57 years of futility can be heartbreaking, especially if you’re a Toronto Maple Leafs fan. With their game seven overtime loss to the Boston Bruins in the first round of the 2023/24 playoffs the Leafs have enhanced their status as the team guaranteed to break the collective hearts of their fan base.
“Giant Killer” – a coach who has coached teams that defeated the President’s Trophy winner in Stanley Cup playoff competition at least twice during their NHL coaching careers. Matt Dibiase takes a look back at the greatest “Giant Killers” in NHL history, and discovers that a former Maple Leafs coach takes the top spot.
Reaching the Summit is no ordinary hockey retrospective. It is a scholarly, topical compendium of articles dealing with advanced sports analytics, personal memories, examinations of the Summit Series in sociological and psychological terms, avant-garde poetry, and even an alternate history scenario.
Author Perry Lefko is a pro’s pro when it comes sports literature and his resume reflects the plethora of sports topics he has chronicled for the past 35 years. His titles run the gamut from hockey to thoroughbred racing to Canadian Football to curling. This Christmas...
This writer’s personal motto has always been “History abhors a vacuum”. For much too long there has been a vacuum in the annals of hockey history: a definitive biography of the late Toe Blake. Even though Toe Blake was the greatest coach in NHL history until the...
Matthew Blittner completes his hat trick with the final volume in his historical trilogy of the greater New York City hockey teams (Rangers, Devils, and Islanders) as seen from the eyes of the members (male and female) of the Fourth Estate. Following the same formula...
Matthew Blittner makes his hockey literature debut with his petit sized volume Unforgettable NJ Devils: Games & Moment from the Press Box, Ice & Front Office. Unforgettable NJ Devils is an oral history of the Devils franchise told from a very unique...
In his second book Guardians of the Goal, George Grimm tackles the knotty problem all authors face of equaling (and surpassing) a brilliant first effort. In his wonderful debut We Did Everything But Win he painted a broad canvas of the New York Rangers during the...
The St. Blues’ Stanley Cup triumph was a long overdue joy for a team that suffered so many ups and down throughout its star-crossed 52 years of existence. When the puck first dropped on the Blues, Lyndon Johnson was still President, America was embroiled in Vietnam...
In my book The Art of the Dealers: the NHL’s Greatest General Managers I not only ranked St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong as one of the 50 greatest general managers in hockey history I was also forced to assign him membership in sad club: the Heartbreak Managers club...
I have a confession to make. I’ve been writing about hockey history, hockey coaches, and hockey general managers for years but I’ve never had the nerve to admit until, now, that I’ve never attended a single, solitary NHL game in my entire lifetime until last night...
The firing of Joel Quenneville by the Chicago Blackhawks ends an era for the Windy City franchise. Until now Coach Q was the greatest active NHL coach and was the fourth greatest NHL coach all-time in the eyes of my rating system featured in my book Bench Bosses: the...
After a 16 year hiatus Tom Adrahtas has returned to the realm of hockey literature. In 2002 Adrahtas unveiled an authorized, masterful biography of goaltending legend Glenn Hall. Today, in his latest tome The 60s: Goaltending’s Greatest Generation, Tom picks up right...
For this writer the most beautiful aspect of the Washington Capitals first Stanley Cup win is that gave head coach Barry Trotz some richly deserved glory and immortality after 19 seasons of solid hockey coaching with a corresponding lack of playoff success to go along...
The NHL lost a living legend yesterday with the death of Bill Torrey. If anyone created a formula for creating and developing expansion franchises it was Bowtie Bill. He took a team that struggled to compete with their wealthier neighbors in Manhattan and in eight...
Nashville is poised to make franchise history this season. Never before have the Predators won a division title or the President’s Trophy for that matter and yet they are in a great position to do both. Ever since the midway mark on January 6 Nashville has gone 24-3-4...
It’s been 20 years when the Winter Olympics opened its gates and welcomed the NHL’s elite players to compete for Olympic gold in Nagano, Japan in 1998 however, today, in Pyeonchang, South Korea no NHL players are competing and one is left with a sense of psychic...
The last time the Winnipeg Jets reached the same altitude they’re flying at now it was in 1975/76 when they were winning their first Avco Cup courtesy of Bobby Hull, Anders Hedberg, and Ulf Nilsson with a lovely supporting cast. Before the World Hockey Association...
The history of NHL expansion has been one of fits and starts, mostly fits. There were the hapless New York Americans during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. The California Golden Seals (the only franchise during the great expansion of 1967 to fold) during the 1960s and...
If they ever publish an updated version of my book Bench Bosses: the NHL’s Coaching Elite then you can add this chapter into the mix because Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan became the newest member of the 50 greatest NHL coaches of all time when he led...
We Did Everything But Win is a brilliant debut work by George Grimm; an oral history of the New York Rangers during the Emile Francis era (1964 to 1976) as told by the players, coaches, Rangers staff members, radio and TV broadcasters, and print journalists who took...
Improbably but fascinatingly the Toronto Maple Leafs are competing for a playoff slot. After enduring a last place finish despite the onset of a new coaching and managerial regime the Toronto Maple Leafs are skating, fighting, and sweating their way through the final...
One of my favorite vintage Batman episodes, Green Ice/Deep Freeze, featured the famed German director Otto Preminger as Mr. Freeze and during those two episodes, Preminger would exclaim, “Wild!” whenever something happened that tickled his fancy. And that’s how...
The firing of Ken Hitchcock as head coach of the St. Louis Blues was a sad and ignominious end for what was one of the greatest coaching careers in NHL history. This was supposed to be Ken Hitchcock’s farewell to the NHL; a final sentimental seasonal run to cap a...
Washington has a new President and a new Congress; the atmosphere is ripe for change; but for those Washington, DC, residents who take comfort in continuity they can find solace in the fact that the Washington Capitals has taken lead in the President’s Trophy race (or...
The 2016/17 season will probably be marked in the hockey history books as being the season of reversed expectations; a season where pre-season predictions were stood on their head and teams that were expected to fail succeeded and teams expected to succeed failed...
Chicago, in defiance of all the gloomy pre-season predictions which called for the Blackhawks to be the fourth or fifth seed in the Western Conference, is leading the Central Division and is vying with the Montreal Canadiens for the President’s Trophy lead. Still,...
Whisper it quietly but the New York Rangers are the latest surprise in the Eastern Conference early in this season; roaring out of the blocks like a silver bullet and leading the Metropolitan Division ahead of the Washington Capitals and the defending Stanley Cup...
It’s been a long time since the Edmonton Oilers have lived up to their name and struck pay dirt as a franchise. 16 games into the 2016/17 season Edmonton is gushing forth with their best start in 5 years—leading the Pacific Division (albeit by a narrow margin against...
In my last column I talked about which NHL coaches had risen or fallen or stagnated on my top 50 charts which are determined by my rating system featured in my book Bench Bosses: the NHL’s coaching elite. There were no new entrants into the top 50 charts during...
