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SLAM! Sports Century in Review INTERACTIVE CONTESTS ALSO ON SLAM!  |
HOCKEY SHOWS CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT There was a time six classic franchises ran the league in the middle years and another when Wayne Gretzky made the sport his own as the century drew to a close. Although it dates before the turn of the century, hockey has had a variety of golden ages in the 1900s. In fact, the Stanley Cup predates the National Hockey League. During World War I, professional hockey almost faced its own demise. In November 1917, today's major league was formed when the floundering National Hockey Association became the four-team NHL. The new league did not take over the Stanley Cup until the 1927 season. As the 1900s come to a close, the NHL has 28 teams. That will grow to 30 next season when Columbus, Ohio, and Minnesota join. Since 1990, 11 U.S. cities have added teams, including franchises that moved south from Quebec and Winnipeg. High Canadian taxes and the drop of the country's dollar threaten Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver -- four of the remaining six Canadian teams. The Great Gretzky did almost as much in expanding the league as he did in smashing 61 league records. Gretzky's trade in 1988 from the Edmonton Oilers, where he established himself and won four Stanley Cups, to the Los Angeles Kings took the game from frozen areas in Canada and made it a Hollywood happening. From the Kings' success, the NHL was able to place teams in Miami, Tampa, Fla., Dallas and San Jose and Anaheim in California, thus proving that warm weather did nothing to diminish interest. In the 82-year history of the NHL, the combined average temperature of league cities has risen from 42.5 degrees in 1917 to a balmy 57.8 today. As an 18-year-old star with the WHA's Edmonton Oilers, Gretzky's star power helped some of the league's teams become part of the NHL. Gretzky spent just one season with the WHA's Oilers as Edmonton, Winnipeg, Quebec and Hartford joined the NHL in the 1979-80 season. What a time that was. In February 1980, the "Miracle on Ice" U.S. Olympic team stunned the Soviet Union and went on to a most improbable gold-medal victory at the Lake Placid Games. Ken Morrow won the double prize that year, an Olympic medal and a Stanley Cup ring with the Islanders. Several players from the Soviet team went on to play in the NHL, starting an influx of Russian and European talent in the league. The 1980 victory by the Americans was a far cry from when U.S. NHL players made an embarrassing debut at the 1998 Nagano Games, and some of them trashed their rooms at the Olympic Village and didn't fess up. As for Gretzky, his dominance on the ice that was truly spectacular. The Brantford, Ontario, native won 11 scoring titles and nine MVP awards. Had Gretzky never scored a goal -- he had a record 894 -- his 1,963 assists would have topped Gordie Howe's previous league record of 1,850 total points (801 goals, 1,049 assists). There was a time when only Montreal's Maurice Richard and New York Islanders sniper Mike Bossy were able to score 50 goals in 50 games. Gretzky raised the bar even higher. In 1981-82, one season after Bossy accomplished the feat, Gretzky had 45 goals through 38 games. He went into the 39th game against Philadelphia and scored five times. "I felt like I'd never done enough. If I had three goals, I wanted five goals. If I had seven points, I wanted to get the eighth point," Gretzky said in November at his Hall of Fame induction. "I kept going every night, played 80 games every year as hard as I could, whether it was Oct. 1 or April 1. "Maybe that's why I was able to have the records that I did eventually get." He scored 92 times that season, breaking Phil Esposito's mark of 76. He also became the first -- and only -- person to reach 200 points in a season (212). Gretzky topped himself four seasons later with 215 points, assisting on an incredible 163 goals. Although he won in Edmonton, he couldn't bring the Stanley Cup to Los Angeles, St. Louis or New York -- his other three stops. Teammate Mark Messier captained the Oilers to another championship after Gretzky's departure. And then Messier became a savior in New York in 1994 -- three seasons before Gretzky's arrival -- when he led the Rangers to their first title in 54 years. Mario Lemieux threatened Gretzky's dominance when he had 70 goals and 98 assists in 1987-88 and followed it up a season later by just missing the 200-point mark with 85 goals and 114 assists. But cancer and numerous back injuries cut his career short. Lemieux, however, headed a group that bought the Pittsburgh Penguins this year, becoming the first NHLer to own the team in which he starred. Then there was Howe. During his 25-year NHL career with Detroit, he established the marks that would later fall to Gretzky. Howe, Gretzky's childhood hero, returned to the NHL in 1979-80 at age 51 for one final season with the Hartford Whalers. He played so long he was even on the same teams as sons Mark and Marty for several seasons. Howe's time came during the glory years of the Original Six franchises. In the last year of that era, 1966, Boston's Bobby Orr debuted and changed the way the sport was played. He showed that a defenseman could dominate at both ends of the ice. Orr had 270 goals, 645 assists and was selected the top defenseman eight times in a 12-year career with Boston and Chicago. It was at the time that the modern NHL was truly born. The Original Six -- the Rangers, Bruins, Black Hawks, Detroit Red Wings, Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens -- ruled the NHL from the 1942-43 season until 1967-68. The Philadelphia Flyers became the first expansion team to bring home the Stanley Cup when they won back-to-back titles in 1974 and 1975. Even as the league grew, no team could match the success of the Canadiens. Montreal is rivaled only by the New York Yankees in championships. The Canadiens have won the Stanley Cup 24 times since their inception in 1909. Montreal could have won another when it captured the NHL championship in 1918-19, but did not have the opportunity to play Seattle, the Pacific Coast Hockey Association champion, due to a flu epidemic. Montreal won five straight Cups from 1956-60 and four consecutive between 1976-79. Only the New York Islanders dynasty of the early '80s has captured four straight Cups. The Oilers, who ended New York's reign, won five times in seven years. It wasn't just the changing leagues, the transfer of the Cup or new franchises, the quality of play and the way the game evolved was bigger than all of it. In 1910, the rover position was eliminated and each team competed with five skaters a side. At the start of this season, rules were changed so that only four skaters would take the ice for overtime to try to decrease the number of ties. Regular-season overtime returned to the league in 1983-84 after a 41-year absence. On Nov. 1, 1959, Jacques Plante wore the first goalie mask in history. An event that The Hockey News dubbed the most important development in the sport this century. Twenty years later, the NHL mandated that all players wear helmets. In 1972, the best players in the world got together for the first time when Canada played the Soviet Union in the historic Summit Series. The matchup provided one of the great moments in Canadian sports history when Paul Henderson scored the series-winning goal. Even the ice has changed over the years. The condition of the playing surface received quite a boost in the 1950s when the Zamboni ice-finishing machine made its debut, replacing the practice of flooding the rink with water between periods. 
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