Posted in Bruins History, 50 Greatest Bruins names June 9th, 2007
So whaddya think? I’ll betcha no one was pondering the like of John Quilty and “Peggy” O’Neill, were ya? Hang on tight…what’s left is bound to be a pleasant blend of the obvious and the obscure. I can almost guarantee no one’s going to guess my top two. But, I digress, I’m tipping my hat too much…we’re not even at the Top Ten yet!
#20 – Orville “Obs” Heximer – Orville Heximer was good enough, but “Obs”? Heh. So immature. So awesome.
#19 - Forbes Kennedy - With a name like this, you don’t get a sad story about an poor child growing up in a steel mill town…father dying at age 7 after a horrible smelting accident…15 siblings in tattered clothes, 12 of them dying before the Red Sox won in 2004. Hell, you wonder why he’s not running for office in Worcester and/or driving mistresses into the local tributary. The funny thing is that he had 195 PIM for the Flyers in ‘68-’69. “Errrrah, is there any powdah in the clubhouse? My right fist is getting chafed!”
#18 - Sprague Cleghorn - Pay, ahhh say, pay attention boy! Ahhh was one of the dirtiest players eveh and even clubbed Lionel Hitchman over the head with mah stick when he was on the Senators! Ahhh couldn’t believe he kept his teeth numbered for just such an occasion!
#17 - Bobby Schmautz - Ahhhhh, Bobby Schmautz…my favorite non-Orr, non-Esposito player from the ’70s. You didn’t think I’d leave him off this list, did you? How can you not love someone apparently named after something you might find on the side of your face after eating a jelly donut?
#16 - Vladimir “Rosie” Ruzicka - As if “Rosie” wasn’t funny enough, there’s something ironic about having the same first name as Vlad the Impaler in addition to that. It’s almost like having someone named Adolf “Sweetcheeks” Johnson.
#15 - Kenny “The Rat” Linseman - Thus named by Bobby Clarke due to his on ice-posture. His career was ended prematurely in 1996 when he was slapped across the Panthers locker room by Scott Mellanby, sparking their Stanley Cup bid that year. What? Oh. sorry. Wrong rat.
#14 – Chris “Knuckles” Nilan – Finally, a nickname befitting someone’s job description. You know when you’re hiring someone named “Knuckles”, he’s not going to be there to help boost your power play. Not unless you’re planning on having him clobber the other team’s best defender.
#13 - Emory “Spunk” Sparrow - Another case where the name was good enough already but the nickname enhanced it jusssst that much more. He may have been spunky, but he wasn’t that good…in only eight NHL games, he had zero points to show for it.
#12 - Fleming MacKell - …zerre, late one night deep in zee Louisiana marshezz I heard it…zee throaty warble of one of zee rarest and mozzt elusive waterfowl in Les Etats-Unis…zee Fleming MacKell…
#11 - Percy “Perk” Galbraith - I guess when you’ve got a name like Percy, you’ve got to find a way to toughen it up a little bit. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if “Perk” was the way to go. On a positive note, he did play on various teams with “Peaches“, “Peggy” and “Pinkie“, so at least he must have able to deflect some of the taunting then…
Coming soon, the final list you’ve all been waiting for…#1-10!
Posted in Shameless promotions June 6th, 2007
Last month over at the female sports blog, Ladies…, they issued a call to arms for “hot” male bloggers. My ego stoked (for some strange reason), I threw my hat in the ring with the thinnest looking photo I could find, barring something from 3rd grade. Hey, if nothing else, I got to promote The Spoked B. Anyway, they released the brackets today and yours truly got a 12 seed (out of 22) in the “AFC North” bracket, meaning that the girls there thought I was more attractive than 10 other guys in my region…woohoo!
Of course, my plan to promote The Spoked B was foiled as they listed my OLD blog (Ghosts of the Garden ) which was where my “submission entry” came from (at the time, I didn’t have enough decent content here to use).
So, if you want to stuff the ballot box for your old buddy Doob (or against me, just to squash any delusions of grandeur I might get), you can vote in the AFC North bracket here.
Posted in Bruins History, 50 Greatest Bruins names June 2nd, 2007
Am I getting down to your favorites? Goooood. I know you guys have a few that you can think of off the tops of your heads. Hopefully I haven’t hit them already. If I have, you may be surprised what’s still out there.
And the list continues. For #41-50 click here, for #31-40 go here and for some last minute additions click here.
#30 - Bill Shill - If there was anyone whose name seemed to have them predestined towards stardom…or at least hawking low-end products with his name on it…it was him. But, alas, playing only 79 NHL games rarely provides you that opportunity. Maybe in the ’90s pal…but not in the ’40s.
#29 - Gord Kluzak - Loved the name then, love it now. It sounds like either a hard-nosed Ukranian player or a Neptunian overlord from a 1950s sci-fi movie. His history of knee injuries are legendary but here’s an interesting piece of trivia: the first NHL player to cause a devastating knee injury to Kluzak? How about this guy when he skated for the Devils?
#28 - Jim “Peggy” O’Neill - Sometimes you just don’t want to know.
#27 - Werner Schnarr - A German who predated the Kraut Line by about 10 years. Hooooooogaannnnnn!!!!
#26 - Aubrey “Dit” Clapper - I’ll be honest with you. He had me at “Aubrey”. Dit was just icing on the cake.
#25 - Rogie Vachon - The guy who most reminded me of Denis “I lose my blouse!” Lemieux. Plus, his “smiley face” mask was always a favorite.
#24 - Cecil “Tiny” Thompson - Usually, people dubbed “Tiny” aren’t small (Thompson was 5′10″, 180 lbs…not bad for the ’20s), or at least don’t play that way. In 12 years, he collected four Vezina trophies and backstopped the B’s to their first Stanley Cup victory in 1929. DON’T call me “Tiny”!
#23 - Clayton Beddoes - This is probably more of a personal favorite of mine because of a faux pas. Knowing a couple of Claytons myself, I thought Beddoes was black before I saw him play. Obviously I was wrong. Hey, for the longest time I thought Johnny Mathis was white too…what the hell do I know?
#22 - Dmitri Kvartalnov - K-Vart was to Russian imports what K-Mart is to designer clothes. Well, at least he produced more than #47 Grigori Panteleev.
#21 - John Quilty - C’mon. Quilty?? Is there a Steve Macrame out there too? And before someone else makes the joke in the comment field, I’ll beat you all to it: Maybe he was part of a “patchwork” defense? <rimshot>
Stay tuned for #11-20!
Posted in Ex-Bruins June 1st, 2007
With ex-Bruins alum Sami Pahlsson and the Anaheim Ducks on fire, the Toronto Globe and Mail has run a nice piece on Sami.
Now that Iron Mike Keenan has been hired as a senior adviser to the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation, he may want to alter his moniker to Ironic Mike.
After all, when Keenan took over as the Boston Bruins’ coach eight games into the 2000-01 National Hockey League season, he persuaded general manager Mike O’Connell to deal rookie Sami Pahlsson because he felt the Swedish forward was too soft and was having difficulty adapting to the North American game.
So the hottest player on the planet right now, thanks to his work for the Anaheim Ducks in the Stanley Cup playoffs this spring, was shipped west to the Ducks in exchange for defenceman Patrick Traverse and forward Andrei Nazarov.
Well, the Bruins may have only gotten 8 points out of Traverse before quickly (three months later) trading him to the Canadiens for Eric Weinrich who then added another 6 points before leaving for the Flyers as a free agent the next year. But at least they got 364 PIM in 110 games out of Nazarov. That’s got to count for something, right? Right? Is this thing on?
