Let's Watch... (1959/4/07) SCSF Game 7 - Toronto Maple Leafs at Boston Bruins

[Fenway]

In the new installment of this feature, we watch Game 7 of the 1959 Stanley Cup Semifinals between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins at Boston Garden.

​

As was the custom in the 1950's the telecast begins at the start of the second period. Foster Hewitt tells us what we missed and then he does the color commentary and his son Bill does play by play.

This game also had a lengthy delay as Bruins goalie Harry Lumley took a puck in the mouth and had to be taken to a nearby hospital. Interviews with Gordie Howe and Eddie Shore help fill the time. Boston television station WNAC-TV provided the cameramen and it was tremendous for 1959. The station would provide coverage of New York, Chicago and Detroit games in Boston and was also used by CBS.

The game was overshadowed by longtime NHL referee Red Storey quitting during a news conference in a bar across the street from Boston Garden earlier that afternoon. Storey was accused of freezing up and not calling penalties on Montreal in Chicago in a Game 6 that ended with fans rioting after the Blackhawks lost. His accuser was Clarence Campbell in an interview with the Ottawa Citizen.

This would be the last Bruins playoff game for 9 years.

Boston Bruins 1958 Roster
Toronto Maple Leafs 1958 Roster​

Previous editions:
(1966/4/14) Toronto Maple Leafs vs Montreal Canadiens
(1960/4/7) Montreal Canadiens vs Toronto Maple Leafs
(1963/4/18) Toronto Maple Leafs vs Detroit Red Wings
(1963/12/7) Toronto Maple Leafs vs Chicago Black Hawks
(1965/4/1) Montreal Canadiens vs Toronto Maple Leafs​

A little reminder of the objective of this project:​

The point is that many pairs of eyes see more than one pair. We got people of various backgrounds, some really knowledgable about this subject, others have extensively researched that topic, and others are really good at evaluating players and tactics. The purpose (...) is to channel and focus the attention and the knowledge of the community on one specific game and learn from the debate about it.​

Looking forward to your comments and observations!​

Click to read more...

 

[AmericanDream]

why on Earth did the telecast start at period 2??

 

[Canadiens1958]

why on Earth did the telecast start at period 2??

Protect the home gate. Until the early sixties, television in Canada, showed the games starting at 9:00PM. Roughly the second period onwards.

 

[Fenway]

Protect the home gate. Until the early sixties, television in Canada, showed the games starting at 9:00PM. Roughly the second period onwards.

But this game was 500 miles from Toronto and it was not on Boston TV

 

[Fenway]

You can see that TV cameras has problems with the Bruins gold home sweater and the following year a black sweater was introduced for games in Boston being televised. The fans loved the black sweater and the gold was eliminated a few years later.

 

[Killion]

Man is that a trip! Was the film itself improperly stored do you think Fenway? Maybe not a cold enough temperature? 16MM? That needs to go into a freezer. Cryogenic stasis. The Bruins jerseys as well, color, not so kind in B&W. They switched to black. Fixee. The crowd, pan shots etc very spectral, cloudy. Ambience as in through a glass darkly. Action shots however, game itself & interviews entirely watchable. So good stuff & thanks!... Two very gritty teams though ya, edge to the Leafs as the final outcome did indeed illustrate. Lots of comments, emotions watching it, memories long dormant....

Hard charging & always enthusiastic Leo Labine... hadnt thought of him in years & remembered how much I enjoyed watching him. The other Leo of course, Boivin. One of my All Time Favorites. Fleming MacKell, absolutely a force. Led the B's in scoring through those Playoffs.... Larry Hillman of course, underrated..... So ya, lots of them, some former, some future Leafs & Bruins. Loved seeing the 6 Bruin Forwards lined up, Goalie Pulled... last ditch valiant effort..... Leafs I'm of course quite familiar with but... as your a Boston Boy... grace as important as the win, glory... Damn close series but for the opener that Boston won, Game 3 or 4 I think it was that Toronto won by 3 goals as well but beyond that, ya, very close indeed.

 

[Fenway]

Man is that a trip! Was the film itself improperly stored do you think Fenway? Maybe not a cold enough temperature? 16MM? That needs to go into a freezer. Cryogenic stasis. The Bruins jerseys as well, color, not so kind in B&W. They switched to black. Fixee. The crowd, pan shots etc very spectral, cloudy. Ambience as in through a glass darkly. Action shots however, game itself & interviews entirely watchable. So good stuff & thanks!... Two very gritty teams though ya, edge to the Leafs as the final outcome did indeed illustrate. Lots of comments, emotions watching it, memories long dormant....

Hard charging & always enthusiastic Leo Labine... hadnt thought of him in years & remembered how much I enjoyed watching him. The other Leo of course, Boivin. One of my All Time Favorites. Fleming MacKell, absolutely a force. Led the B's in scoring through those Playoffs.... Larry Hillman of course, underrated..... So ya, lots of them, some former, some future Leafs & Bruins. Loved seeing the 6 Bruin Forwards lined up, Goalie Pulled... last ditch valiant effort..... Leafs I'm of course quite familiar with but... as your a Boston Boy... grace as important as the win, glory... Damn close series but for the opener that Boston won, Game 3 or 4 I think it was that Toronto won by 3 goals as well but beyond that, ya, very close indeed.

These kinescopes were originally made for CBC stations not connected directly with Toronto in remote parts of the country and might be seen up to a week later. They were shot in 16mm directly off a monitor in Toronto so quality was iffy to begin with. Videotape was still in its infancy and CBC most likely only had VTRs in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver in 1959 as they were very expensive.

 

[Killion]

These kinescopes were originally made for CBC stations not connected directly with Toronto in remote parts of the country and might be seen up to a week later. They were shot in 16mm directly off a monitor in Toronto so quality was iffy to begin with. Videotape was still in its infancy and CBC most likely only had VTRs in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver in 1959 as they were very expensive.

Oh ya, thats interesting. Shooting in 16MM from a monitor would explain much.... also.... loved the old Esso commercial at the beginning there along with the various interviews. Real flashback.... like Gerry Ehman of the Leafs, one time Bruins prospect.... had a couple of outstanding years playing with Mahovlich & Harris, those playoffs in particular however... eventually returned to the minors where he toiled until 67's Expansion, grabbed by Oakland... and as one of the clubs Senior Citizens nicknamed "Dad".

 

[Fenway]

@Killion July 1, 1958 is when CBC went coast to coast

The marvellous microwave network - CBC Archives

 

[Fenway]

These kinescopes were originally made for CBC stations not connected directly with Toronto in remote parts of the country and might be seen up to a week later. They were shot in 16mm directly off a monitor in Toronto so quality was iffy to begin with. Videotape was still in its infancy and CBC most likely only had VTRs in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver in 1959 as they were very expensive.

Doing some research it appears CBC installed VTR machines in Calgary in 1960 so they could time shift shows in the West.

TV – from cross-border U.S. Signals to 500 channels | History of Canadian Broadcasting

Amazingly as late as 1968 there were no dedicated TV lines in the US going from west to east and it took a football game to finally get the networks to pay for a 2 way line. The football game will be known forever as 'The Heidi Game' and NBC knew within seconds they had made a huge mistake but the direct circuit from NBC Burbank to NY had been reversed by AT&T in Iowa as was ordered.

The Heidi aftermath prompted NBC to explore satellite delivery of programs and 10 years later was in place.




This Day in Football: The Heidi Bowl

 

[Canadiens1958]

But this game was 500 miles from Toronto and it was not on Boston TV

Time slot remained the same for HNIC though.

 

[Fenway]

Time slot remained the same for HNIC though.

The game started at 8:05 in Boston

 

[Killion]

Time slot remained the same for HNIC though.

More interesting broadcast history @Fenway. So closely linked to the sports they covered nice to see it included here-in.... You guys I'm sure remember Jean-Guy Gendron (briefly a Hab in 60/61, moved on to the Rangers, then back to the Bruins, definitely well traveled including minor leagues, eventually WHA) there, playing on a decent line with Charlie Burns & Jerry Toppazzini... having a great 58/59 season in Boston. Utility Player who before & after that year didnt really enjoy much success at the NHL level until being claimed by the Flyers from the Minors in 68 where he played for 3yrs through 71 on the "French Line" with Andre Lacroix, Dick Sarazin for a bit & then Simon Nolet.

 

[AmericanDream]

Protect the home gate. Until the early sixties, television in Canada, showed the games starting at 9:00PM. Roughly the second period onwards.

I see Bill Wirtz all over this lol!

 

[Killion]

I see Bill Wirtz all over this lol!

Yeah. Named President of the Chicago Blackhawks in 66 where he ruled for 41yrs, 18 of them as Chairman on the NHL Board of Governors as well. A "Chip Off the Old Block", this earlier period, his father Arthur still very influential & calling a lot of the shots pursuant to Broadcasts in the 50's & early through mid 60's. This a guy who refrained from buying & using a Zamboni early 50's after everyone else had as he figured people would just stay in their seats rather than going & spending money at the concessions, entranced & hypnotized, entertained watching a tractor go round & round... it was actually he, not Bill (though Bill the face of it) who made the decisions they did pursuant to Bobby Hull which ultimately drove him out of town & the League altogether. All Hell breaking loose costing the entire League hundreds of millions... on & on.

 

[Fenway]

I was in contact today to someone who worked for WNAC-TV back in 1959 and his recollection was CBC ( or the ad agency that owned HNIC ) decided to pick the game up after the first period to save on AT&T video line charges which were $2 a mile per hour and if you went 5 minutes into the next hour you paid in full for it.

In 1959 there was no direct cable from Boston to the west so everything had to go to New York City, then through upstate New York to Buffalo when the signal was passed to CN (Canadian National) in Fort Erie, ON and then back on the Bell Canada network that controlled Ontario and Quebec and it is reasonable to assume CN charged a 'small' fee for getting the signal over the Niagara River.

So we are talking a link between 700 and 800 miles which would be roughly $1500 an hour plus whatever CN charged and hoping the game doesn't go into OT. The currency was roughly at par in 1959 so figure line charges to be $3500 between Boston and Toronto which would be $30,000 today.

MacLaren Advertising in Toronto ran the show for Esso and leased time from the CBC who in turn had dedicated lines in place between Montreal-Toronto and Windsor. Getting video from the Olympia to Windsor was relatively inexpensive, So Boston under this system would be the most expensive city to televise a game from followed by New York and then Chicago ( where only a link to Windsor was needed )

When the Olympics were in Montreal in 1976, ABC had to feed video to Toronto, Ft Erie (Hi CN) Buffalo, Albany and New York as there was no direct link between Montreal and New York.

To this day - all commercial video between Canada and the US has to go through the CN Tower in Toronto and they are notorious for games that run late cutting the signal. The last game CBC ever produced the CN Tower cut the feed and techs in Toronto scrambled to put Channel 2 in Buffalo on the air - DURING THE HANDSHAKE LINE



It took CBC almost TEN MINUTES to restore the circuit because nobody would answer the phone at CN Tower. When CBC took the WGRZ-TV Buffalo over the air signal it took techs almost 5 minutes to genlock the picture and this is exactly what CBC viewers saw.

 

[Killion]

MacLaren Advertising in Toronto ran the show for Esso and leased time from the CBC who in turn had dedicated lines in place between Montreal-Toronto and Windsor. Getting video from the Olympia to Windsor was relatively inexpensive, So Boston under this system would be the most expensive city to televise a game from followed by New York and then Chicago ( where only a link to Windsor was needed )

..... pretty crazy uh? Interesting (though not surprising given your profession) that you'd be aware of all of this along with the Machiavellian & monopolistic practices of Canada's broadcasters, radio & TV; MacLaren Advertising, its services & its clientele which not only included Imperial Oil (Esso) but so too Molsons, GM, Unilever (Sunlight Soap, Crest etc), CN and... the Liberal Party. So very close ties to the what has been the "ruling party" for much of the countries history... those who set broadcast policy.

The periods in question here coinciding with MacLarens birth (1920' but not formerly called MacLaren until 1935, Foster Hewitt very good friends with Jack MacLaren... Ralph Mellanby & HNIC/CBC later on) & growth, who up until about 1979 when the Liberals were defeated had in so many ways monopolizrd the broadcast sector to an extent that most people are completely unaware of. The men behind the curtain. Silent hand. They & their clientele, Fortune 500's along with their "broadcast division" actually responsible for conceiving & or producing app 85% of all network broadcasting (including the supposedly independent CBC & HNIC, radio & television) content.

With deep ties to the Liberals for most of the early, mid & latter 20th century, much of it while wrapped in the Canadian flag & flogged to the public as "Mothers Milk", to protect Canadian identity & industry, its cultural uniqueness & so on was in fact driven by MacLarens stable of clientele & their specific interests. That of course included CN... This subject obviously extending well beyond a semi-final series between Boston & Toronto in Nineteen Hunnert n' Fiffy 9 Fenway but sure.... clearly know your stuff a bit there in having deal with uh?. Direct exposure to the inequities which ya, did cause a lot of problems for US broadcasters. Monetization of the airwaves, microwave systems etc and who was pulling the levers, pushing the buttons, direct ties to the CRTC & so on & so on.... and waaaaaay beyond this game, series, the NHL, HOH.

 

[Fenway]

@Killion - Even into the 70's if CBS or NBC was showing a NHL game, MacLaren would dispatch staffers to stations in Burlington, Buffalo, Detroit and Seattle to insert all Canadian ads on the US stations.

 

[c9777666]

Crazy to think the different paths the Leafs and Bruins would take in the 1960s following this game.

 

[Fenway]

Crazy to think the different paths the Leafs and Bruins would take in the 1960s following this game.

As bad as the Bruins would become in the 60's they still outdrew the NBA Celtics 2-1 during that decade and the Celtics were the best basketball team in the world.

The Leafs fortunes would change when they totally blew off a young player from Parry Sound, Ontario who worshipped the team in his youth. Montreal scout Scotty Bowman also dismissed that player. How did that work out?

 

[Fenway]

Oh ya, thats interesting. Shooting in 16MM from a monitor would explain much.... also.... loved the old Esso commercial at the beginning there along with the various interviews. Real flashback.... like Gerry Ehman of the Leafs, one time Bruins prospect.... had a couple of outstanding years playing with Mahovlich & Harris, those playoffs in particular however... eventually returned to the minors where he toiled until 67's Expansion, grabbed by Oakland... and as one of the clubs Senior Citizens nicknamed "Dad".

@Killion These are the stations that got the films

CKPG	2	Prince George	BC		Private
CFTK	3	Terrace	BC		Private
CBWBT	10	Flin Flon	MB		CBC
CFLA	8	Goose Bay	NL		USAF

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[Michael Farkas]

I really don't have any concept of what Fenway is talking about in this thread (my shortcoming, not his) but I love reading it...so interesting. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Killion]

@Killion - Even into the 70's if CBS or NBC was showing a NHL game, MacLaren would dispatch staffers to stations in Burlington, Buffalo, Detroit and Seattle to insert all Canadian ads on the US stations.

Not surprising. By the late 70's with the OPEC Crisis & so on, the Liberals under Trudeau having been in power for 11yrs & connected at the hips to MacLaren.... then defeated in the 79 General Election... some major changes in the advertising & PR etc sectors.... MacLaren losing some ground & influence into the 80's even though Joe Clark's Conservative Minority Government defeated in 1980.... Trudeau retnd' to power.... followed by Mulroney & the Conservatives of course. Explosion of channels. Changing of the old guard, face of delivery, options, methods etc... Brave New Worlds uh?

 

[Killion]

As bad as the Bruins would become in the 60's they still outdrew the NBA Celtics 2-1 during that decade and the Celtics were the best basketball team in the world.

The Leafs fortunes would change when they totally blew off a young player from Parry Sound, Ontario who worshipped the team in his youth. Montreal scout Scotty Bowman also dismissed that player. How did that work out?

Well.... I'm all for dumping on the Leafs & I'm allowed, Toronto Boy.... but in the case of Bobby Orr the Leafs Scouting Staff can actually be cut some slack on that one.... Yes they were made aware of Orr by his Coach in Parry Sound at a young age... too young Frankly as was still just a kid, undersized & underweight, no idea if he'd grow, if he'd even continue to play beyond 14/15/16 given the Dropout Rates at that age..... Boston however had no such concerns or qualms, desperate, no qualms in terms of doing a wee bit of Cradle Robbing. Uh?..... Thats right, I said it; Cradle Robbers. Cant be looking at that through the prisms of the 70's, 80's, 90's & 2000's etc. Past a different country, do things differently back there.

Next; in terms of letting talent walk thats right under their noses, Exhibit A would be Red Kelly who came up through St.Mikes though not on a "Hockey Scholarship". Tried out for the Jr.A Majors; Cut. Tried out for the Jr.B Buzzers; Cut. Tried out for the St.Mikes amateur entry in the Toronto Hockey League & barely made it however, once he did & showed what he could do, developed, moved up the rungs. Yet even still, they let him get away. That was pretty damn stoopid.... Beyond Kelly there were others before & after however seriously amp'd up when Conn Smythe sold his shares in the Gardens & Leafs late 50's to his son Stafford & Harold Ballard, the former borrowing $$$ from the latter, desperate for cash they began dismantling the farm system, selling off contracts, teams, leaving the cupboards bare. Thats what happened there. Nothing to do with Bobby Orr.... who was actually damn lucky to dodge the bullet that was Toronto as events unfolded uh? I mean c'mon here. Wound up in an ideal situation on so many levels and but for Eagleson, his knee's.....

 

[Killion]

I really don't have any concept of what Fenway is talking about in this thread (my shortcoming, not his) but I love reading it...so interesting. Thanks for sharing.

.... yeah ya do. not hard to follow Mr. Farkas.... However..... @Fenway ?..... maybe you could expound upon how the live feed from a game goes from mobile to the station & network, and how from there at the time the game filmed on 16mm off a monitor & then distributed to the various stations that you listed in a post above which also features the old Kinescope. Uh?