Now You Know Big Book of Sports. Doug Lennox

Maple Leaf on the Ice”), now better known as “The Hockey Sweater” in English and “Le chandail de hockey” in French. Carrier based the story on his own experiences as a child. The narrative is simple but superb in the way it gets to the heart of the mystique of hockey for Canadians, particularly children. In the 1940s a boy’s hockey sweater wears out and his mother orders a new one from the Eaton’s catalogue. The boy is a rabid fan of the Montreal Cana-diens Rocket” Richard. However, when the new sweater and their star forward Maurice “Rocket” Richard. However, when the new sweater finally arrives, to the boy’s horror it’s a Toronto Maple Leafs sweater, not a Habs one. The boy tries to get his mother to return the sweater, but she feels that Mr. Eaton, obviously a Leafs fan, might be offended, so she insists he wear the despicable Leafs garment to his hockey game. As expected, the boy is the only one not wearing a Canadiens jersey. “The Hockey Sweater” is often thought to be an allegory for French and English tensions in Canada. It has been published in many forms, including a picture book for younger children. In 1980 an animated version, The Sweater, was released by Canada’s National Film Board to much acclaim.

       Six Top All-Time Hockey Journalists

      • Elmer Ferguson (1885–1972)

      • Milt Dunnell (1905–2008)

      • Jim Coleman (1911–2000)

      • Scott Young (1918–2005)

      • Trent Frayne (1918– )

      • Red Fisher (1926– )

       Where did the word puck come from?

      A hockey puck is a hard, vulcanized black rubber disk three inches in diameter, one inch thick and weighing between five and a half to six ounces. To reduce the tendency puck of pucks to bounce, they are frozen before use. The origins of the word are the subject of much debate. The first verifiable reference in print to the word in relation to hockey was in an 1876 game account in the Montreal Gazette. Some think the word derives from the Scottish and Gaelic word puc. In 1910 a book entitled English as We Speak It in Ireland defined the word as follows: “Puck: a blow. ‘He gave him a puck of a stick on the head.’ More commonly applied to a punch or blow of the horns of a cow or goat! ‘The cow gave him a puck (or pucked him) with her horns and knocked him down.’ The blow given by a hurler to the ball with his caman or hur-ley is always called a puck. Irish poc, same sound and meaning.”

       Quickies

       Did you know …

      that Fox Television, worried that U.S. fans would find it difficult to follow the action in NHL hockey, introduced the FoxTrax puck at the league’s All-Star Game on January 20, 1996? Wherever the puck moved along the ice, it was tailed by an oscillating blue dot on television screens. When a shot was fired, the puck developed a red trail. Most hockey fans, especially Canadians, were outraged at Fox’s simplistic gimmick. Happily, FoxTrax never caught on despite the network’s dogged promotion of it. Fox finally retired its “innovation” prior to the 1998–99 season.

       Why is Calgary’s hockey team called the “Flames”?

      The “Flames” have not always been a Calgary hockey team. They started out in Atlanta during the second wave of NHL expansion in 1972, where the name “Flames” was chosen to remember the torching of the city in 1864 by Union troops, led by General William Tecumseh Sherman, during their long march through the South near the end of the Civil War. When the team moved to Calgary in 1980, the name was kept in honour of Calgary’s ties to oil.

       What are Black Aces?

      Black Aces is the collective name for the group of players who practise with the whole team but rarely play in games. This term originated with hard-nosed Eddie Shore’s Springfield (Massachusetts) Indians teams in the American Hockey League from the 1940s to the 1960s. Shore demanded that his Black Aces perform non-hockey tasks such as selling programs and popcorn during the games they didn’t play.

       Quickies

       Did you know …

      that in hockey the War of 1812 refers to the Toronto-Montreal game of December 9, 1953, when a bench-clearing brawl exploded at 18:12 of the third period and referee Frank Udvari gave out 18 misconduct penalties and two major penalties evenly shared between the clubs? That left each team with a goalie, three skaters, and no players on the bench for the final 1:48 of the match.

       What is a hat trick in hockey?

      When a player scores three goals in one game, it’s called a hat trick. The term originated in cricket where usually reserved fans toss their hats to celebrate the knocking down of three consecutive wickets. Not surprisingly, Wayne Gretzky holds the National Hockey League record for the most career three-or-more-goal games (50, with 37 three-goalers, nine four-goalers, and four five-goalers) as well as top marks for the most three-or-more-goal games in one season (10 twice, in 1981–82 and 1983–84). However, the Great One doesn’t hold the record for the most goals ever scored in one game; the Quebec Bulldogs’ Joe Malone does, with seven in a 1920 match. A number of players — Newsy Lalonde, Cy and Corb Denneny, Malone, Syd Howe, Red Berenson, and Darryl Sittler — have potted six in a single game. The Toronto Maple Leafs’ Sittler holds the record for most points in one contest (10 on February 7, 1976, against the Boston Bruins). Gretzky is tied with 10 other players (including Mario Lemieux, Bryan Trottier, and Berenson) for most goals in a single period — four. A pure hat trick is when one player scores three consecutive, uninterrupted goals in a single game.

       Quickies

       Did you know …

      that a Gordie Howe hat trick is a goal, an assist, and a fight in the same game? The NHL’s second all-time leading scorer, Howe was also an able pugilist who racked up 2,109 regular-season penalty minutes.

       How did the expression “hanging from the rafters” originate?

      The Detroit Red Wings’ old arena, the Olympia, is said to be the place where the expression “hanging from the rafters” originated. The rink was infamously steep-sided so that fans in the standing-room-only section literally hung from the rafters to see the game better. The Red Wings played their last game in the Old Red Barn on the Grand River on December 15, 1979, against the Quebec Nordiques, tying the match 4–4. Detroit moved into the brand-new Joe Louis Arena that season. The last hockey game played at the Olympia was a Red Wings Old-Timers game on February 21, 1980. The Olympia was demolished in 1986.

       Quickies

      Did you know … that the Montreal Canadiens’ nickname “Habs” comes from les habitants, a term that was once used to describe the early settlers of seventeenth-and eighteenth-century New France, the predecessor of what eventually became the province of Quebec? In fact, the Canadiens were specifically established in December 1909 in the National Hockey Association (precursor of the NHL) as a French-Canadian alternative to the many predominantly English hockey clubs in Montreal, teams such as the Shamrocks, the Wanderers, and the Victorias.

       Where did the term firewagon hockey come from?

      In the 1950s the Montreal Canadiens won five Stanley Cups (1953, 1956–59) and became known for the kind of high-speed, explosive rushes usually led by superstars such as Maurice Richard and Jean Béliveau. Sportswriters called this kind of playing style “firewagon hockey,” and the Canadiens were associated with it right into the 1970s. By 1979 they added another 11 Stanley Cups (1960, 1965–66, 1968–69, 1971, 1973, 1976–79) to the five they won in the 1950s. Since 1979 the Habs have only won two Cups (1986, 1993).

       What is the five hole?