How NHL Players Spent their summers in 1951

[Boreal]

This is pretty cool. How times have changed.

It’s hard not to notice that the footage has about as much cultural and ethnic diversity as the Flintstones.

I imagine the food also sucked in 1951.

It probably had all the flavour and taste smokers experience… or as Norm MacDonald would joke about the taste explosion that happens to smokers when they quit.

“What is this zingy tangy dish you cooked up?”

“Oh a boiled potato?!?.”

[timbit]

Yes, indeed.
Things have changed a lot.
Gordie Howe was on an $8000 salary in his rookie season.

[looooob]

that was amazing

[bobbylouie]

I worked at the Spectrum in Philadelphia in 1967 and Lou Angotti,
who was the captain of the first-year Flyers,
would occasionally stay after games to work on the changeover
crew (whose job was to convert the arena to
basketball/wrestling/concert configurations, etc.)
to pick up a few extra dollars when the schedule permitted.

[Classic_Sniper]

Reminds me of lacrosse players of today. Don’t make enough to make ends meet, so they hold down a regular job during the year and wait for their lacrosse salaries to supplement their income.

[Goriders]

Kind of like CFL players in that the majority have offseason jobs.

[DeluxeMoustache]

I think Bill Barilko went on a fishing trip that summer

[FlamesAddiction]

When I lived in Thunder Bay, I met an old guy who was a friend of my girlfriend's family. He apparently played for the Blackhawks in the 1950s but quit when he was offered a permanent position at the papermill. He said the money at the mill was too much to turn down. I wish I could remember his name.

[Dion]

Maurice Richard

While it may seem strange that the greatest player in the history of the Montréal Canadiens, the first player to score fifty goals in a single season, and the captain who began the first Canadiens dynasty and won eight Stanley Cups with Les Glorieux would require a second job, the era necessitated he get one. Maurice Richard began working for the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1937 at age 16 and continued to do so even as he set numerous NHL records and became the ambassador for the Canadiens.

There was history behind Richard’s association with the CPR. His father, Onésime, worked as a carpenter with the railway intermittently in the early part of the 20th century. The Rocket worked offseasons in a railcar construction warehouse in what is now Montréal’s Angus Shops district, a facility responsible for producing locomotives and passenger and freight cars.

Bobby Hull

Like many of his contemporaries, Hull worked during the offseason and supplemented his income during the season as well. Despite his gap-toothed grin, he had a reputation as one of the most attractive players in the game. Capitalizing on this, he found work as a model. He appeared on television as a spokesman for Vitalis hair tonic and in magazine pages as the poster boy for swimsuits, sweaters and socks (“Bobby Hull” by Trent Frayne. Maclean’s Magazine, 22nd January 1966).

Trent Frayne of Maclean’s Magazine described images of a man whose attractiveness was almost inhuman; Frayne saw “his tawny pelt glistening in muscles piled on muscles, grinning down on a doll wearing a delicious dispersement of skin” (Ibid). Makes sense, then.

https://thehockeywriters.com/hockey-...o-job-players/

[Snuffleupagus]

Early in his career Flames own Al MacNeil returned home to Cape Breton to fish lobster in the off season, apparently he hoped to make enough money playing hockey to afford his own boat someday

[FlamingHomer]

I can totally picture McHobo and Drysaddle working their bowling alley they co-own in Stettler during the off-season.

[transplant99]

<----- That guy gave up his NHL job after only 1 season because he made a much better, and secure, living being a firefighter for Cominco.

Many a story like that in the way back.

[MoneyGuy]

Glenn Hall painted his barn near Stony Plain.

[bobbylouie]

I'm gonna guess that whatever those guys were getting paid for that
contraption that Pentti Lund was working on weren't getting paid enough.

[Howie_16]

I have actually been to "Hockey Haven" (located just east of Kenora, Ontario - 6:36 to 7:13 of the video) as my uncle owns a cottage there.

[looooob]

of course at least some of these names would be known to most, and most names would be known to the older set here but it is worth pointing out that really this was a list of stars for the time - 3 of the last 5 Rookies of the Year, at least 7 guys had played in the allstar game that season, and by my count at least 5 HOFers and I'm just going by memory of who was in the video so may have forgotten a few

I've enjoyed doing a deep dive into a few of the guys- Gelineau for example . everyone has an interesting life story

https://www.nhl.com/news/jack-geline...ld/c-315671688

Harmon- the hat store guy- plays in the allstar game that year, but never plays in the NHL after that summer- presumably helps manage the business for a bit (although as I've learned now, eventually they go their separate ways)