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.

 

Nip & Tuck

Being a Kings fan during their earliest inception was like dating a cute butt ugly high school girl whose wacky father kept getting her botched plastic surgery instead of putting money away for her college education.
When the NHL expanded to 12 teams in 1967, the Los Angeles Kings, in the the most ironic draft lottery ever, were awarded their one, their only, their unforgettable first overall draft pick, ever. They picked defenseman Rick Pagnutti number one overall. He played zero games in the NHL, overall. Not wanting to make that kind of mistake again, the Kings GM’s, from then on, treated first round draft picks like Get-out-of-jail-free Cards.
If you search the Kings’ all-time trade history page you will find “acquired (so-n-so) for a first-round draft choice” 12 times in the Kings’ first 15 seasons. 5 in the first 6 years. Thanks to owner Jack Cant Cook’s obsession with using veteran “Big name” players to win, NOW, loyal Kings GM’s Larry Regan and Jake Milford, who were poor at recognizing young talent to begin with, adhered closely to Cooke’s formula while adding a strong pinch of their own misguided overestimation of any player who played for Montreal. Everytime the Kings traded one of their draft choices we fans and management expected some knight in shining skateblades to rescue the fair (butt ugly) maiden, especially if they hailed from one of the legendary Original Six. Oh the great hopes (and 1st rounders) we had of becoming Montreal West. “We play in the Forum too!” I still can recall the parade of C/H veterans that were to be our purple and gold pillars: Gerry Desdesjardin, Ralph Backstrom, Rogie Vachon, Terry Harper, Bob Murdoch, and Steve Shutt! The speedy young Canadien guns that were sure to become the west coasts next big scorers; Glenn Goldup, Randy Rota, Murray Wilson “They’re so fast.” And then there were many other notables we got for 1st rounders in various years, Skip Krake, Ross Lonsberry and Eddie Shack and later goalie Ron Grahame from Boston , Gene Carr from the Rangers, Jerry Korab, Rick Martin from Buffalo in the early 80’s.

This dysfunctional team building strategy reached it's zenith with the acquisition of  (The French Connection's ) Rick Martin  for a 1st (Tom Barrasso) & 3rd rounder. He ended playing only 4 more games for the Kings than Pagnutti did.  The next most frustrating giveaway was a 1st round pick (Ray Borque)  for Ron Graham. Boston had 2 other great goalies and would've had to put one of them on waivers a few days after this deal went down.

Although the Kings never became big winners on the ice or at the box office under Cooke, his veteran team building wetdream finally came true in football, not hockey, with George Allen’s successful Over-the–Hill-Gang early in the 70’s. (Cooke was majority owner of the Washington Redskins, too.)

Meanwhile in LA LA Land, it was that lovable rogue Bruce McNall who made the ultimate nip and tuck when he acquired Wayne Gretzky for three first round picks. This was a facelift AND a boobjob replacing the cute butt ugly purple & gold daughter with a royal temptress who came within a seductive curve of becoming L.A.'s black and silver trophy wife.

Two Cup Winners

The Calgary Flames followed their '89 Stanley Cup Championship with a 105 point 1st place Smythe Division finish and drew the 4th place (5 games below .500) Los Angeles Kings  featuring Wayne Gretzky and a couple of his ex-Oiler buds, a couple of lucky French-Canadiens and a couple of recently acquired gritty ex-Rangers, in round one of the 1990 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Kings surprised the Flames in the 1st game  5-3. The Flames dominated in the next game at home 8-5. The series turned in Game 3 in L.A., when Tony Gronato's overtime tally gave the Kings a 2-1 series lead. The thundestruck Flames were clobbered in Game 4, 12-5. Then dominated  in Calgary 5-1 and returned with renewed confidence to L.A. for Game 6.   In the second overtime,  of a thrill a minute 3-3 game, Mike Krushelnyski flailing away in a prone position in the high slot at a bouncing puck, hit an arching floater with the shaft of his stick which wobbled over and around a stack of Kings and Flames and just a few inches over a sprawling Mike Vernon’s outstretched glove to eliminate the defending champions. I remember watching this long intensive game on an early giant blurry rear projection screen going crazy over the goal and having no idea who scored and how. (It took at least three or four angles and replays to see catch how the winning goal actually happened came about.)
That was one of the my most gratifying Kings playoff series, in that I really felt L.A. embracing the Kings as a legit part of the L.A. sports community, as they do with the Dodgers and Lakers. (not to that degree, but in the ballpark). I remember wearing my Kings Black & Silver jersey, with #88 (pre-Lindros) and my nom de plum on the back often to many non-hockey events and getting “Go Kings!” “Whoo hoos!” and even a high five while just walking around, shopping malls and busy sidewalks. My most specific flashback is while walking from our parking spot to the Wiltern Theatre to see a Mumenchanz performance and getting a fist pump and “All right Kings!” from an approaching stranger on Western Ave. and a “Flames suck!” from someone else behind me. The media were on board more then ever. The local sports shows actually showed highlites other than fights, as well as player interviews and hyped the series between games. Non-sports shows were regularly remarking on the the Kings exploits. The night of the 12-4 victory over Calgary, the radio station I listened to kept mocking the Flames, announcing facetious bulletins saying “the Kings have scored again, the Kings have scored again, it’s now 16 to 5!” 

Although, the Kings were swept in the next round by the eventual Cup winning Edmonton Oilers led by Mark Messier, they showed that they now had the playoff grit that they had been missing before trading Bernie Nichols (another favorite) for Tomas Sandstrom and Tony Granato. The sweep, of course, was very humbling but left some hope that the following year the Kings may knock off the defending champion Edmonton Oilers.