Re-living the Stanley Cup - Historic Treasures by bobbylouie

[bobbylouie]

Now have a relatively definitive answer on the penalty minute thing. Based on the obscurity of this, I'm pretty sure this is the only time in the last 31 years that this has ever come up.



I put “officially” in quotation marks because it reminded of a story that is relevant to all of this, about a project I did for the Elias Sports Bureau a long time ago. During the first meeting, a supervisor came in and reminded us that although accuracy is a primary goal, it should be noted that “official” is NOT a synonym for “accurate”. He then quoted the derivation of official being from some Latin word meaning “of the office”. The point of all this was that in the end “official record” or “official stats” means whatever the office says happened, not necessarily what actually happened. So officially, Nieuwendyk (or Ramage) never high sticked anybody and was never penalized. And officially, the Whalers scored a power play goal, regardless of whether it really happened or not. Because the office says so.

[bobbylouie]

For the first time this season, Mike Vernon is 1st Star, stopping 36 of 37 shots

[bobbylouie]

Joey Mullen scored his team leading 13th goal in the 2nd period


Joe Nieuwendyk, the cover boy on tonight‘s game program, awaits a ruling on his penalties (see story)


Jiri Hrdina in action on Tuesday night in Uniondale

[EastCoastFlamesFan]

Keep 'em coming, BL! Telling you, these make my day. Just love reading the insights from the season.

One longtime Flame who I still think gets slightly forgotten about and overshadowed is Gary Suter. Largely due to the fact that Chopper became a mega star I have to think back in 1989 (Pre Stanley Cup) that Suter was probably the bigger name and I would think most people thought he would ultimately be the better player. A shame that he missed out on majority of the 89 Cup run with an injury (broken jaw, I think?) His offensive production was always consistent, but how was he considered defensively? He wasn't one of those Coffey/Housley D-men, right? I thought I remember him holding his own defensively, but would love to hear what some of the vets in here have to say.

[bobbylouie]

Originally Posted by EastCoastFlamesFan

One longtime Flame who I still think gets slightly forgotten about and overshadowed is Gary Suter. Largely due to the fact that Chopper became a mega star I have to think back in 1989 (Pre Stanley Cup) that Suter was probably the bigger name and I would think most people thought he would ultimately be the better player. A shame that he missed out on majority of the 89 Cup run with an injury (broken jaw, I think?) His offensive production was always consistent, but how was he considered defensively? He wasn't one of those Coffey/Housley D-men, right? I thought I remember him holding his own defensively, but would love to hear what some of the vets in here have to say.

Regarding the perception of Suter at the time, that gets addressed pretty directly in the game 22 post that will appear here on Wednesday afternoon, so I'll let that speak for itself when it comes up.

More generally, here's a quote from that exact week that speaks of how perceptions can be wrong, especially of young players. It didn't really fit into any of these reports that I prepared at the time so I didn't include it, but it was part of a package that was provided on a weekly basis by a news source for inclusion in newsy-notes type stories.



Today's game 20 post coming at the regular time, 3 p.m. mountain

[looooob]

Originally Posted by EastCoastFlamesFan

Keep 'em coming, BL! Telling you, these make my day. Just love reading the insights from the season.

One longtime Flame who I still think gets slightly forgotten about and overshadowed is Gary Suter. Largely due to the fact that Chopper became a mega star I have to think back in 1989 (Pre Stanley Cup) that Suter was probably the bigger name and I would think most people thought he would ultimately be the better player. A shame that he missed out on majority of the 89 Cup run with an injury (broken jaw, I think?) His offensive production was always consistent, but how was he considered defensively? He wasn't one of those Coffey/Housley D-men, right? I thought I remember him holding his own defensively, but would love to hear what some of the vets in here have to say.

in 87-88 Suter and Sarge (who were d partners) both made the NHL 2nd all star team, Suter finished 3rd in Norris voting (behind Bourque and Stevens) with Sarge right behind him...now he definitely benefited from the steadying influence of one of the best but the Flames were very lucky to be able to roll that pair and Chopper with Macoun for those glory years

[bobbylouie]

Al MacInnis got the Flames’ power play back on track with his 5th goal of the season




Lanny McDonald, in action against the Devils, continues to see limited 4th line minutes
and hasn’t been part of the Flames’ success this season as the only player without a point







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[looooob]

^^ interesting on Fetisov. of course his (and Makarov et al) debut would wait til the next season...of course the 88-89 season would see a Soviet player skating in NHL silks, but more on that later I assume

[bobbylouie]

Originally Posted by looooob

^^ interesting on Fetisov. of course his (and Makarov et al) debut would wait til the next season...of course the 88-89 season would see a Soviet player skating in NHL silks, but more on that later I assume

Lurking in the future........unfortunately there's probably more anticipation in your single post (and this one magazine cover story) then there ever would be excitement about his performance on the ice. But like you said, we'll get to that sometime in early June. And realizing/typing that just sent a little chill through me.

[bobbylouie]

1:30 a.m. rambling....

I haven't added my own thoughts much in the first 20 games and have pretty much just stuck to the facts as originally written 31 years ago. But because the content is mostly forgotten by me, I'm essentially following along with everybody else and only read it when I'm going through it the night before to check that everything is formatted and in order while I add in some pictures to spice up the visuals. So there are often surprises for me too.

Something in the next game (21) really made me laugh though. Then I realized that it’s now the year 2020 so maybe it’s wrong to laugh at it. That lasted about 5 seconds before I started laughing again. So it will be in there when the post goes up at 3 p.m. (MT) on Tuesday. My editorial comment about it is ---- "I don't think Reggie Dunlop was in the building during this incident, so he probably should have just stuck to playing 'Lady of Spain'".

[bobbylouie]

Steve Tsujiora playing for the Maine Mariners when they were the Flyers' farm team
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[EastCoastFlamesFan]

Love seeing the old Whalers clips. I grew up outside of Hartford and went to many games at the Civic Center. 89 was a bit before my time though--I was more 93-97.

Regardless, I always like checking the crowd as I always hope to see someone I know! That barn was (and still is) tiny and they didn't draw at all (although the box score above says 14K). In the 80s, my dad worked for an insurance company right next to the Civic Center and they had a corporate box so he went to tons of games in this era.

[Chris Biotti]

Thanks for posting these. I am thoroughly enjoying reading these every morning. It's pretty cool to see how deep teams used to be (maybe not the Whalers, though). To me, the 21-team league was the golden age of hockey.

[EastCoastFlamesFan]

Originally Posted by Chris Biotti

Thanks for posting these. I am thoroughly enjoying reading these every morning. It's pretty cool to see how deep teams used to be (maybe not the Whalers, though). To me, the 21-team league was the golden age of hockey.

I'm a HUGE fan of this era. Although my personal golden NHL era is the 89 season to the 94 season. Just a great run of seasons.

PS: Cool to see another Flames fan in NC! I thought I was the only one.

[looooob]

Originally Posted by bobbylouie

Steve Tsujiora playing for the Maine Mariners when they were the Flyers' farm team
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looking at these standings, Flames trucking along at a reasonable 4.5 goals for /game...the new look kings- 5.5

[bobbylouie]

FYI, today's 3pm (MT) game 22 post includes relevant info on the "how was Gary Suter perceived in those days?" question from a few days ago.

[GioforPM]

LOL at Milbury attacking the organist.

[looooob]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

LOL at Milbury attacking the organist.

in reading the story now, this may be the only time I utter the statement "you know Mike Milbury may be right here"

[bobbylouie]

My mental image of it has him running up the aisle waving his shoe over his head, all the while trying to keep the beat with the song "Turning Japanese". It is a bit of a toe-tapper after all.

[bobbylouie]

Because I barely remember the incident, went back to check the Montreal Gazette in case it seems made up......