about hockey history. I had tons of misconceptions and wrong information about the early NHL. Here’s some things I learned…that I had no idea about. Did you know these things?

1) While it’s true Detroit is an original six team, before there was this:

There was this:

And this:

Did you know Detroit’s team names were the “Cougars” and “Falcons” before they became the Red Wings?

2) Speaking of the original six that is a bit of a misnomer. When the league was founded in 1917, there were two Montreal teams (one being the Canadiens), one Toronto team (the Arenas…later renamed the Maple Leafs), one Quebec team (the Bulldogs) and the Ottawa Senators. It wasn’t until 1924 that the Bruins came into being, and were joined in 1926 by Detroit, Chicago, and New York. By 1926, the league consisted of these teams:

-Montreal Canadiens
-Montreal Maroons
-Toronto St. Patricks
-Ottowa Senators
-New York Americans
-Pittsburgh Pirates
-New York Rangers
-Chicago Blackhawks
-Detroit Cougars

Original six? There was a team in Pittsburgh and New York before the Wings, Rangers, and Blackhawks got going! Did you know?

3) By 1967, however, the original six that we know are the only teams left standing (I’m assuming that’s when they were coined the “original six”). This really caught me by surprise; I always thought there were more teams in the league at this point. In 1967, six teams were brought in to bring the league total to twelve. Before looking below, can you guess who they were?

-Philadelphia Flyers
-Pittsburgh Penguins
-St. Louis Blues
-Minnesota North Stars
-Los Angeles Kings
-California Seals

I always thought the St. Louis Blues had been around a lot longer, I don’t know why. And the same with the Flyers. And the Kings and the Seals…I didn’t think the NHL moved out West until much later on (like 70’s or early 80’s). I would have thought that Canadian teams, like the Canucks, Nordiques, Jets, Flames, and Oilers, would have came first. Nope. (On a side note, the North Stars is fucking sweet name, it’s too bad they had to move.)

4) After the expansion in 1967, there were two divisions, the East and the West. Do you know how the divisions were split? We think of the Red Wings as part of the Western Conference (because, duh, they are), but they used to be part of the East (logical). With the six new expansion teams coming in, the original six became the East, and the new teams became the West. So you had Philadelphia in the West, and Chicago in the East. With more expansion in the 70’s, they broke teams into two conferences, and thus Detroit, one of the more western cities at the time, became part of the Western Conference. Did you know?

5) The New Jersey Devils started playing in 1982- except they weren’t an expansion team. They moved from Colorado and renamed themselves the Devils (another team that I thought had more history in the league). Their old name? The Colorado Rockies. Yes, the Rockies. Like the baseball team. Weird.

6) It’s pretty safe to say that hockey does not work too well in the southern US (I think we’d all approve of a move of these teams to more northern US locales or Canadian cities). And you’d think the NHL would have realized this before putting expansion teams down there in the mid-90s, because they did experiment with one southern hockey team- the Atlanta Flames. They lasted 8 years before moving to, yep, you guessed it, Calgary. The Thrashers are going into their 11th season…how long do you think they’ll last?

So how much of this stuff did you know?

~Mikey D