Hockey Arguments that are older than we think

[MXD]

Life has gotten easier no doubt. Think of the things we take for granted. By saying "easier" it doesn't mean it is a knock by any means. It just means no one is churning butter anymore or having to kill deer on their own just to eat.

Not necessarily. I mean, we have a clerk at our office who isnt very good at his job. So... lower-level job, and no hope of advancement, because he barely meets the requirement in his own job.

But this guy could possibly fare much better (and possibly enjoy a higher social status) if he had to hunt for a living (instead of entering data). We'll never know.

 

[Johnny Engine]

Not necessarily. I mean, we have a clerk at our office who isnt very good at his job. So... lower-level job, and no hope of advancement, because he barely meets the requirement in his own job.

But this guy could possibly fare much better (and possibly enjoy a higher social status) if he had to hunt for a living (instead of entering data). We'll never know.

It really depends on whether your threshold for failure in life is the depressing scenario outlined above, or starvation and death. Which, depending on what we learn about mental health going forward, could be closer to equivalent than we currently conceive it.
I don't think it's controversial to say that it's gotten easier over time (with occasional blips and left turns) to grow up, stay healthy, have children at the replacement level, and die of natural causes.

 

[MXD]

It really depends on whether your threshold for failure in life is the depressing scenario outlined above, or starvation and death. Which, depending on what we learn about mental health going forward, could be closer to equivalent than we currently conceive it.
I don't think it's controversial to say that it's gotten easier over time (with occasional blips and left turns) to grow up, stay healthy, have children at the replacement level, and die of natural causes.

It's gotten easier (more like... less active), but only due to specialization. I could keep my family fed (and well-fed at that) by fishing and hunting. But it makes much more economic sense to work, pay for (most of) my food and take the reminder of my paycheck to, you know, pay other stuff that has to be paid (like.. home) instead take trying to sell the surplus walleye or catfish to a fish market (who obviously wouldn't buy it since we aren't in 1847 anymore). Now I can pay for everything while doing something I'm specialized in. I'm also a good 30 pounds overweight, I suppose.

Also, my colleague isnt a failure per se. But his natural skillset might be more appropriate for hunting than for office work. We'll never know.

... Now, I don't quite know what that has to do with The History of Hockey.

 

[Big Phil]

Geez, I know it's Atom-level but 85 games in a season?? A bit much for 10-11 year olds, isn't it??

I could be wrong about this, but it is possible that there would be more than one game in a day too, making seem a lot less busy. Walter Gretzky talked about the season Wayne had with 387 goals and that it was 10(?) minute periods straight time. Which I am guessing the clock kept running? So perhaps they played a couple of games a day?

 

[Canadiens1958]

I could be wrong about this, but it is possible that there would be more than one game in a day too, making seem a lot less busy. Walter Gretzky talked about the season Wayne had with 387 goals and that it was 10(?) minute periods straight time. Which I am guessing the clock kept running? So perhaps they played a couple of games a day?

At various tournaments, or non-league events, two games a day are common as long as participating teams have a minimum of four hours rest between the end of their first game and the start of the second game. Depending on age and level,a period is 10, 12 or 15 minutes.

Running time, clock does not stop for faceoffs except for variations. Namely the third period or last five minutes of the third period. These variations are optional not mandatory.

 

[overpass]

I was recently reading an article that quoted a piece from the Globe and Mail in 1938 where Dick Irvin Sr. "Recalls some hockey disappointments, and explains why super stars are fading out". I had to do a double take to be sure that it was from 1938. The quote in question is this...

"youngsters are being over-coached. I don't think young fellows who are getting in pro hockey these days are developing their own natural ability as did the players of twenty and twenty-five years ago. Let me illustrate what I mean. During my youth in Winnipeg there was very little organized hockey and no junior hockey at all. We played in the open air on corner lots and on the Assiniboine and Red rivers. Generally there were from fifty to one hundred kids chasing one puck. If you didn't learn to stickhandle... well, you never got the chance to keep the puck, and you had to learn to be adept at checking in order to get the puck.

It was just dog-eat-dog, and the kids who had skill and stamina became individual stars. They stood out far above the rest.

These days kids are coached, coached, coached from pee-wee and juvenile ranks right up through to pro. Six or seven coaches may handle a youngster before he reaches an N.H.L. coach.

Many of the kids these days have never played on a frozen river or pond...where they could play and practice all day. Instead they only have short practice hours in an artificial ice arena, and they've never got the real groundwork or background."

The last paragraph especially really got me. The idea of the majority of kids coming up in the 30s not having ever played on natural ice seems to very foreign to the picture we get of hockey from the time. And the idea that kids then only had a few hours time to practice seems very backwards to what we are normally told. That said it of course it makes perfect sense after considering that the majority of the youth of the time were in cities as they are now so they wouldn't have the space to play on natural ice or open air. But it feels like I could read this argument in the paper tomorrow.

Are they any others people have come across in a similar vein? These sorts of 'hockey arguments' feel like they are perpetually new for each generation I am sure, would be curious what things some of the older posters here have been hearing thru their entire lives.

From the Winnipeg Tribune in 1932: Coaches emphasize fast skating and back-checking, and neglect to teach their protégés how to shoot and how to score.

The Winnipeg Evening Tribune, 1932-11-12 (Page 29) | digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca

Is Hockey Deteriorating? The Winnipeg Evening Tribune, 1932-11-12

Charlie Conacher in 1957:

Young players are regimented into a standardized mold where they play NHL rules and follow NHL theories of attack and defense. Kids rarely play shinny any more, weaving in and out with a puck, learning to stickhandle and skate in a helter-skelter incubator that hatches their natural ability. They’re so completely organized and regimented that they don’t get a chance to develop any individual characteristics. But you can’t regiment talent. How could you develop an artist, say, if you took him when he was twelve and for the next eight years told him how to put every daub of paint, every stroke of his brush, on the canvas? If they want kids to develop their skills the amateurs ought to throw out all those fancy red lines and circles they’ve got on the rinks these days, toss a puck onto the ice and let the players learn the rudiments of passing the puck, stickhandling and skating.​

"How I’d make hockey a better game” | Maclean's | APRIL 27, 1957

 

[Big Phil]

From the Winnipeg Tribune in 1932: Coaches emphasize fast skating and back-checking, and neglect to teach their protégés how to shoot and how to score.

The Winnipeg Evening Tribune, 1932-11-12 (Page 29) | digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca

Is Hockey Deteriorating? The Winnipeg Evening Tribune, 1932-11-12

Charlie Conacher in 1957:

Young players are regimented into a standardized mold where they play NHL rules and follow NHL theories of attack and defense. Kids rarely play shinny any more, weaving in and out with a puck, learning to stickhandle and skate in a helter-skelter incubator that hatches their natural ability. They’re so completely organized and regimented that they don’t get a chance to develop any individual characteristics. But you can’t regiment talent. How could you develop an artist, say, if you took him when he was twelve and for the next eight years told him how to put every daub of paint, every stroke of his brush, on the canvas? If they want kids to develop their skills the amateurs ought to throw out all those fancy red lines and circles they’ve got on the rinks these days, toss a puck onto the ice and let the players learn the rudiments of passing the puck, stickhandling and skating.​

"How I’d make hockey a better game” | Maclean's | APRIL 27, 1957

Funny reading Charlie Conacher's quote in 1957.
"Kids don't play shinny anymore"................

Granted, kids all across the country were doing it in 1957, more so than today, but I think he is feeling the NHL game was a little too structured. Sound familiar?

I remember Bobby Orr in 1998 (and he has done this since) calling for more creativity in the game. Gretzky has said just as much.

Around the same time in the late 1990s I remember Dick Irvin Jr. mentioning that when he talks to old-timers like Bobby Hull they mention words like "entertaining" the fans. Irvin said something along the lines of, "Players today, I hope you are listening to these words."

I am not saying these guys are wrong, because they aren't, but maybe there are times when the game is more creative than we think.

 

[kruezer]

Describes youth school hockey. Private schools tended to build arenas which needed tenants. Also using Toronto and Montreal as examples, once The Forum and MLG were built, the previous NHL arenas needed tenants so youth hockey moved indoors. Elite junior played in NHL arenas - doubleheaders,
high schools played afternoon games.

This is interesting, the article I was reading was generally discussing the affect the NHL had on the CAHA and youth hockey in general throughout the 20s and 30s but they didn’t bring up this point at all, makes total sense though.

 

[kruezer]

Arthur Farrell, a HHOF-inducted 2-time Stanley Cup champion forward (whom Lester Patrick identified as one of the greatest hockey minds ever) has argued in a book he published over a hundred years ago (in 1899) that puck hogs get all the attention but teamwork has more success, that 'combination play' is superior to individual rushes.

This is great, just the sort of thing I was thinking about. The is from Canada’s Royal Winter Game eh? I started to read it on a flight before Xmas but stopped and never have gotten back to it, I need to do so.

 

[kruezer]

I could be wrong about this, but it is possible that there would be more than one game in a day too, making seem a lot less busy. Walter Gretzky talked about the season Wayne had with 387 goals and that it was 10(?) minute periods straight time. Which I am guessing the clock kept running? So perhaps they played a couple of games a day?

Yeah this is true (along with what C1958 added) another thing I remember randomly is a story of Wayne playing multiple games for different teams (perhaps in different leagues/age groups though) on the same day. There was a Gretzky documentary that came out in the 90s where one of his junior coaches mentioned a story of his team being down 7 or 8 to 1 when Wayne showed up part way thru the game and his team ended up winning 9-7 or 9-8 or something like that.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Yeah this is true (along with what C1958 added) another thing I remember randomly is a story of Wayne playing multiple games for different teams (perhaps in different leagues/age groups though) on the same day. There was a Gretzky documentary that came out in the 90s where one of his junior coaches mentioned a story of his team being down 7 or 8 to 1 when Wayne showed up part way thru the game and his team ended up winning 9-7 or 9-8 or something like that.

Possible into the mid 1970s. Local, league and regional teams plus school and community centre teams being part of the available menu.