(1974/5/5) Stanley Cup Playoffs Semifinal Game 7 - NY Rangers at Philadelphia (NBC)

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

Jump to 11:35 for a demo of one of Fred Sheros Rules for Playing Hockey:

11.No player allowed to position himself more than two zones away from puck

Dupont knows he can jump up and intercept the pass because anything past him will be called off as a two line offside. Defencemen up to this point generally didnt like to do this, but Shero drilled it into his players as a way of taking advantage of the rulebook

 

[Theokritos]

@Theokritos can explain better than I can

You must have confused me with someone else.

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

You must have confused me with someone else.

@Killion maybe? I know it was one of the old guys

 

[Theokritos]

@Killion maybe? I know it was one of the old guys

Actually I'm still on the younger side of 35, but on HOH one can take it as a compliment if he's mistaken for an old guy.

Regardless of age, maybe @Fenway or @Hoser can answer your question?

 

[Rebels57]

Jump to 11:35 for a demo of one of Fred Sheros Rules for Playing Hockey:



Dupont knows he can jump up and intercept the pass because anything past him will be called off as a two line offside. Defencemen up to this point generally didnt like to do this, but Shero drilled it into his players as a way of taking advantage of the rulebook

Shero does not get the respect he deserves.

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

Actually I'm still on the younger side of 35, but on HOH one can take it as a compliment if he's mistaken for an old guy.

Regardless of age, maybe @Fenway or @Hoser can answer your question?

Maybe Fenway, but Im sure some of it came from Killion, for example, see this thread:

How The "Great Expansion of 1967" Made The NHL A Major Sport In America

I think Killion says it directly on page 2.

Obviously I cant verify anything he says, but it lines up with what we do know quite well. O6 organizations might not have been that important in the grand scheme of things, but control of MSG, Chicago Stadium, MLG, the Forum, Boston Garden, all important to other events like Icecapades, Concerts, Circus, Boxing (huge money at the time remember). The NHL at the time also operating on ridiculously good profit margins, as the gate was a free market, while the players pay was not.

Holding back on expanding the original 6 could be seen as a way of hoarding, monopolizing hockey and other entertainment talent, hence the interest from government in breaking it up.

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

Im getting late into the first period, Flyers initial surge has died down, but Rangers still cant break through. Can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times the Rangers have had an opportunity in the slot area.

It might not have been that noticeable at the time, but the Rangers just cant keep control of the puck. So many throwaway passes, turnovers.

Also not terribly impressed with Park so far.

Kindrachuk and Crisp are impressing as role players deep in the Flyers lineup though.

Was the early fight with Schultz and Rolfe the one everyone talks about? That was tame compared to how it gets described (Shultz TKOing Rolfe bleeding on the ice, etc, etc?).

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

Park stuck in the mesh is one of the funniest things Ive ever seen.

 

[MiamiScreamingEagles]

Im getting late into the first period, Flyers initial surge has died down, but Rangers still cant break through. Can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times the Rangers have had an opportunity in the slot area.

It might not have been that noticeable at the time, but the Rangers just cant keep control of the puck. So many throwaway passes, turnovers.

Also not terribly impressed with Park so far.

Kindrachuk and Crisp are impressing as role players deep in the Flyers lineup though.

Was the early fight with Schultz and Rolfe the one everyone talks about? That was tame compared to how it gets described (Shultz TKOing Rolfe bleeding on the ice, etc, etc?).

Yes. That was the fight. The stigma over the years was that he was unaided by his team mates. The "third man in" rule, which was in its infancy, was a reason no one intervened something Brad Park confirmed many years later. It also boosted the collective energy of the Flyers to another level.

 

[Hoser]

Actually I'm still on the younger side of 35, but on HOH one can take it as a compliment if he's mistaken for an old guy.

Regardless of age, maybe @Fenway or @Hoser can answer your question?

Hey, I'll take that as a compliment, even though I'm not much older than you.

Could I explain why the Original 6 didn't seem to want to expand? Jeez, uh... maybe. Gist is in retrospect the NHL owners were far too conservative about letting anyone else into their little league, and I personally think that financially they've suffered for it ever since.

I especially contrast this with pro basketball, which swiftly overtook the old-guard NHL in popularity by the 1980s even though the BAA/NBA was a mere pup by comparison, a much younger pro sport than hockey. Amusingly the BAA was founded mostly by hockey owners themselves as a way to fill dates in their arenas; I think the irony is hilarious. Seriously, the teams in the BAA were the:

• Boston Celtics, owned by Walter A. Brown of the Boston Garden, owner of the Bruins,
• Chicago Stags, owned by James D. Norris and Arthur Wirtz, owners of the Chicago Stadium among other things...
• Cleveland Rebels, owned by Al Sutphin, who also owned the Cleveland Arena and the AHL's Barons
• Detroit Falcons, also owned by James D. Norris and Arthur Wirtz, owners of the Red Wings, the Olympia, some other stuff in Chicago... St. Louis Arena... Madison Square Garden....
• New York Knicks, owned by MSG/Rangers (and by extension Jim Norris),
• Pittsburgh Ironmen, owned by John H. Harris, who owned the AHL's Pittsburgh Hornets, and this little sideshow biz called the Ice Capades that was kind of popular back then,
• Philadelphia Warriors, owned by Peter Tyrrell, who also owned the Philadelphia Arena and their AHL team,
• Providence Steamrollers, owned by Lou Pieri, who owned the Providence Reds of the AHL,
• St. Louis Bombers, owned by Emory Jones, who owned the AHL's St. Louis Flyers and a small share of the St. Louis Arena (rest was owned by Wirtz),
• Toronto Huskies, who were actually owned by a small consortium of three independent partners who were set up by Maple Leafs' GM Frank Selke,
• Washington Capitols. owned by Mike Uline, owner of the Uline Arena and the Eastern League's Washington Lions

And the league prez was Maurice Podoloff, who was also president of the AHL. Within a few years many of the hockey owners left the sport, not really knowing what to do with these little sideshow operations, but they founded it all.

Frankly the NHL had fashioned themselves into an exclusive little house league, masters of their domain, and didn't want to let anyone else slip a hand into the cookie jar. Not realizing until far too late that the cookie jar would be a hell of a lot bigger if they'd let others in.

Regarding the '67 expansion draft itself I wrote a post a few years ago in "1967 Expansion & the Talent Pool" about it. TL;DR: the league let Habs GM Sam Pollock write the rules to the draft, which he exploited as best he could to hoard his talent. In effect the best players the six expansion clubs got were the 12th, 14th, 16th, 17th, 18th best players on the O6 rosters, filled out by a motley crew of AHL/CPHL/WHL (pro) castoffs and secondary prospects. This ensured the new teams would suck for a long time.

The league itself also very much played favourites with who got a team. They put one in St. Louis even though no one from St. Louis put forward a bid, because Jim Norris and Arthur Wirtz owned the St. Louis Arena. They ignored bids from Cleveland, Baltimore, Buffalo and Vancouver. They put a team in Oakland because they wanted two teams on the west coast, even though Barry Van Gerbig was mostly just Bill Jennings's foppish college buddy who knew F-all about running a hockey team. They gave the LA team to Jack Kent Cooke despite not having an arena to play in; in fact they encouraged him to build a new one. The safe bet would have been LA Rams and Blades owner Dan Reeves, who had a lease at the Memorial Sports Arena. The ownership of all of the teams were a little shaky except Ed Snider and the Flyers; it's little wonder they were the only out of this group of six to win Stanley Cups until the Penguins won in '91.

The fact that by 2007, 40 years after their founding, the only teams to have won Stanley Cups were the Flyers and Penguins, and the North Stars and Seals merged together and moved to Dallas before winning one, was just emblematic of how handicapped they were from the start. Same went for the Sabres and Canucks, the Islanders and Flames, and Capitals and Scouts. The Blues needed 52 years to win their first cup, it took the Kings 45 years, the Capitals took 44, the Sabres and Canucks are still waiting, the Islanders had a dynasty in the '80s but were at death's door before and after, the Scouts had to move TWICE before reaching any success, the Flames won one Cup in the '80s and have been mostly irrelevant ever since... It's rough being an expansion team.

They didn't really smarten up until Disney (Mighty Ducks) and Blockbuster (Panthers) showed up in '92 and were ready to plunk down $50 million cheques like it was nothing. The owners knew by then that they needed to give these new guys a fighting chance at being competitive right off the bat, otherwise nobody was going to give them the expansion cash they so desired. That's why the Golden Knights were competitive right from the word go: they were allowed to pick decent players in the expansion draft. I don't expect the new Seattle team to make it to the finals in year one but they'll be decent; they won't be putrid like the Scouts/Rockies/Devils, Caps, Sharks, Senators, Lightning were for so long...

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

Yes. That was the fight. The stigma over the years was that he was unaided by his team mates. The "third man in" rule, which was in its infancy, was a reason no one intervened something Brad Park confirmed many years later. It also boosted the collective energy of the Flyers to another level.

I think that has to be the most overblown fight in history.

Quoting directly from Bob McCown (who I think is a great writer, and usually on-base with his opinions):

Was respect what Dave "The Hammer" Schultz was displaying when he pounded New York's Dale Rolfe with a dozen unanswered punches to the face during a game in 1974? I'm sure Rolfe felt respected as he fell gasping to the ice, blood streaming down his face.

And most other accounts Ive read describe it similarly. Its like theyve literally never seen it, and only use 1974 NYR-PHI game 7 as an example because Park whined to the press afterwards about intimidation tactics.

 

[MiamiScreamingEagles]

I think that has to be the most overblown fight in history.

Quoting directly from Bob McCown (who I think is a great writer, and usually on-base with his opinions):



And most other accounts Ive read describe it similarly. Its like theyve literally never seen it, and only use 1974 NYR-PHI game 7 as an example because Park whined to the press afterwards about intimidation tactics.

Plenty of observations especially from that era are recycled in some capacity based on a premise, a popular whim or perhaps a YouTube highlight.

The following year, everyone knows how the Islanders came back 3-0 on the Penguins and nearly did the same to the Flyers but what gets overlooked is how close that latter series ended in a 4-game sweep. A potential series-clinching goal came after much on-ice debate just as the end of period light was illuminated. It was close, very, very close. That isn't to detract from a 3-0 comeback to force Game 7, but it is rarely mentioned in the discussion because most people through the years never saw the game or are referencing something in a history book. The game now exists on YouTube as proof but otherwise would just be casual conversation. There are other references and we each have different recollections of events but it is best served to form such opinions and thoughts on what was seen not what was promulgated.

 

[Big Phil]

How would the Rangers have matched up against Boston in a hypothetical '74 Cup Final, ratings aside?

They lose in 5 or 6. Look, in all honesty, the Flyers needed a last minute goal to tie it up in Game 2 and then needed overtime to tie the series. Even as it was, the Bruins could have very well have been up 2-0 in the series and I don't see the Flyers coming back from that. The 1974 and 1971 Bruins are the only two teams in NHL history I believe who had the top 4 scorers in the NHL on their team.