Greatest, Weirdest, Most Amazing NHL Debuts Of All Time , livre ebook

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173 pages

English

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Hit the ice in the NHL for the first time with over 300 hockey stars From Hall of Famers to lesser-known players, every one of the more than 7,700 NHLers skated in a first game. Many of these debuts are noteworthy because of a record that is plain amazing (Al Hill s five points), a record most dubious (David Koci s 42 penalty minutes), or an achievement never likely to be replicated (Larry Hillman gets his name on the Stanley Cup after just one shift). Prolific sports writer Andrew Podnieks s comprehensive new book features more than 300 spectacular debuts, from 1917 to 2019, and hones in on great achievements and amazing exploits culled from each player s first night of NHL stardom.

Informations

Publié par	Ecw Press
Date de parution	08 octobre 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781773054346
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	11 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0550€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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The Greatest, Weirdest, Most Amazing NHL Debuts of All Time
ANDREW PODNIEKS

Contents
Introduction
Day One Debuts
The One and Only
Extra, Extra! Read All About It!: Newsy Lalonde
Did He, or Didn’t He?
Lightning Unleashed: Howie Morenz
Naughty, Naughty: Nels Stewart
Best Goalie Debut Ever: Tiny Thompson
Debut Shutouts
Averaging a Goal a Game . . .
Happy Birthday
Goalie Playoff Debuts
Making History: Paul Goodman
Rocket Launch: Maurice Richard
Just a Child: Bep Guidolin
Brothers O’ Mine: Max, Doug, and Reg Bentley
From the Get Go: Gus Bodnar
Just a Sec: Bernie Ruelle
Student Earns A+: Jean Marois
Master Hockey: Gordon Howe
Needle Skates into the Crease: Gil Mayer
Doubleheader Dick: Dick Bittner
The Replacement: Lorne Davis
Playoff Debut Assists
Inauspicious Beginning: Jacques Plante
Dream of Dreams: Wayne Hillman
Stanley Cup Finals Debuts
Hall of Famer Playoff Debuts
Tre Kronor Pioneer: Ulf Sterner
The Day the Game Changed: Bobby Orr
Double Debuts in the Crease
Caught in the Middle: Robbie Irons
First Shift, First Shot, First Goal
Czech Date: Jaroslav Jirik
Butt It Has Its Place in History: Moose Dupont
Can’t Be Beat: Ken Dryden
The Flower Begins to Bloom: Guy Lafleur
Oldest Debut—The Great Debate
Ho, Ho, Ho
The Pioneer: Borje Salming
Almost, Gus!: Danny Gare
Easiest Goals Ever
The First Lion Roars: Matti Hagman
Greatest Debut of All Time: Al Hill
The Sutter Family
Scoring in a Period
Share the Glory: Goran Hogosta
The Penultimate Price: Vaclav Nedomansky
After 60: Mike Meeker
The Great One: Wayne Gretzky
Gretzky Helps Others
Greatest League Debut Nights
Miracle Man: Dave Christian
He Who Helps Others: Peter Stastny
Relatively Speaking
Team Record Debuts
What a Help!: Michel Goulet
Oh, no!
Another and Another: Ron Loustel
Triple Gold Beginnings: Tomas Jonsson
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E: Jim Playfair
Greatest Debut Goal Ever: Mario Lemieux
Never Too Late: Esa Tikkanen
The Debut That Wasn’t (or Was?): Marc D’Amour
Overshadowed: Risto Jalo
The Soviet Pioneer: Sergei Pryakhin
The First Soviet Superstar: Alexander Mogilny
Goalies Facing Penalty Shots
Dream Becomes Nightmare: Andre Racicot
The Dominator: Dominik Hasek
Overtime Stats
First Goal . . . Only Goal
Crazy Post-Debut Slump: Andrew McKim
Debuts Across the Pond
Nothing to See Here, Folks: Christian Soucy
One-Game Wonders Playoff Debuts
21st Century Firsts: Kyle Freadrich
Lots of Rubber
Sid vs. Ovi—Day One
Brotherly Tandems
Goalie Assists
Blinded by the Light: Mikko Lehtonen
The Great Dane: Frans Nielsen
Wonder Brothers
A Japanese First: Yutaka Fukufuji
Debuts Far from Home
Fighting to Make the Show: David Koci
Who Gets the Puck?
Playoff Debut Goalscorers
One Night Hype: Derek Stepan
Spectacular Shorties
Unluckiest Loss Ever: Mike Murphy
Small Start to a Record: Matt Hackett
Tick, Tick, Done: Kellan Lain
79 Seconds Is All: Brian White
Come the Shootout
Fastest Man on Blades: Connor McDavid
Auston, Ontario: Auston Matthews
First Overall Draft Debuts
Most Goals in a Game
Leap Year Debuts
Managing the Crease: Jorge Alves
Goalie Penalties
Debut Highlights, 2018–19
Making History: Ryan Poehling
Dude, Where’s Makar?: Cale Makar
Appendix
Acknowledgements
Photo Credits
About the Author
Copyright

Introduction
It wasn’t easy tracking the dates and statistics for every player’s first NHL game, but it was certainly worth the effort. It’s an area of research that has long fascinated me because for that one specific game, every player is the same.
Whether it’s Gretzky or Crosby or a mid-level player or a small note in the history of the game, every player has a first game. But, of course, those first games come in so many shapes and sizes. Many Hall of Famers had quite unremarkable first games while many obscure players had sensational debuts.
The variety and scope of these games is such that I knew I could fill an entire book with interesting stories. My ambition was to break down “the debut” into every possible category. The more I looked, the more I found, and the more I found, the more interesting it got (to me, anyway).
The first part of the research was to understand how each player got into that initial game in the first place. For some, the answer is easy. If you’re a first overall draft choice, your debut is likely only a few short months away. For others, it comes because of an injury to a roster player; it comes because of a player’s excellent play in the minors or in junior; it comes in desperation, as an emergency replacement.
But no matter how you slice it, every player who gets into a game is a quality player who has had some combination of skill and luck to get there.
We can laugh at some of the names. We think of Lefty Wilson, longtime Detroit trainer, who is from an era when the game was so archaic the emergency replacement was to be found at the end of the bench—sometimes of the other team. We laugh at a high-school student coming out of the stands to take over for a badly injured, maskless goalie during the days of the Original Six.
And yet, it was only in early 2018 that the Blackhawks had to use Scott Foster, a local shinny goalie, for half a period. And we cheer his incredible success, playing shut out hockey for 14 minutes.
Some players not only get into a game but excel beyond their, or anyone else’s, wildest dreams. The greatest debut of all time? Al Hill of Philadelphia. Three points in a period, a record five points in the game, and a Gordie Howe hat trick, all in his first game. And after? Nothing nearly as accomplished.
Other players got no more than a handful of shifts, and others still just one shift. Some did well and never played again in the NHL. Others played well, yet did little with their other opportunities.
Ask virtually any NHLer about his recollections of that first game, and the first thing that comes to mind is a connection to family. Every player who gets that call to play then in turn calls those he’s closest to. That first game represents a lifetime of preparation, a lifetime of practice and sacrifice, of dedication and determination. For some, it is the very pinnacle of an ambition; for others, it’s the start of a long career.
One of my favourite sections in the book is called “First Goal, Only Goal” because it looks at players who further enhanced their dream by scoring a goal in their debut—and then never scored again. A magical start, a career full of apparent promise—and then a black void. Not schadenfreude , just a shame.
In the century-long history of the NHL, there have been almost 7,900 players who have appeared in at least one game, and several categories of my research list only one player. The granddaddy of this group is surely Wayne Hillman.
Consider that of those 7,900 players, only 144 made their debuts in the playoffs. Of those 144, only 20 debuted in the Stanley Cup Finals. And then comes Hillman, who not only slots into these categories but one all his own—his debut, one single shift, came during the Cup-clinching game! One shift, a Cup win, and his name stamped on the game’s most prized trophy.
Some players scored on their first shift with their first shot. Two scored in their first game with an empty netter. Several goalies earned assists in their debuts and only 23 earned shutouts. One goalie, Ron Loustel, allowed ten goals and, as one might unfortunately expect, never played in the NHL again.
One player, Kellan Lain, had a “debut” that lasted but two seconds, and another, David Koci, incurred a record 42 minutes in penalties in his debut (fighting, roughing, fighting, charging major, fighting, game misconduct). One goalie, Marc D’Amour, incurred 12 penalty minutes as the backup, thus earning statistics in a game he didn’t actually play. That was his debut—no minutes, no shots, no goals, but a minor and misconduct.
And so this book sifts through 7,900 debuts to extract the purest, weirdest, most amazing first games ever played. All the records herein are supremely special because any player who wants to break them has one chance, one night, and perhaps only one shift to do so. But on that first night, any player can be as great as Howe or Orr or Lemieux. He just has to be quick about it!
Andrew Podnieks
Toronto, September 2019

Day One Debuts
The First Skaters, 1917–18
The National Hockey Association was founded in 1909 and was the pre-eminent professional league in Canada. Pro hockey of any sort had started only in 1904, but the NHA had the best teams and attracted most of the top players. In fact, NHA teams won the Stanley Cup every year of its existence except 1915 and 1917
But a dispute with Toronto owner Eddie Livingstone incited the other owners to start a new league from which he would be excluded. Thus was born the National Hockey League, on November 26, 1917.
Most of the teams were ostensibly the same during this transition, so although every player who appeared in the NHL during the 1917–18 season was a “rookie”—i.e., a player in his first year in the NHL—most were not rookies in the spirit of the word as we know it (new to the professional game after playing junior hockey or some si