The Bulova hockey scoreboards

[Fenway]

Great pic on the puckstruck.com site:

"Hometime: Black Hawk left winger Johnny Gottselig poses with Chicago’s new centre-ice Bulova clock before it’s raised to the Stadium rafters in 1943."

https://puckstruck.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/chicago-clock.jpeg

Great pic

OK being old (65) I have seen most of these clocks in person.

I saw the Bulova clocks at Boston Garden, Boston Arena (one sided version), Rhode Island Auditorium, Chicago Stadium and Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo. (Detroit I only saw on TV) and I saw the Forum SporTimer at a box lacrosse game in the summer of 1965.

I also saw with my own eyes the first digital scoreboard in the NHL which was at Madison Square Garden III but it was on the facade of the balcony on both sides.

 

[greyraven8]

Dug up some information off Port Arthur News-Chronicle from microfilm and off the Winnipeg Tribune on W. F. Martin and the earliest versions of the Sportimer (U of M site - http://www.umanitoba.ca/libraries/units/archives/tribune/index.html )

W. F. Martin made the first versions of the clock before joining forces with Fenton A. Ross of the Port Arthur Shipbuilding Company

News-Chronicle: April 9, 1927

Being used for the first time in the Prince of Wales Arena (NC - March 3, 1928)

Clock installed at the Winnipeg Amphitheatre for the 1929 Allan Cup (Winnipeg Tribune - March 27, 1929)

If interested, his obits and some team pics including him with the Rat Portage/Kenora Thistles at bottom of blog post here:
http://reignoferror00.blogspot.ca/2014/12/sportimer-clock.html

Only pic of the inside of the Amphitheatre I have seen so far is from 1931 (no clock visible) on the Manitoba Historical Society site:
http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/sites/winnipegamphitheatre.shtml

Did find some floor plan drawings of the Amphitheatre in the Tribune on page 7 bottom left corner of a June 24, 1909 article about the Horse Show (so it's before the seating expansion in 1914).
http://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca/islandora/object/uofm:1665126

 

[Killion]

^^^ Wow. Absolutely awesome greyraven8. Thanks for the links. Fabulous pictures, background inf. Nice find. Never ceases to amaze & fascinate the methodologies & design of early through mid-20th century technology, followed by rapid advancements in the early 50's on with the advent of the micro chip & so on.... wonder where that came from.... fiber optics.... 1947 crash in Roswell NM... yes..... leaps & bounds.... leaps & bounds....

 

[Uncle Rotter]

Huh. Serious flashback. Tee*Kays. A unisex fashion line of jeans etc that was advertised & promoted heavily out of Winnipeg, from manufacturer Monarch Wear.

 

[Killion]

^^^ there we go. Man, The Cyrkle. I think I might have had a copy of that at one time. Thx for the flashback Uncle Rotter.

 

[greyraven8]

Saskatoon Arena Rink (19th Street Arena Rink)
- clock picture from 1940s

Opened in 1937 and was part of the 7 game exhibition of Western Canada with games between the New York Rangers and New York Americans.

Photo and some info here:
http://spldatabase.saskatoonlibrary.ca/ics-wpd/exec/icswppro.dll?AC=QBE_QUERY&TN=LHR_RAD&NP=4&QB0=AND&QF0=ID_NUMBER&QI0=A-678&MR=20&RF=www_SingleRecord

Star Phoenix on Google newspaper archives some info on the game starting on the Oct 30/37 edition pg3 & pg 14 (western canada tour mentioned a couple days latter Nov 2/37 pg 14) :
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=SCE0ypLQHGcC&dat=19371030&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

 

[Fenway]

Providence late 50's or 60's

I saw with my own eyes the Bulova clocks in

Boston Garden and Boston Arena ( one sided version )
Rhode Island Auditorium - Providence
Memorial Auditorium Buffalo
Chicago Stadium

I did not see the one at Olympia Detroit but have seen many pictures.

 

[Doctor Coffin]

When I was young the Boston Garden had this clock which dated back to around 1940.

The same clock was at Olympia-Detroit, Chicago Stadium, Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo and the R.I Auditorium in Providence. There was also a one sided version at the old Boston Arena.

The Chicago clock lasted to at least 1971.

Anybody have more info on these clocks?

Looks like the clock in the Stadium lasted until mid-1975.

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1975/08/14/page/47/article/tick-clock-tick

 

[Fenway]

Looks like the clock in the Stadium lasted until mid-1975.

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1975/08/14/page/47/article/tick-clock-tick

Great find

The NHL made digital mandatory in the rule book in 1967 but Wirtz resisted.

 

[Doctor Coffin]

Great find

The NHL made digital mandatory in the rule book in 1967 but Wirtz resisted.

Thank you - and that wouldn't surprise me. I like the line in the article below the picture - "The new Big Ben (or is that Big Arthur?)..."

 

[Fenway]

Thank you - and that wouldn't surprise me. I like the line in the article below the picture - "The new Big Ben (or is that Big Arthur?)..."

The Bruins switched to digital in 1967 because of that rule and the clock they bought survived until the building closed in 1995. It lives today in a mall in Watertown, MA.

The Rangers were the first to go digital around 1960.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Detroit Olympia

Providence late 50's or 60's

I saw with my own eyes the Bulova clocks in

Boston Garden and Boston Arena ( one sided version )
Rhode Island Auditorium - Providence
Memorial Auditorium Buffalo
Chicago Stadium

I did not see the one at Olympia Detroit but have seen many pictures.

Seen briefly in the following video featuring a Canadiens at Red Wings game from the late 1950s. Disclaimer - background music is rather pointless in the context of the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBGVUWdXd8o

 

[Fenway]

Seen briefly in the following video featuring a Canadiens at Red Wings game from the late 1950s. Disclaimer - background music is rather pointless in the context of the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBGVUWdXd8o

Thank You for that

Captures the neon 2 on the penalty clock and on the main clock you can see the neon 0-5-10-15 and 0-1-2-3 for boxing

 

[iamjs]

I know this one isn't a Bulova, but it is an older one that is no later than the 1950-51 season.

 

[greyraven8]

No picture of clock but article here on clock installed in Phoenix, BC of the Boundary Hockey League in 1913. Phoenix Pioneer Feb. 1, 1913.

"The electronic device for recording the score, period of play, and expired time was installed at the rink last week, proved a perfect success when in actual practice ..."

https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/bcnewspapers/xphoenix/items/1.0185446#p0z0r0f:

 

[DJ Man]

Thank You for that

Captures the neon 2 on the penalty clock and on the main clock you can see the neon 0-5-10-15 and 0-1-2-3 for boxing

Highly specialized and inflexible. If the NHL ever contemplated 90-second or 3-minute penalties, the arena owners would have screamed. "No way will we pay to overhaul the scoreboards. It's 2 and 5 minutes as God intended!"

 

[crimsonace]

I am guessing that Boston must have gotten the first one and Bulova then redesigned it after getting feedback. I never saw a picture of this one until tonight.

I had the chance last spring to chat with Doc Emrick and I asked if he remembered these clocks and he told me Indianapolis had one along with the ones I knew. (Boston, Providence, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago and a one sided version at Boston Arena )

Sorry to resurrect a Frankenthread, but I just discovered this and it's of great interest to me.

I believe the Indianapolis Coliseum did have a Bulova clock. The building opened in 1939 as an AHL rink. Here is a photo from the 1943 state basketball finals.

By the time the ABA Pacers came around in 1967, at some point (possibly at the beginning of the Pacers' run), the scoreboards were changed to a FairPlay digital model that hung from the sides over center ice. Our stats crew used to work in a crow's nest above the scoreboards, and we couldn't see the clock on the one on the opposite side because it was blocked by the lights, so the scorer would have to call down to the timer at rink level during stoppages to know the time on goals/penalties. This photo is not the board that was put up in the 1960s, but a virtually-identical replacement that was installed sometime in the 1990s (the only major difference being the old light bulbs were now the LED-style lights, and it had a shot clock that the old one didn't have). I'll see if I can dig up a shot of the 1960s board. The replacement boards stayed until 2012, when the arena was closed for two years, gutted and completely rebuilt into a modern arena.

 

[Fenway]

Sorry to resurrect a Frankenthread, but I just discovered this and it's of great interest to me.

I believe the Indianapolis Coliseum did have a Bulova clock. The building opened in 1939 as an AHL rink. Here is a photo from the 1943 state basketball finals.

As I said Doc Emrick told me Indianapolis had one and his recollection was it was sent to Chicago to be used to replace parts for the board at Chicago Stadium.

In Boston the last couple of years the board was used they added a neon 12 for NBA games.

 

[Fenway]

Boston Garden 1962

 

[Doctor Coffin]

A couple images of the scoreboard in Chicago Stadium, from highlight films taken in 1951 and 1952.

 

[Fenway]

Picture of another Bulova clock has surfaced in the Pan Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles.

 

[Killion]

^^^ yep.... spotted that recently as well.... either here or elsewhere.... cant recall where exactly.... gotta love those old clocks.

 

[DJ Man]

Boston Garden 1962

I always hated rinks that started the scores at "00" (double zero). Okay for basketball, but as an NHL team only scored ten or more goals on very rare occasions, like maybe once per decade, those superfluous lead zeroes were going to be staring at you the entire game 99.9% of the time.

 

[Fenway]

I always hated rinks that started the scores at "00" (double zero). Okay for basketball, but as an NHL team only scored ten or more goals on very rare occasions, like maybe once per decade, those superfluous lead zeroes were going to be staring at you the entire game 99.9% of the time.

That was from a Celtics/Lakers game tied 100-100

 

[Jasonit]

Hi,
I need to recreate the Bulova score clock from the Detroit Olympia for scene in a movie. Can any of you fine people explain how the dials on the clock functioned? For example, the main game clock, did it count up to 20mins or down to zero? Also what are the two other team dials showing in this picture?
Many thanks!