Old-time Leafs fans will never forget the Stanley Cup final series in 1942. It matched the Leafs, coached by Hap Day, against Jack Adams’ Detroit Red Wings. There has never been a series quite like it.

For starters, the Leafs were fortunate to be in the finals. In the first round of the playoffs against New York, the NHL’s top team, it took a goal by Nick Metz with seven seconds left in the deciding game to propel the Leafs into the final series.

Playing for the Cup against the Detroit Red Wings, the Leafs were odds-on favorites. Hadn’t they finished the regular season with eight more wins and 15 more points? But the Leafs stumbled through the first two games on home ice and lost them both. Then they dropped the third game back in Detroit. Leafs fans were frustrated and furious, sneering at Day’s name and saying he was no coach. The Toronto sportswriters were similarly merciless in their criticism of the coach and the players. Andy Lytle of the Toronto Star wrote, “Except for the gate receipts and the records, there is little apparent use in prolonging this series.”

Hap Day told the Maple Leafs directors that Detroit’s style had his team buffaloed. It marked the first time a team had consistently shot the puck into the Leafs zone and flooded in after it. In those days there was no center-ice red line. The Wings simply worked the puck over their blue line and then fired it into the Toronto zone. Day told the directors that defenseman Bucko McDonald was worn out and that Gordon Drillon’s talents weren’t suited to the Wings’ shoot-and-chase style.

“Are there any other players available?” he was asked.

“Well, yes, there’s Ernie Dickens and Don Metz,” he replied. “They’re green, but I’ll work them in and drop McDonald and Drillon. We’ll also change our style and play the same way the Red Wings are playing. Maybe we can beat them at their own game.”

Don Metz was an unlikely replacement for Drillon, the team’s leading scorer. Metz had scored only two goals all season while Drillon finished eighth in the NHL scoring race with 23 goals and 41 points. Ernie Dickens was another two-goal man; a lad who’d played only 10 NHL games in his brief career.

In game four at Detroit’s Olympia, Nick Metz, the brother of Don, got the winner in a 4–3 victory, forcing the Red Wings to put the champagne back in the cooler. Their coach and manager, Jack Adams, also required some cooling down. He was suspended for the rest of the series after he leaped onto the ice after the game and attacked referee Mel Harwood. The official was badly mauled in a free-for-all triggered by Eddie Wares and Don Grosso of the Wings.

In game five, Don Metz scored a hat trick, Syl Apps picked up a pair of goals and the Leafs romped to a 9–3 triumph. Andy Lytle wrote: “This series gets curiouser and curiouser. Only Alice in Wonderland would believe it from beginning to end.”

It was back to Detroit for game six, in which Toronto goalie Turk Broda had a hot night and blanked the Red Wings 3–0. For game seven, the fans almost broke down the doors at Maple Leaf Gardens in their frantic efforts to see the game. A record crowd of almost 17,000 witnessed the culmination of the most incredible comeback in playoff history. It ended when the Leafs’ Sweeney Schriner scored two third-period goals and Pete Langelle added a bit of insurance in a 3–1 Toronto triumph. Hap Day and his weary men, blistered for their incompetence a few days earlier, were now the toast of the nation. Day had captured his first Stanley Cup as Maple Leafs coach. Many more would follow.

Read More: The Leafs

Hi, I’m Brian’s daughter and I am considering putting together a small self-published hockey poetry book.  I work on this site for my Dad.  I’ve noticed we get a lot of visitors here seeking out hockey poetry and even a couple comments asking for anthologies.  

As poets and writers probably know, the internet offers on-demand  publishing tools like Lulu.com.  The resulting books tend to be expensive but at least they exist as options for small niche markets.

So, I am seeking hockey poetry submissions, if anyone is interested.  It is okay if the poem has been published before but make sure you have the right to re-publish.

None of us will get rich out of this idea but I think it will be a nice thing to offer people.  If you are interested in contributing to a collection of hockey poems, please consider sending me your hockey poetry for possible publication.

If there are any profits after expenses, what do you think of  a split of 50% of the gross profits going to contributing poets?  Maybe with a somewhat smaller split for those who send very short poems and a somewhat larger split for longer poems?  If this doesn’t sound fair to you, let me know.

If your poem is accepted and we have enough interest and material to go ahead and publish, I will send you a more formal agreement.  Sending me your poetry does not imply I have a right to publish your poetry until you give me formal written permission.

I’ve never done this before so I am certainly open to any suggestions from poets regarding this idea.

Send hockey poems and any additional information you think might be of interest to brenda@activecontentcreation.com

Thanks!

I asked the PR person for the Islanders to go to John  and plead with him to make an exception, since we’d some all the way from Toronto. She returned and said, “He’ said all right, he’ll do it for you, Mr. McFarlane.”

John gave me an excellent interview,  then packed and left for Calgary.

John had a long and productive career in hockey, beginning in junior with the Toronto Marlboros where he scored 49 goals in his final junior season. In the NHL he played in over 1,000 games and scored 325 goals. He was the MVP of the 1984 Canada Cup and played on four Stanley Cup winning teams–all with the Islanders.

We sat over coffee on Long Island one day and he reminisced about his early days in the game:

BM: Tell me about your days in junior hockey.

JT: Near the end of my second season in junior hockey with the Marlies, just before I turned eighteen, I retained an agent named Gus Badali. He had been talking to Houston of the WHA, because Houston wanted me. So it looked like the following season I would be  turning pro and playing with the  Houston Aeros.

But at that time, at the start of the junior season, the Marlies came out with a new contract that bound some players for three years, plus  an option year, with the junior club.

Reluctantly, and later to my regret, I had signed such a contract at the beginning of the year–just before I turned eighteen. I didn’t know  then that I had a chance to play pro  with Houston–which was a great opportunity. So instead of playing any more hockey under the Marlie contract, once I turned eighteen I repudiated it. I wanted it revoked. I went to Marlie management, meaning Frank Bonello. I tried to convince him I should be allowed to leave the Marlies after that season.

He said, “No way! You are here for four years. And you are here for another two years after that.”

We were trying to settle with them but it was no go. They wanted an enormous amount, just fantastic. So we ended up in court. I didn’t play another game in junior after my eighteenth birthday. So I missed all the playoffs and the team  went on to win the Memorial Cup that year. That made me happy because if they  hadn’t won they could have blamed it on me.

BM: But you missed the thrill of being part of it.

JT: Oh, yeah. That would have been a thrill, too.

BM: That’s unfortunate. You only get that one chance.

JT: Well, that’s life. So we went to court.

BM: In Toronto?

JT: Yeah, in Toronto. We were in court for a full week. I couldn’t believe that something like this was happening. They were trying to stop me from playing professional hockey, something I always wanted to do.

BM: Was it that case that makes hockey people nervous about attempting to re‑install the twenty year old draft because they know that guys 18 can sue them and claim to be adults and do what they want?

JT: It might be. I know my case was the first one.

BM: Ken Linesmen had a similar case after that?

JT: Yeah, right after that. My case set a precedent that you can’t stop a guy from earning a living once he is eighteen.

BM: Let’s suppose that you could earn 100 grand a year for turning pro but they force you to play junior. Then  you break a leg and can never play again. You are out that 100 grand, your future in pro hockey and everything else is gone.

JT: That’s right. As a junior I was getting $15 dollars a week plus room and board. They paid my room and board. Now the juniors get  like $50 a week.

BM: That surprises me, John.  When I played in that league, and I wasn’t nearly the player you are, I got $50 a week plus room and board. And that  was 30, 35 years ago. That’s incredible.

JT: My second year in junior I went in and asked for a raise, just some extra money. No way, they said. The mistake I made, I should have stayed home. I should have stayed in Milton and travelled back and forth. Then I would have made $60.

BM: I thought they were slipping money under the table to the juniors?

JT: I believe they did. To some of the players. Not  to me.

BM: But you were one of the top players. You’d think that you would have been well looked after.

JT: It is like professional hockey in the junior ranks. The managers all want to be big wheels, they want to make trades and deals.

BM: What was it like in Houston the first year?

JT: Houston was great. Fantastic. I had trouble at the beginning. I didn’t have that much confidence so they switched me around a lot.. As soon as I started to play with Terry Ruskowski and  Don Larway literally, things began to roll.  My first shift,  I played center between Gordie Howe and Mark Howe. We came back to the bench after one minute on the ice. Mark Howe  was on my left and Gordie was on my right. I’m eighteen years old and very nervous. Suddenly Gordie leans toward me and wipes his dripping nose all over  my sweater. I did not say one word.  I  just kept looking at the play.  But looking back on it, I always have to laugh. It was so…so Gordie Howe. His snot all over my sleeve.

BM: He must have been fun to play with in that era because he was really enjoying himself then, wasn’t he?

JT: Well, he was great. Always funny. Always cracking jokes.

BM: He was often way with us on the telecasts. We would be taping an interview at rinkside during the pre-game warmup and he would skate by and flip snow and slush off the blade of his stick all over us, all over those nice blue jackets we wore.

JT: What a competitor. On the golf course and even on the tennis course. The team had a tennis tournament one day. I don’t even think he had ever picked up a tennis racket in his life. He got out there and he played a great game.  At the rink, we used to have some battles in practice. It would be Ruskowski, Larway and myself against Gordie and his son Mark and Rich Preston. When we would scrimmage it would be like a real game each time.

Gordie taught me how to keep my head up. Oh, he gave me a nice elbow in practice one day. I had to go sit down un til the cobwebs cleared.  He practically knocked me out. Oh, he could do it.

BM: I think it’s just amazing that he could play at age 52. That is my age. I struggle around with the oldtimers on Sunday mornings. After a while you get the arthritis and the sore back and you can’t stretch like you used to and you’re slower than a turtle in quicksand. I think of him playing in that NHL with all those kids, and it’s  simply incredible.

JT: I remember my first training camp. It was muggy and we were all really feeling the heat and the humidity. I was out on the ice, starting to skate around. The whistle goes and we start picking up speed. Howe just zooms by me and says, “Hurry up, kid. Get going.”

BM: What about the Stanley Cup?  Do you have any stories about  the Cup?

JT: The only thing that I could say is that my brother and I used to play for the Stanley Cup in our basement. There used to be an old ashtray down there. It was about three feet high and silver‑topped, and to me it was just like the Stanley Cup. I used to carry it around the room. I was amazed to see how much it resembled the real Stanley Cup.

BM: In your mind it was the real Stanley Cup.

JT: Absolutely.

McCreary’s First Goal

Photo by Bobolink

On a stormy night in Sundridge
In nineteen forty‑two,
The kids were playing hockey,
What else was there to do?
When a young lad named McCreary
Took his place at centre ice.
He couldn’t skate and couldn’t score,
And he fell down once or twice,
Still he loved the game the other boys
Played happily every day.
And late at night with the covers drawn
This is what he’d pray;
“Dear Lord, let me score a single goal,
Let me find the net with a shot,
Let me learn how to skate, and stickhandle too,
For I’m giving it all I’ve got”

One night in the snow (it was 20 below)
Little Keith was given the puck,
he stepped on it, fell on it, pushed it on ahead,
And then…through a stroke of some good luck,
The wind blew up, blowing snow in the eyes
Of the goalie facing his shot,
The puck skipped in, Keith roared with a grin,
“Fantastic! It’s the first goal I’ve got!”

Now, decades later, Keith still says his prayers
Every night when his Carol tucks him in,
“Dear Lord, believe me, I’ve been a good boy,
My life is devoid of all sin,
Lord help me, please help me before I’m too old,
And my teammates tell me I’m through,
Help me relive that great day in my life,
Please help me score goal number two