He's Got Your Number

It’s 2022 and 9 year old Zarthan is at ICEGODS R’ US buying a new hockey jersey.  “Mom, what number should I get?” “Number seven is lucky, honey.”  “Oh mom, that’s like not even a real number!  Nobody wears a number less than 88 anymore.”  True that.  What happened to hockey numbers anyway?  Inflation?  When many of us were playing little league hockey in the 60’s or 70’s the highest number on any pro  team would be something like 30 or 35, and those were always worn by the goalies. 

Just check out this Hall of Fame Montreal Canadians roster from ‘70-’71 and note what numbers they were wearing.  Compare that to their 2009 roster of 25 players, with 10 players wearing numbers of 40 or higher.       

This was the question posed by my pick-up hockey cohort Paul Schroeder which led me to research and blog the hockey numbers game.  (One reason for the above disparity is that the Canadiens these days have only three single-digit unretired numbers left.)

Unlike football, hockey does not have any formalized uniform numbering rules.  There is however a rich and fascinating history behind the tradition of hockey players’ number selection.  The first numbering system started in 1911 in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, when teams played six plus a goalie with no subs for the whole game! The players were numbered from the goal out: Goaltender #1, Defenceman #2, Defenceman #3, Rover #4, Left Wing #5, Center #6, and Right Wing #7 .

 Later when teams started having larger rosters the tradition of Goalie as #1 and defenseman as lower numbers stayed on, while the additional secondary players got the higher numbers and the back-up goalie was left with the highest.  In the NHL, two important traditions help solidify the numbering tradition. First, because of the importance to the team of a well rested goalie, he was  assigned the most comfortable bunk number 1 on the trains’ sleeping cars  on “road trips.”

Second, the players had a tradition of their own. Over the course of a  season each player was expected to pick up the tab once for a team dinner. This was done in descending order of numbers because the newest players had the higher numbers  and the vets and the starting goalie hoped to avoid shelling out.

So where DO the extreme numbers come from?  Specifically, we can credit or blame the Great One. Legend has it that Wayne as a kid was a great admirer of Mr. Hockey.  The child hockey prodigy chose #99 as homage to Gordie because #9 was already taken on his pee wee team.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and since  Gretzky’s number became the only number ever retired for the whole league (any league), it opened the door to future players, who had the cajones to claim  some piece of greatness and chose untraditionally high numbers. Super Mario was  #66 (he had greatness and cajones grandes) Suck on these Hodgkin’s Disease!

 Another tradition evolved when traded players’ lucky numbers were already taken on their new teams. The traded player, when forced to choose a new number chose a variation of his old one (14 instead of 24 for example). If they had a single digit number they would double it.  I think this started when Esposito was traded to the New York and Ranger great Rod Gilbert already had number 7.  Later when Ray Borque joined the Bruins he chose #7, but  in December of 1987, Espo’s #7 jersey was retired by the Boston Bruins in an emotional ceremony. Borque, by then an acknowledge superstar himself became #77 that night (as you can see in the video below). Esposito was "visibly moved" by Ray’s sacrifice, but later commented that after he left Beantown, the Bruins shouldn’t have allowed anyone else to wear 7 in the first place.

Closer to home, everybody’s favorite early days King, Butch Goring couldn’t wear  #19     

when traded to Isles (Brian Trottier), so he became the first double digit flipper. His superstition panned out to the max as he helped the Islanders win four consecutive Stanley Cups wearing #91 and his funky old helmet from juniors.

Then came those crazy high skilled Euro’s trying to give special meaning to everything. Jaromir Jagr chose 68 to commemorate the year the Soviets bounced the Czech’s revolution attempt and killed his grandfather. Alexander Mogilny chose #89 to indicate the year he escaped from Communism to play in American Siberia (Buffalo).

 There are many other quirky jersey number stories in the NHL including the now prohibited #0 worn  by Paul Bibeault & Neil Sheehy and 00 worn by John Davidson and Marty Biron one season each. Bernie Parent wore double zero in the WHA.

 84 was the final number never to have been worn.  NHL forward Guillaume Latendresse finally dressed for the Canadiens as  #84 on  September 29, 2006.