What Do You Miss Most About 'Old Time' Hockey?

[Stephen]

I think it's fair to say we're all history buffs on this board, and we're all interested in the game's past, and often that's looking back to an era when we were kids, first getting into the game playing with our friends, watching hockey on tv and learning about the NHL and all of its players and teams. For me, that was the early 90s, right before the wave of 90s expansion, and what I miss most now about 'old time' hockey is how rough and tumble things used to be and look: archaic old barns with unique traditions, scruffy tough as nails hockey players with chewed up equipment in pre-corporate NHL jerseys. There's just something awesome about watching old time games with minimal advertising and the corporate sheen that's on everything nowadays.

Click to read more...

 

[Big Phil]

I guess there has always been a movement to "wussify" the game since if you watch clips of Don Cherry 20 years ago he complains about the media hating fighting the same way he does today, but it just seems worse and more unbearable now. I miss when almost everyone would tell some moron to take a hike if he thought hockey was too rough. Now magazines like the Hockey News practically have a platform to turn hockey into figure skating. So I miss the days when pretty much everyone covering hockey was a man's man and could appreciate a classic Habs/Bruins game like we saw a few weeks ago.

Not that it's impossible to do today, but I miss the dynasties. I miss how hockey was never locked out in the "old" days, even a rascal like Alan Eagleson did something right.

 

[MXD]

Une équipe à Québec...

 

[njdevils1982]

"piss on old time hockey"

but really.....theres too much money involved now.....i would love to see blank boards again though....never going to happen.

and stop this puss about head shots........keep your head up when you have the puck. simple, no?

 

[Rhiessan71]

I miss the creativity.

Nowadays it seems like it's more about being a fast skating robot.

 

[Stephen]

I miss the creativity.

Nowadays it seems like it's more about being a fast skating robot.

Agreed. Everything is too choreographed defensively, the goalies are too good positionally and too efficient, and everything is systematized. Miss the wildness to the game (which was already gone by the 90s when I was watching, but some of those 80s re-runs is just great fun to watch, when guys would wheel and clutch and grab and fight.) Everyone looks like an overpadded time cop these days.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I'm not that much of an old timer, but the thing I miss the most is definitely the battles in front of the net, where power forwards and defensemen could basically abuse each other mercilessly in the crease.

Not just because I loved the battles (which I did), but I think a higher percentage of goals were aesthetically pleasing without the maze of bodies that we have now standing in front of the net undisturbed.

 

[Killion]

Wow. Where to begin, heres my shopping list;

The Old Buildings
Blank Boards
Organ Music Only
Goal Lines Moved Back
No Trapezoid
No Helmets
Wooden Sticks
Tube Skates
Size Didnt Matter as Much
Stand Up Goaltending
Normal Sized Goalie Equipment
Flush Face Goalie Masks
Bench Clearing Brawls
Trough Urinals

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

I miss buildings that have different sized rinks.
I miss sloppy defensive play that leads to exciting offence.
I miss cheapshot artists being forced to obey the laws of the jungle.
I miss stand-up goaltenders.
I miss arenas that had a name that meant something, rather than just a corporate shout-out.

I do not miss arenas with bad sight lines...

 

[VMBM]

Small/big, fat/thin, slow/fast players (i.e. all the 'variety')
Long shifts
That you could recognize a player much easier than today
That goalies could look like stick-figures (Jiri Holecek, for example lol)
Those diamond-figures on USSR jerseys (late Seventies/early Eighties)

 

[BamBamCam*]

There's alot but for starters:

******** like Matt Cooke are not held accountable anymore. Imagine what would have happened to that ****** if Wensink was Savard's teammate?

super stars like Mario LePuss kept their mouth shut about the inherent physical nature of hockey

The old unique arenas
optional helmets usage
lack of offensive and defensive systems that take any creativity away
normal sized goalies
smoking in the locker-room after the games
no gimmicks like the shootout
Kerry Fraiser's immovable hair

 

[BamBamCam*]

Almost forgot...

you could check the ****** goalie if he traveled too far out of the net

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

There's alot but for starters:

******** like Matt Cooke are not held accountable anymore. Imagine what would have happened to that ****** if Wensink was Savard's teammate?

Yeah, the way it's handled today, it's sort of given rise to a new type of player that wouldn't have been able to hack it in the old days. There have always been pests and agitators but at least they knew they'd have to answer the bell, nowadays, you can make a career of being an agitator with only marginal toughness.

 

[Psycho Papa Joe]

-Wins, Losses and ties
-Danny Gallivan calling a game
-Goalies wearing heavy equipment and relying on reflexes rather than positioning and oversized michelin man padding.
-5 game first round played in a maximum of 7 days
-the posibility of a Leaf/Hab or Bruins/Hab final
-the late 70's Hab teams
-end to end rushes
-when the NHL wasn't so systematic
-anybody could afford a good ticket in Toronto or Montreal

 

[SealsFan]

EVERYTHING in the previous replies, from Killion through Papa Joe!

And additionally,

DUREEN JERSEYS!!! I HATE POLYESTER!!!

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

I also have to say it seemed like back in the day, players were more identifiable characters.

This has gotten worse in three ways, one, the number of teams increased dramatically so it got harder and harder to really "know" the league. I think there's even a notable difference between 21 and 30 in that. Secondly, helmets and then visors made visual identification literally harder. Thirdly, with more advanced teaching of hockey the systems of play have become very streamlined and thus players' individual styles have become more cookie cutter as well.

 

[Buck Aki Berg]

• Bob Cole being coherent: it's not just senility; he changed the way he called games to sound more "modern", but the odd time he'll still call a game the way he did in 1988, and it borders on poetry.
• Saturday night always felt "special": especially after Gretzky got traded to LA and CBC would pick up the odd late-start Kings game (my eight-year-old mind exploded at the prospect of another hockey game after the one I was watching ended )
• The old playoff format: I can understand how people found the same matchups every year to be "boring", but I sure as hell don't agree with them
• The Montreal Forum: it could just be that I was forced to watch the Leafs every Saturday night as a kid despite being a Habs fan, but there was something awesome about watching games played there - hearing Dick Irvin instead of Harry Neale, the skyline shots of Montreal that they'd show at the intermission. The game took on an entirely new dynamic for me when it was at the Forum

 

[RabbinsDuck]

I miss dynasties and heated, sustained rivalries amongst top-notch teams.
I also miss communism - cold war games were unbelievably intense.

 

[saskganesh]

I miss the WHA refugees. Jets, Nords and Whale.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Mainly the lack of individual personality on the ice. Shifts are so short, and the play is so fast, that you hardly even identify the players anymore.

 

[JT Dutch*]

I miss the WHA refugees. Jets, Nords and Whale.

... 100% agree.

I also miss the times where there wasn't a fight instigator rule.

 

[David Bruce Banner]

Lack of advertising everywhere you looked. I used to love the fact that you could hang banners along the bottom of the upper section of seats. Now that's prime ad space.

 

[heutZe]

I am one who appreciates the modern NHL for what it is. It was a change that had to be made for the NHL to survive, and I like the modern NHL's focus on speed.

However I do miss something with the old NHL which I would love to see back in modern times:

1. 4 Divisions with divisional playoffs. This fostered such great rivalries, and with more teams in the NHL now, you wouldn't see the same old teams meeting in the first round every year.

2. Quebec, Winnipeg and Hartford. More canadian teams and brass bonanza will always be good for the league. All those teams had great uniforms also.

3. Bob Cole, Harry Neale and Dick Irvin Jr. calling a playoff game.

 

[jcbio11]

I guess there has always been a movement to "wussify" the game since if you watch clips of Don Cherry 20 years ago he complains about the media hating fighting the same way he does today, but it just seems worse and more unbearable now. I miss when almost everyone would tell some moron to take a hike if he thought hockey was too rough. Now magazines like the Hockey News practically have a platform to turn hockey into figure skating. So I miss the days when pretty much everyone covering hockey was a man's man and could appreciate a classic Habs/Bruins game like we saw a few weeks ago.

Not that it's impossible to do today, but I miss the dynasties. I miss how hockey was never locked out in the "old" days, even a rascal like Alan Eagleson did something right.

Perhaps. But hockey players today are much stronger and faster. The movement to "wussify" the game, as you call it, is neccesary. Imagine if players were running around with no helmets and 50s padding today. There'd be guys in the hospital after every game.

 

[pappyline]

I miss the original six era;

1. The intensity of competition when you play each team 14 times with many back to back games.
2.Knowing every player on every team & the line they played on.
3.no helmets making players easy to identify. no need for names on sweaters.
4.Every team had superstars.
5. hot stove intermissions.
6.The "The Hockey News" was worth reading.