Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

Until March 20, 1982, however, the Canucks were having a forgettable winter. Despite going unbeaten over the final 10 games of the regular season, they still finished with three more losses than wins. Nobody expected much out of them in the postseason.

  CAPTAIN VIDEO TO THE RESCUE

  While Neale’s suspension pushed him off the Canucks’ bench, it also meant that Roger Neilson, the head coach in waiting for the next season, took over a few months early. Neilson’s systematic approach to the game proved to be the perfect fit for the Canucks, who collectively bought into his plan—for one postseason, at least. Neale, who during his suspension had scored a cozy seat as a CBC-TV Hockey Night in Canada analyst, was smart enough to realize that Neilson and the team had stumbled upon some kind of crazy chemistry. Neale stayed at Hockey Night in Canada.

  “When Roger had won the last three games of the [regular] season and the first three of the playoffs, I didn’t have to be [Montreal Canadiens’ GM] Sam Pollock to figure out this guy’s got something going with this team,” Neale said. “We were going to make the [coaching] change anyway, so we made it then.”

  A KING IS BORN (FOR A VERY SHORT REIGN)

  Canuck players from that team give a lot of credit to goaltender “King” Richard Brodeur, who was brilliant for Vancouver during the playoffs. But at least as much credit goes to the late Neilson, who motivated the first- and fourth-line players with equal success and guided his unlikely group of skaters farther than anybody could have imagined. “I think that run was largely due to the gentleman who was coaching—Roger Neilson,” defenceman Rick Lanz would later say. “He basically took a group of players that really nobody expected a whole lot from, especially a playoff run like that. And you know, the players who came in to help because of the injuries we had did a fantastic job…Everybody got kind of caught up in the emotion of it all and subsequently were playing at the peak of their abilities. That was largely due to Roger who kind of rallied the troops.”

  “We got on a roll and played over our heads,” Neale said. “No matter who got hurt, the guy coming in, even if he hadn’t played, did a good job and we were getting some excellent goaltending…It was just a perfect example of a team that got on a roll.”

  ON THE TABLE

  Hockey’s most intense competition takes place…in a gymnasium?

  The 2011 world champion in men’s hockey was Denmark’s Bjarne Axelsen, as your family was no doubt discussing around the dinner table the other…What’s that? The Canadian team won gold at the 2010 Olympics? Please, that’s old news—we’re talking about table (or air) hockey.

  CANADA’S GAME?

  There are numerous table hockey tournaments held in North America, including the U.S. Nationals in Chicago and regional tourneys throughout Canada, but since 1989 the World Championships have been held in northern Europe and played without fail on Swedish-made Stiga game sets. Yet table hockey was invented by a Canadian and brought to international prominence by Canadians! The denizens of the Great White North must truly wring their hands and wonder—as they have when other nations triumphed in that version of hockey played by actual people on sheets of ice—“What happened to our game?”

  NECESSITY IS THE FATHER OF INVENTION

  In 1932, the Great Depression was in full swing in Canada. Donald H. Munro couldn’t afford to buy his children Christmas gifts, so he built them the first-ever table hockey game from scraps of wood and metal he found around his Toronto neighborhood. Using a steel ball for a puck and wire-and-peg paddles for players, Munro’s initial effort resembled a pinball game more than it did the table hockey of today, but his kids’ enthusiasm prompted him to build several more, which the Eaton’s department store then agreed to sell on consignment. They sold out immediately, and by the late 1930s Munro was selling several thousand each year at $4.95 per game. You may heave a sentimental sigh at the notion of being able to buy end-to-end hockey excitement for a handful of change, especially in light of how much a new game costs today, but keep in mind that $4.95 in 1939 dollars translates to about $85 today. With that sort of income, it’s no surprise that the Munro company was able to stay in the black for decades, adapting its wooden-paddle model to the more modern tin-men version in 1955 before selling its assets to U.S. manufacturer Servotronics in 1968, when market demand prompted by NHL expansion surged to more than the humble Munro could hope to meet. Hundreds of thousands of games were being bought across the continent.

  RISE OF THE TIN MEN

  In 1954, the Eagle Toy Company of Montreal released the first Canadian table hockey set with game pieces resembling actual players, punched from accurately colored tin and set on rods that allowed them to turn 360 degrees. This second innovation, though, had been borrowed from the Aristospel games company of Sweden, who since 1939 had been manufacturing a table hockey game that featured long slots that allowed the players to move up and down the board. In 1956, both Eagle and Munro began selling rod-and-slot versions to the North American market, and they continued to lay low all competitors over the following decades through innovations such as clear plastic above the boards, puck-droppers, scoreboards and goal lights. Eagle was the dominant company thanks to their official NHL endorsement allowing them, to fans’ delight, to clothe their tin men in exact reproductions of team uniforms. Indeed, the games most likely to induce salivation in modern-day collectors feature defunct teams like the Cleveland Barons and California Golden Seals, manufactured by U.S.-based Coleco following their absorption of Eagle in 1968.

  MEANWHILE, IN STOCKHOLM

  The popularity of Aristospel’s game grew steadily in Sweden over two decades, with sales in the late 50s peaking at 25,000 units per year. At the same time, Stig Hjelmkvist began manufacturing games under the Stiga label in the southern town of Tranås, though his efforts made little impact on the market until Swedish superstar Sven “Tumba” Johansson—the first European to attend an NHL training camp—lent his endorsement to the game in 1959. Since then, Stiga has enjoyed unrivalled success in the European market, moving 100,000 games a year. They put upstart Alga—maker of the first game with rounded corners and three-dimensional players—out of business in the early 1960s, and gave venerable Aristospel the same treatment in 1972.

  SVEN “TUMBA” JOHANSSON WOULD BE PROUD

  With the rise of video games in the 1980s, the words table hockey vanished from Christmas lists. Radio Shack, Kevin Sports, Irwin, and Playtoy/Remco introduced new models in the early 1990s, but none could compete with Stiga’s newly arrived state-of-the-art $85 model, complete with hand-painted three-dimensional players and a left-winger that could skate behind the net, making the dreaded “dead spot” a thing of the past. In 1998, Stiga acquired the exclusive NHL licence, and North American gamers can now select player uniforms from any of the 30 NHL franchises as well as six international squads. The handful of North American-made games still on the market now fall into one of two camps: flimsy tabletop models selling for $20 or deluxe table-sized games selling for around $300, though without the NHL’s endorsement the best any of these models can offer is pulse-pounding action between the Red Team and the Blue Team.

  WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

  Regardless of the physical quality of the Stiga game, it only seems appropriate that a Swedish company should receive the NHL’s worldwide endorsement, as Swedes have won the most World Championships since the tournament’s inception in 1989. At the 2003 tournament, Sweden swept the men’s event, with the highest Canadian placing 101st. How can this be? Does Stiga’s version tap unfairly into some genetic propensity of the Swedish race? Could Canada hold its own if the tournament were only played on Munro’s 1936 peg-and-wire model? “Darn it,” mutters Canada….

  * * * * *

  Zac Bierk is a goaltender who has played several games with the Phoenix Coyotes and Tampa Bay Lightning in the NHL as well as spending a lot of time in the American Hockey League. However, did you know that his brother, who goes by the stage name of Sebastian Bach, was the former lead singer of the rock band Sk
id Row?

  WELCOME TO HOCKEYVILLE…

  …where sports and reality TV collide.

  OH, CANADA!

  It’s no secret that Canadians love hockey. The country has the highest per capita number of indoor ice rinks in the world. And according to one study, an amazing 92 percent of Canadian households spend time on ice, and some kids are enrolled in Mini Mite hockey at the ripe old age of three. Given the explosion of reality television, it’s not surprising that this passion has fueled a televised contest in which small communities compete to demonstrate their hockey passion and local spirit. Viewers then vote for their favorite town, and the one with the most votes becomes “Hockeyville.”

  DISCOVERING HOCKEYVILLE

  The idea for the Hockeyville series came at a low point in NHL history. During the 2004–05 season, professional hockey stagnated because the NHL owners and players couldn’t agree on a salary cap. Professional hockey’s reputation tanked in Canada as people blamed the league and its players for making hockey more about money than about dedication, skill, or loyalty to the fans.

  Canadians were so soured on the NHL that Kraft Foods was ready to abandon a nearly 30-year tradition of advertising during the country’s nationally televised hockey games. But the company didn’t want to give up on the sport altogether, so Jack Hewitt, Kraft’s marketing VP, proposed an unusual idea: he envisioned a TV contest that would recognize how important hockey and hockey fans were to small communities across the country.

  A central part of Hewitt’s concept was the grand prize. The winning town would get to host an NHL exhibition game. Hewitt believed that small-town Canadians would work hard to win the Kraft Hockeyville title if it meant the sport’s top stars would come to play. “It’s like winning an Olympic bid for these communities,” he said. “It’s practically an unattainable prize.”

  And yet, Kraft Hockeyville almost died in the boardroom. Why? Most NHL owners and players’ agents didn’t think superstar hockey players should travel to a nonregulation rink to play for a small, local audience. That arrogance was, of course, what the public was objecting to in the first place, and over time, the league began to see the light. It recognized that if NHL players personally gave back to the fans, they could go a long way in improving pro hockey’s image. And so, when commissioner Gary Bettman announced the NHL’s plans to participate in Kraft Hockeyville, he admitted that the show was designed to reward Canadian hockey fans who stayed loyal during the lockout and to win back those who’d abandoned the sport.

  HERE’S HOCKEYVILLE!

  Kraft Hockeyville’s first episode aired on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in March 2006. The series called itself “the search for the Canadian town or city exhibiting the greatest hockey spirit combined with hometown pride.” An incredible 450 towns had entered for the chance to win $10,000 in hockey equipment, a $50,000 gift card from Home Depot to upgrade their local arena, and the chance to host an NHL exhibition game.

  Actor Cameron Bancroft hosted the seven-episode search for Canada’s most deserving hockey town. The TV audience used text, phone, and Internet to choose the final five communities—each representing one region of Canada (the Pacific, West, Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic). Then, once the audience had viewed presentations from each finalist, they voted for a winner. On June 11, church bells rang and cars honked in the overjoyed, unincorporated town of Salmon River, Nova Scotia (population 2,000). They were the very first Hockeyville.

  STANLEY VISITS SALMON RIVER

  Salmon River’s winning entry featured a tiny ice rink that was owned by an 89-year-old grandfather named Webb Deuville. The arena was far from regulation—in fact, it was an extension of Deuville’s home that he see from his kitchen window. But back in the 1950s, Webb had used his own money to build the rink and provide a place where local kids could get ice time.

  Thanks to winning the TV show, the rink was improved: it got new lights, a heated sitting area, an insulated roof, and a memorabilia room (mostly dedicated to Kraft Hockeyville). But as Hewitt had predicted, the really big moment for Salmon River came in September when the Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators played an exhibition game in nearby Truro (Salmon River’s rink was too small). NHL players gave out autographs and visited schools, hospitals, and homes for seniors. They even brought the treasured Stanley Cup to town.

  At the exhibition game, the Canadiens trounced the Senators 7–3, but excited Salmon River fans considered themselves the true winners. They weren’t the only ones. Kraft, the NHL, and Kraft Hockeyville’s producers won too—Kraft’s sales rose, anger over the lockout softened, and best of all, the show was a hit.

  HOCKEYVILLE’S HITS KEEP COMING

  The contest grew into a TV phenomenon. In 2008 more than 1,000 towns entered, and the winning town—Roberval, Quebec—received more than 2 million votes. In 2010 the show won a Gemini award, the Canadian equivalent of an Emmy.

  Over time, changes were made to the format. The contest became part of Hockey Night in Canada, and the prizes were upgraded. Now, the winning town gets $100,000 for its arena, and four runners-up win $25,000 each. But of course the big prize remains the big game coming to town. Winners have called that prize the community equivalent of winning a Stanley Cup. There has been some talk of bringing Kraft Hockeyville to the United States, but the NHL doesn’t foresee that U.S. audiences would match “the craziness you get in Canada from the entire country.” Like the Stanley Cup, the hockey fanaticism that created Kraft Hockeyville is first and foremost Canadian.

  * * * * *

  CONSULT THE RULE BOOK

  Current NHL rules state that to have his name included on the Stanley Cup, a player must participate in at least 41 games during the regular season of a Cup-winning year and remain a member of the team until the end of that season.

  WEIRD HOCKEY NEWS

  Where there’s a weird, there’s a way.

  SCHOOL OF HARD HOCKEY KNOCKS

  In 2007 Derek Boogaard, then a left winger for the Minnesota Wild, and his brother, a pro hockey player in Canada, opened a school in Regina, Saskatchewan. They called it the “Derek and Aaron Boogaard Fighting Camp.” Both the Boogaards were well known for their fighting skills—and they thought that kids should learn them, too. Not surprisingly, the school was controversial, but the Boogaards were unapologetic about teaching kids the fine art of the hockey fight: “It’s a greasy job,” Derek said, “but somebody has to do it.”

  THEY LOST AGAIN?!

  In 2001 Bryan Allison, 24, of Buffalo, New York, was watching a Buffalo Sabres game on television. When the Sabres lost, Allison picked up his TV, carried it to a second-floor balcony, and threw it over the railing. Then he lost his balance and fell over the railing, too. Alison was hospitalized with minor injuries. The game Allison was watching was a videotape of a 1989 playoff game that he had seen many times before. So Allison had gotten angry over a game that he already knew the Sabres had lost.

  VANCOUVER OR BUST

  Edmonton Oiler Gilbert Brule and his girlfriend (and their dog) were driving down a road in Vancouver, British Columbia, in May 2011, when they passed two hitchhikers. Brule thought one of the hitchhikers looked like Bono, the frontman for the legendary rock band U2. They turned around, passed the men again…it was Bono. It turns out the rocker and his assistant were out for a walk (U2 was on tour in Canada at the time) and had gotten caught in the rain. “We go to walk our dog,” the 24-year-old Brule said later, “and Bono ends up in our car!” Bono gave Brule and his girlfriend backstage passes for an upcoming show in return for the ride and, at the show, told the crowd, “I like ice hockey because people who play ice hockey are the kind of people who pick up hitchhikers.”

  VITAL STATISTICS

  Does the value of scoring stats change over time? Was Gretzky that much better than Newsy Lalonde? Here are a few numbers compiled by Uncle John for your consideration.

  Wayne Gretzky’s mark of 215 regular-season points in the 1985–86 season is one of hockey’s most laud
ed statistics, a record that seems utterly untouchable today—consider that Martin St. Louis was the 2003–04 points leader with only 94! Indeed, in the 88 years since the NHL’s 1917 inception, only Gretzky has hit the 200-point mark, which he did so three other times (212, 196, 205 and 208 were his totals leading up to 1985–86). But lest we imagine that goal-scoring hadn’t been invented in the league’s first 60 years or that the players had only been skating around for their health, keep in mind that Gretzky had the luxury of an 80-game season in which to set his record. How would his seemingly lofty numbers translate to, say, the 18-game season of 1918–19? The 36-game season of 1925–26? Could simple mathematics knock Gretzky from his pedestal like a trade to Los Angeles never could?

  MULTIPLYING MALONE

  The NHL’s inaugural season of 1917–18 was 22 games long, and Joe Malone of the Montreal Canadiens led the league in scoring with 48 points. That’s an average of 2.18 points per game—pretty good, right? And if he had managed to keep up that pace for a full 80-game season, Malone would have gone on to notch exactly 174 points, which, yes, is almost double Martin St. Louis’ mark, but nowhere near Gretzky’s. Only 18 games were played in the 1918–19 season when fellow Canadien Newsy Lalonde turned in 33 points to steal the scoring crown, however, his points-per-game was a less-exemplary 1.83, or 146 points over an 80-game season. Not that this flood of dainty numbers should diminish our respect for Newsy Lalonde—in those skull-crushing days any player who could lace up his skates for each game must have been tougher than leather, much less one who could expect to score 1.83 points every time he did.

  The next 30 years saw the NHL lengthen its season no less than eight times, starting with five 24-game seasons from 1919–24. Now in a Quebec Bulldogs uniform, Joe Malone dominated this era as well, scoring 49 points in 1919–20 or 2.04 per game, not far below his 2.18 of two years before. The 1924–25 schedule had 30 games, and saw Babe Dye of the Toronto St. Pats put in 44 points, an average of 1.46 per contest. Did Dye know at the time that he was trying to outscore Wayne Gretzky? We can only hope he didn’t, because he didn’t come close. The Montreal Maroons’ Nels Stewart earned 42 points over the longer 36-game season of 1925–26, 1.17 points per game or 93.6 points over an 80-game season—the lowest average, sadly, until Martin St. Louis’s 1.15.