Excuse me for bumping this otherwise completed thread to share a personal
story. With the current games back in progress, this will disappear off the
front page quickly enough anyway. But for the people who followed along
when this thread was active, I wanted to share a crazy story that recently
happened and involves CalgaryPuck. I didn't know where else to post it.
On another hockey site when nothing was happening in the early COVID
days, a guy asked a question, "What would be your holy grail hockey video
that has never been available?" I think he was a collector and was asking
just in case somebody might have something tucked away so he could
arrange trades. A few people posted and to be honest a lot of it wasn't really
that obscure and they were directed to places where they had their wish list
come true.
I posted mine, but I'd already been searching for it for over 50 years and had
been told multiple times by pretty good sources that it simply didn't exist. It
was a long forgotten game from early November 1967, Philadelphia at
Montreal. I knew first hand that the Philadelphia telecast was erased not
long after the game so the tape could be re-used, as was the regular practice
to save money in those days. Several times I'd talked to people from the
CBC, and they told me that while many of the Leafs' games from that era are
archived (and shown on "Leafs' classics"), the Canadiens' games were rarely
saved for the same reason that the Philadelphia station erased the tapes. I
accepted that, since it's well known that even the big US networks (CBS and
NBC) erased their copies of the first Super Bowl from the same era and none
of that TV coverage survives. If things like the Super Bowl weren't important
enough to save, my obscure game was sorta hopeless.
However, based on a few hints that caught my attention over the decades, I
always had a sneaky feeling that at least short clips from my game existed
somewhere. So I posted my request with the comment "I've been looking
for this for over 50 years and it doesn't exist, so I already know that my wish
isn't coming true."
A few weeks later I got a pop up message on Facebook from what was
clearly a made up name, and I noticed that the account had just been
activated days earlier, so it was either spam or somebody who didn't want to
be identified. It said "I have two questions, are you the guy who posted at
the hockey site about the non-existent video of the November 1967 game?
and are you the same guy who posted the Flames' Stanley Cup thread at
Calgary Puck ???"
When I said I was, he went on for a few minutes thanking me for the info in
this thread, then asked, "Do you remember early in the thread when a guy
said he was so happy to see that this info exists and was saved somewhere"
and you said something like "you'd be surprised what's out there". (I think it
was EastCoastFlamesFan). He added......"well, as my personal thank you for
the Flames' thread, it's your turn to be surprised." He then told me that
based on my Facebook page, he knew my general location and said I should
go the next day at 7 pm to the parking lot of a large mall in my area, drive to
the C3 pillar in the very center of the lot, and retrieve the envelope out of a
pickle jar that will be sitting there.
He said this would be his only message, his facebook account would be
deleted immediately after he said goodbye, the official story has to be that
this video still doesn't exist anywhere and I shouldn't talk to anybody else at
the CBC about it, and made me swear that I wouldn't share it or re-post it on
any public site. End result: I don't really need to know what all the intrigue
is about, but on one of those early COVID days when NOBODY was outside, I
drove to a completely deserted parking lot and to my amazement, my 50+
year search ended. I now have a full game copy of something that doesn't
exist. (minus the first 30 minutes since CBC games in those days started in
progress). I suppose I shouldn't even be telling that this happened, but the
person involved has some connection with CP, so whoever you are, thank
you very much. Apparently, it's even more true than I realized,....you'd be
surprised what's out there.
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