The Hockey News Archive
The Hockey News celebrates its 77th birthday as a publication on Oct. 1. And in this feature story from our special-edition “Sixty Moments That Changed The Game” magazine (Oct. 1, 2007, cover date), veteran correspondent Stan Fischler penned a piece on 60 years of NHL change.
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Fischler was front and center throughout constant changes to the game – including the advent of goaltender masks.
“The goalie mask is another innovation, starting with Jacques Plante’s grotesque plastic covering right up to the current face protector that is so effective goaltenders fearlessly use it by sticking their heads right in front of flying pucks,” Fischler wrote. “Who would have thought in 1947 (THN’s first year of operation) that a goalie could make a save with his face?”
Another innovation in the first six decades of the NHL’s hockey business was the introduction of shot-blocking that took place after the 1946-47 campaign. Fischler and the rest of the hockey world hadn’t considered such a tactic to be part of the game, but two Toronto Maple Leafs defensemen were shot-blocking pioneers, and Fischler corrected the record and paid homage to the duo in the article.
“I was a Toronto Maple Leafs fan at the time and marveled at the defense tandem of Garth Boesch and Bill ‘Snake Hips’ Barilko,” Fischler wrote. “Unlike any defense pair I had ever seen, Boesch and Barilko developed the knack for skating backward during an opponent’s attack. Just as an enemy shooter would prepare to propel the puck, the Toronto pair would simultaneously drop to their knees forming a human wall in front of goalie Walter ‘Turk’ Broda.
“Although Detroit’s Bob Goldham later was credited with being the first stupendous shot-blocking defenseman, Boesch and Barilko did it first – and, better still, as a synchronized pair.”
Here’s the full, original story:
SIXTY YEARS OF CHANGE
Oct. 1, 2007
By Stan Fischler
“YOUR REACH SHOULD EXCEED YOUR GRASP – OR WHAT’S A HEAVEN FOR?” – ROBERT BROWNING
The NHL never had the poet Robert Browning in mind when it came to rule changes, but I have to give it credit – the NHL never has stopped trying to improve itself. Nor have players, coaches and managers.
From Day 1 in 1917 to the present under Gary Bettman, change has been inevitable and incessant.
I saw my first hockey game at Madison Square Garden in 1939 before the Zamboni was born and the ice was brown because artificial whitener had not yet been discovered.
The difference between the spectacle then and today’s entertainment is roughly equivalent to the distinction between the Model T Ford and a rocket ship.
And speaking of rockets, I bet you didn’t know there once was such a thing as “Rocket Hockey.” I kid you not. It’s all part of the game’s endless evolution.
During the Second World War, Eastern League teams played a few games with only a center red line – no blue stripes – on the theory that removing the blues would speed up the game.
What it did was speed itself out of existence almost as quickly as it was introduced.
The goalie mask is another innovation, starting with Jacques Plante’s grotesque plastic covering right up to the current face protector that is so effective goaltenders fearlessly use it by sticking their heads right in front of flying pucks. Who would have thought in 1947 that a goalie could make a save with his face?
I’ll always remember walking into MSG for the first time in 1939 and seeing a big sign stretched across the lobby. It proclaimed: “Hockey – The Fastest Game On Earth.”
Well, if it was fast then – nearly 70 years ago – the game is moving at the speed of light these days.
Change is what it’s all about and Sixty Moments That Changed The Game is what this magazine is all about.
For me, the biggest changes began after the 1946-47 season.
I was a Toronto Maple Leafs fan at the time and marveled at the defense tandem of Garth Boesch and Bill ‘Snake Hips’ Barilko. Unlike any defense pair I had ever seen, Boesch and Barilko developed the knack for skating backward during an opponent’s attack. Just as an enemy shooter would prepare to propel the puck, the Toronto pair would simultaneously drop to their knees forming a human wall in front of goalie Walter ‘Turk’ Broda.
Although Detroit’s Bob Goldham later was credited with being the first stupendous shot-blocking defenseman, Boesch and Barilko did it first – and, better still, as a synchronized pair.
But the Boesch-Barilko shot blocking move hardly shook me up as much as Plante’s one-man goaltending revolution. Like most of us in the civilized hockey world, I had been accustomed to goaltenders doing what they were being paid to do and that is stopping pucks; not stickhandling, not shooting and certainly not going behind the net on puck-chasing expeditions.
Then, one night at the old Garden, something very strange took place.
The Rangers fired the puck behind the Canadiens net, where I fully expected defenseman Doug Harvey to retrieve the rubber.
Whoa! What’s going on here? Instead of Harvey doing the expected, Monsieur Plante abruptly left his crease, wheeled behind the net and secured the puck. None of the 15,925 spectators ever had seen such a bizarre play before and everyone developed a momentary case of lockjaw.
But Plante wasn’t finished. He not only fetched the puck, he then skimmed a pass to left winger Dickie Moore.
Wonder of wonders. The goalie is playing defense and the next thing you know, he also is a playmaker. Lord Stanley of Preston must have turned over in his grave.
As we all know, ‘Jake The Snake’ didn’t stop there. He soon began dashing headlong along the boards to retrieve the rubber and later shocked us all by being the first netminder to don the mask regularly.
Of course, more revolutionary moves were in the works. One that received less credit than it deserved also took place before my eyes at the Garden during the one-goalie era.
As it happened, the Rangers had been gifted with two equally competent netminders, Chuck Rayner and James ‘Sugar Jim’ Henry. What to do? Coach Frank Boucher’s scheme was simplicity itself. He changed goalies along with his line changes. As Rayner skated to the bench, he handed his goalie stick to Henry and vice-versa. It was a brief, but noble experiment that concluded when Boucher finally traded Henry to the Chicago Black Hawks.
Not to sound sacrilegious, but the defensive upheaval credited to Bobby Orr – backliners on the attack – really started years earlier with Leonard ‘Red’ Kelly of the Detroit Red Wings, who shook us all up (particularly opponents) when he began the practice of lugging the puck from end to end. Kelly was way ahead of Orr as a revolutionary.
But even that was small potatoes compared to what Bernie ‘Boom Boom’ Geoffrion, Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita did to the game.
I say with no fear of contradiction that the first time I saw Geoffrion unleash his slapshot against a mask-less Rayner at the Garden, I thought he would kill poor Charlie.
Well, he didn’t kill him, but he sure did turn the game topsy-turvy and it was only a matter of time before everyone employed the slapshot as a top offensive weapon. Meanwhile, Hull and Mikita merely added to the mania by putting a curve on the stick so Geoffrion’s howitzer now came in just like a knuckleball.
You get the point: Hockey’s revolutions merely are part of the game’s evolution. And it never stops.
Just look at our new season. Where are those goal judges, who for decades sat behind the net, fingers on the red-light button? Many of them are gone – deported to the press box or another spot where they can’t actually see the goals go in – victims of our high-tech electronic age. And so another landmark event has taken place in hockey history.
You won’t find a better depiction of these momentous developments than in Sixty Moments That Changed The Game.
Enjoy.
The Hockey News Archive is a vault of more than 2,640 issues and more than 156,000 articles exclusively for subscribers, chronicling the complete history of The Hockey News from 1947 until today.
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