How the world looked like last time Habs/Leafs faced each other in the playoffs!

[The Panther]

I was in high school and being a silly teenager I pulled down my pants and sat in my underwear for at least the first part of the movie.

Please do not continue with what you did next...

 

[The Panther]

Everyone is forgetting the most significant fact of 1979.
London Calling was released.

It wasn't released until January, 1980 in the USA. (Not sure about Canada.)

 

[The Panther]

1979 (the CN Tower had only been completed for three years):

From somebody's personal photos, this is from Toronto Island in 1979 and in 2019:

 

[The Panther]

Mike Myers ('Wayne', 'Austin Powers') on The Littlest Hobo, in 1979:

Mike Myers recently:

 

[The Panther]

By contrast, Montreal in 1979 vs. 2017 (four years ago, which was the last time I was there) looks... pretty much the same:

 

[Iapyi]

Please do not continue with what you did next...

Girls always liked me

 

[Maestro84]

New York City was very different than what is is now.


Times Square in 1979 was a rather sleazy place with lots of adult shops, high crime, as well as presence of well known mafias and drugs dealers. Not exactly a place you'd take your family to

Since Disney bought a significant share of the land in the mid-90s, it is now a primary tourist destination.

NYC subway was deemed as "world's most dangerous transit" from the 70s until the early 90s as crime was high and graffiti was scribbled all over the trains.

Today, the NYC subway is one of the safer transportations in America.

 

[DonM]

my dad is a baby boomer and he was 37 and my mother was 36 and they were the typical baby boomer.

Not only are your parents not typical baby boomers, they aren't baby boomers at all. Your parents were born in '42 and '43 or so if your math is correct. Both years are near the end of the silent generation.

 

[tvilling]

It’s too bad there won’t be any fans in the building for it.

Why will there not be?

 

[tvilling]

New York City was very different than what is is now.


Times Square in 1979 was a rather sleazy place with lots of adult shops, high crime, as well as presence of well known mafias and drugs dealers. Not exactly a place you'd take your family to

Since Disney bought a significant share of the land in the mid-90s, it is now a primary tourist destination.

NYC subway was deemed as "world's most dangerous transit" from the 70s until the early 90s as crime was high and graffiti was scribbled all over the trains.

Today, the NYC subway is one of the safer transportations in America.

Don't' give Disney the credit for the transformation of NY

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

Bobby Orr's final season

This was so long ago Chelios wasnt even in the league yet!

 

[The Panther]

Bobby Orr's final season

This was so long ago Chelios wasnt even in the league yet!

Indeed. Orr played only 6 games that season, after sitting out the previous year entirely.

Chris Chelios (who is only 1 year younger than Wayne Gretzky) was 17 at the time of the last Toronto-Montreal playoff series. I'm not clear if he was still based in San Diego then, or already trying to play in Canada...

 

[Pyrophorus]

One if the few ways Toronto is ahead of Montreal is head-to-head in the finals. Toronto is up 3-2, or 4-3 including pre-NHL.

The Toronto Arenas did come into being until the 1st year of the NHL.

It is true though, that the vast majority of Habs Cup wins, did not come against the Leafs

 

[Pyrophorus]

The first game I ever saw Orr play, was as a Hawk.

 

[notDatsyuk]

The Toronto Arenas did come into being until the 1st year of the NHL.

It is true though, that the vast majority of Habs Cup wins, did not come against the Leafs

Sorry. You're right. The first two were not pre-NHL, but back when the Stanley Cup wasn't exclusively NHL.

 

[Pyrophorus]

Sorry. You're right. The first two were not pre-NHL, but back when the Stanley Cup wasn't exclusively NHL.

I decided to dig deeper. Toronto didn't really compete for the Cup until 1902, when they lost as the Toronto Wellingtons
2 years later, they lost as the Marlboros. The Blueshirts won the Cup, by defeating the Canadiens in 1914, the only time
I saw the teams face, pre-NHL.

Weirdly, the Wanderers won the 1908 Cup, by defeating the Toronto Professional Club (and Edmonton HC), after defeating
the Winnipeg Maple Leafs! No relation, but interesting history.

 

[loadie]

I was 15 and still 3 years away from starting my 31 year Military career. Gas was around 25 cents a litre in Newfoundland. And that was considered expensive at the time.

 

[66871]

Berlin, Germany is another interesting one. It was virtually destroyed after WWII and today, it's one of the most robust cities in Western Europe

Holy crap, tell me about it. In 1987, I went into the Kreuzberg (sp?) district in Berlin. Was utterly amazed that there were still areas that had yet to be rebuilt since the war.

 

[66871]

In 1979, my father traded in his Ford Maverick for a Chevy Chevette. He kept a little piece of paper in the glove compartment on which he logged his odometer reading at each fill-up along with how many gallons of gas he put in and a calculation of his miles per gallon. It was a stick shift and he drove pretty deliberately. He usually got about 44 MPG but on long trips would sometimes get 48 MPG.

 

[Hasbro]

I was 21 and ‘79 was a great f***ing year.

It says NINETEEN 79.

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDoo]

1979 was the year the Montreal Expos became a pennant contender.

Larry Parrish was fantastic.

 

[Maestro84]

Last time the Leafs won a playoff game vs Montreal was May 1967

 

[Grandma Bingo]

It's been 42 years since this iconic match-up actually budded heads in the postseason and for many fans like myself, this is the first time its happened in my lifetime. The world was an unrecognizable place the last time these two Canadian O6 teams squared off in the playoffs way back in spring 1979.

In hockey:
- There were only 17 teams in the league
- Only one active NHL player (Chara) was alive then
- Gretzky had yet to play his first NHL game
- The WHA was still its own entity

In sports:
- ESPN did not exist
- The 3-point shot in basketball did not exist
- Pro athletes couldn't compete at the Olympics
- Moses Malone was the NBA MVP
- Kevin Keegan won Ballon D'Or
- New York Cosmos with Pele, Cruyff and Beckenbauer were still in existence
- Steelers won their third SB in 5 years
- Muhammad Ali was still an active boxer
- Bjorn Borg was the number one men's tennis player

In entertainment:
- Heart of Glass by Blondie was the number one song
- "Alien" was the top grossing movie
- The Matarese Circle by Robert Lundlum was the top selling book
- Jon Voight and Jane Fonda won best actors and actresses, respectively
- Michael Jackson released his first solo album
- Wheel of Fortune and The Price is Right were in its early seasons; Jeopardy with Alex Trebek was still years away from launching
- Three's Company was the most popular TV show in America

In business/technology:
- Apple II discontinued 2 years after release (this company will never make it )
- Space Invader's was the top selling video game
- Toshiba Blackstripe was the most popular TV model
- Oldsmobile Cutlass was the top selling car in America
- Typewriters were still commonly used (way more than a personalized computer which was a rare luxury)
- Cell phones, internet, and social media was not even in the picture (the only phone available was the one hanging on the wall)
- DNA testing was in its infancy

World news/politics:
- Only 8 countries were in the EU
- China passed the one child policy
- Jimmy Carter was the US President
- Voyager I captures Jupiter
- Smallpox was declared as fully eradicated
- HIV had yet to be discovered
- Canada's Charter of Rights & Freedoms was still 3 years away from being established
- USSR goes into Afghanistan
- Thatcher elected as first female prime minister in UK

It's quite literally been several generations in the making, hopefully this will be an entertaining series despite no fans being in the building!

The Miracle on Ice hadn't happened yet.

John Lennon was still alive.

Mario Lemiuex, huge Canadiens fan, was only 13 years old and didn't yet speak English.

AC/DC's Back in Black hadn't come out yet... Bon Scott was still alive.

The Penguins were still powder blue and white.

 

[Kimota]

New York City was very different than what is is now.


Times Square in 1979 was a rather sleazy place with lots of adult shops, high crime, as well as presence of well known mafias and drugs dealers. Not exactly a place you'd take your family to

Since Disney bought a significant share of the land in the mid-90s, it is now a primary tourist destination.

NYC subway was deemed as "world's most dangerous transit" from the 70s until the early 90s as crime was high and graffiti was scribbled all over the trains.

Today, the NYC subway is one of the safer transportations in America.

I first went to NYC with my pals in the early 90s and yea it was very much a tourist place. It was so beautiful and "clean". But as a movie lover I sort of miss the "old NYC". There is sort of a myth about it. I have seen so many movies taking places in old New York like The French Connection, Mean Street, Saturday Night Fever etc...it felt like a chaotic seedy place where danger was a constant. But at the same time there was freedom and creativity. For artists, it must have been amazing to live there. The culture must have been something special with local shops and good food.

 

[Bee Holder]

In '79, Austin Matthews' father probably didn't know he was going to give birth to an absolute hockey legend in Arizona a few years ahead! As a Habs fan, I'm genuine, that player is amazing and scares me, but I'm still happy we won Game1 tonight