Hi everyone! I’m not sure about you, but I sure am glad it is the weekend! What a week! Have you ever had one of those weeks where it seems as though every loony-toon, crackpot, and whack-job came crawling out of the woodwork just to make your life a living hell? Well, that’s the week I had. Stressed out clients, crying clients, clients who didn’t know what they wanted or why they were there… Am I sure glad that’s all over, and since it’s a holiday on Monday, that means a three-day weekend! One of the things I enjoy doing when I’m feeling a little stressed is grabbing my cell phone and doing the rounds of the New York Times puzzle games. Have you ever done these? They’re great. I love doing Wordle, Strands, and the Mini Crossword, but my favourite might be Connections, and more recently, the recently added sports-themed Connections.

If you’ve never done Connections before, the premise is pretty simple: of the 16 words and expressions on the screen, you must group them into four equal groups, and each group’s words must be connected by a common theme. So the connection could be four expressions with “up”, four palindromes, four modal verbs, or four objects cherished by characters on The Simpsons (yes, that one actually stumped me). When I sat down after supper one day this week to do the latest sports Connections, I was surprised to see this:

Notice the expression on the bottom left? Yup… never thought the Seals would get their due in Connections, but here were are. See if you can figure out the four connections. I’m happy to say I got it without making any mistakes, but I’m not that lucky every time. Will you be? Remember, all four connections are sports-related…

So, that was fun, and to continue with that theme, I’ve added a new Lee Susman cartoon, which you can check out right here.

Hope you all get the chance to take in the 4 Nations Face-Off the next two weeks. It’s off to a great start, and, as you would expect, I’m rooting for Canada to take the title. Now that my Habs have crashed back down to reality and burrowed their way to the Earth’s core, it might be the closest I get to a meaningful series of games this season. Go Canada! Stay gold!

Hi everyone! Wow! Big news from the Seals universe! That’s right, former Seals defenseman George Pesut has written a book, The Fourth Period: Between the Ice Sheets. The book was released this past December, but I was not made aware of it until I received a link to this:

That’s right folks, as an added bonus, we have George talking about his book in the latest edition of Hockey Time Machine, which you can watch by clicking on the YouTube logo above. The episode was dropped yesterday and I haven’t even had a chance to listen to it yet, so I can’t give you any details. I also can’t give you many details about the book, since my copy just arrived yesterday morning, and I’m only about 20 pages in. So far, I’m very impressed with his narrative style, and I look forward to page 91, when he starts talking about his time in the Bay Area. Rest assured, however, that once I finish the book I will be posting a review on the site, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, go pick up your own copy over at Amazon. Here’s a link to the American site and another to the Canadian site to make it even easier for you.

As I mentioned last week, I received two very nice gifts in the mail from Kristie Kitchens. A few years ago, she had found an old Seals beer stein that had once belonged to her father, and she sent it to me, which has been sitting on my desk ever since. It’s one of my favourite pieces of memorabilia, and something I had never seen before. This time, Kristie sent me a vintage Sparky the Seal t-shirt, which I’m proud to say, is probably the only one in all of Ottawa.

Please ignore my crappy photography skills (note the scotch tape holding up the shirt on what is an overturned IKEA kitchen table); it’s the best I could do. Of course, I have no intention of leaving it like that; it deserves better. I hope to have it framed one day along with my autographed Seals hockey cards.

The next photo, of a vintage Annalee hockey mouse (Tony Esposito stick in hand) is something I had never seen before, but apparently they were pretty popular back in the 70s.

Thanks so much, Kristie!

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! What a rollercoaster week in the NHL! Blockbuster trades galore! It feels like we’re back in the old 21-team NHL. Boy, those were the days, weren’t they? Sometimes, I feel the art of the trade is a thing of the past. I remember back when I was a kid how it was commonplace for a star player to be dealt straight up for another superstar, and it never had anything to do with contracts, salary caps, or player-approved trade lists. I have a hard time remembering the last time a mid-season trade like this week’s Rantanen-Hall-Necas transaction happened. And then it was followed up with the Flyer-Flames and Rangers-Canucks deals that transpired just a few hours before I posted this. I love how GM’s are pulling the trigger on big deals long before the trade deadline, and I am curious to see if this strategy is more effective. I want to say that giving the new players time to get acclimated to their new surroundings is a sound move, but only time will tell.

I don’t have much of a segue to this week’s new Seals material except that the article I’ve posted this week also took place in January, at a time when the Seals were also thinking playoffs, something that had not even seemed plausible a year or two earlier. This year, however, the Seals had gone for broke with the youngsters, and after a couple of difficult months, they began to put it all together and posted more wins than losses. This week’s article, from the January 7 Palo Alto Peninsula Tribune Times was published a day after the Seals had soundly defeated the Philadelphia Flyers, 5-1. Now that I think of it, this is something else I really miss in hockey: the massive underdog victory. Nowadays, no matter how bad a team is, does it really shock anyone when that team beats a Stanley Cup contender? I’m not surprised at all if San Jose beats up on Washington or Edmonton. No team is truly that bad in today’s NHL, but back in 1975, when the Seals beat a contender, it was big news. I remember when I was interviewing players for my last book on the Coca-Cola Bottlers’ Cup, some of the guys I talked to still remembered beating Boston or Montreal because it was more unlikely than seeing Halley’s Comet twice in the same day. Back in January 1975, the Seals were sitting pretty inching their way closer to a playoff spot, and even though they failed in their quest, the future looked brighter than it had in a long time. You can read all about the Seals’ big win and their sudden turnaround right here.

And that’s it for this week. Thanks for stopping by once again. Thanks also to Kristie Kitchens who generously sent me a beautiful authentic Seals t-shirt and hockey-themed stuffy. I will post pictures of them soon, and I think you will agree, they are wonderful memorabilia to own. Never having been to California, let alone having lived there, I imagine I’m the only person in Ottawa with a vintage Seals t-shirt.

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! I hope you’ve all had a great week. I’m happy to announce a brand new addition to the site, but first a little context. I was contacted this week by site follower and Seals fan Bob Marceau, who wanted to share some fantastic cartoons created by the Oakland Tribune‘s Lee Susman. The cartoons were always a nice snapshot of what was going on in the Bay Area at the time. They usually feature a plucky Seal wearing a hockey uniform (a few years before the famous “Sparky” ever did) and who bravely stands up to the villainous other teams of the NHL who were either gearing up to take on Oakland’s hockey heroes or who were standing in the Seals way in the playoff race. In many other cases, our cartoon hero is literally (and painfully!) experiencing what the real-life Seals were figuratively experiencing at that time. Even if you have never seen Lee Susman’s work before, you can probably still guess what torture our cartoon buddy endured, because the human Seals went through an awful lot in those nine, mostly painful, NHL seasons: humiliating defeats, relocation rumours, trades that didn’t work out, draft picks who became busts, you name it, it happened. I will post a few of these comic beauties from time to time, so I hope they will make you smile as much as they did me, and for some of you who were in the Bay Area at the time, you may even remember a few of them from your childhood. Thanks again Bob! You can find what will be a growing collection of Lee Susman comics right here. Enjoy!

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! I hope you’ve all been having a wonderful weekend. I won’t keep you too long today since I’ve only made a small, but important update to the site. I realized this week that there were parts of this site that have been on my mind for a while, but for one reason or another I was putting aside and ignoring. For instance, the Contact Steve form had been down for quite some time (sorry, I’m not technologically savvy, and to fix an issue could take anywhere from an hour to an eternity). Well, I finally had some time and motivation to look into the problem, and I’m happy to say that the problem has been resolved, so try it out if you like. Also, the In Memoriam section was in dire need of an update. I think the last update was back in 2022, so yeah… That’s been taken care of as well, but if you know of any former Seals or Barons who have passed away, please let me know so I can add them to the list. I know there are plenty of non-NHL Seals who have died, and whose names may not have appeared in the media, so there is a good chance they were sadly left off the list. Finally, I made a few light updates to the Definitive Seals Record Book. Nothing major, just a few obscure records that came to light thanks to the great work done by the statisticians at Hockey-reference.com.

That’s about it for this week. If you’re anywhere near the Ottawa area, please bundle up because it’s going to be frigid next week, and if you’re lucky enough to be anywhere warm, please know that we will all be hating you for the next little while. Nothing personal… We do like winter, after all, but by mid-January we’re usually about ready to see it go away for another year. I’ll be keeping busy working on query letters and book proposals, and watching the Habs continue to kill it.

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! After a short Christmas/New Year’s hiatus, we’re back! I hope everyone had themselves a wonderful holiday season whether or not you had the luxury of having a full two weeks off or not. I do realize I am lucky to work in a job where I have the opportunity to spend the holidays with the family, and really get to enjoy myself. I’ve had the opportunity to fully immerse myself in finishing up my next book, which I hope will hit the shelves (or at least some online version of a shelf) in the next year or two, but first that means preparing a book proposal and then sending off everywhere across the continent hoping some publisher will bite. Of course, I will post any interesting developments on the site, so stay tuned!

I’ve also had the time to get back into watching games now that the kids are getting older and showing some interest in my passion. The NHL season has been an interesting one to say the least. It’s been a bit crazy how, this season, so many contenders have been flopping and how many rebuilding teams have been surging. Who would have thought that right now the Montreal Canadiens, Columbus Blue Jackets, and Pittsburgh Penguins would have a better shot at the Stanley Cup than the New York Rangers or Nashville Predators? I was not among that very small minority a month ago, but I am now. The Boston Bruins and Vancouver Canucks both seem completely lost, and no one seems to be getting along in their dressing rooms. I love these kinds of story lines, the changing of the guard, so to speak. I feel a sort-of mini-revolution developing in the NHL right now, and the perennial contenders are not going to be looking up from their penthouse much longer.

As I got back to planning a new update for this site, I was utterly shocked to discover that one of the most infamous games in Seals/Barons history was somehow NOT found in the articles section. I’m talking about the horrendous 13-3 loss to Buffalo on February 25, 1978. It was one of the Barons’ last games in the NHL, and undoubtedly one of the most forgettable. I couldn’t believe there was barely a mention of the game anywhere on the site, so even though it is a painful read, it is a game that stands out, and so today I’ve posted an article about that awful defeat. You can read about it right here.

That’s about it for this week, folks. Hope you’re all having a nice, smooth return to work and that you are enjoying the developing story lines around the NHL. I will see you all again in a week. Until that time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! As you probably know, my Montreal Canadiens suffered one of the worst defeats in franchise history just a few days ago. It wasn’t that they lost the game, 9-2, but rather that they were only down 3-2 after forty minutes, and then somehow found a way to give up six goals in the span of about fourteen minutes. It was one of those losses where you just shake your head in bewilderment. I mean, WOW! What the hell was that? Sure, all losses add up to zeros in the points column, but some of those zeros hurt more than others. You’ve got those games where you just played like crap and deserved to lose. You’ve got others where you’ve outplayed the other team all night, and a hot goalie prevents you from winning. Other nights, both teams play great, and someone has to lose. All those outcomes suck, to be sure, but once in a while you suffer a season-defining loss, or a loss that leaves you demoralized or embarrassed. That was what happened December 12.

Since most of you reading this have been coming back to this site for a while, so I don’t need to tell you that the Seals and Barons came out on the losing end more often than not. This week, I’ve posted a new article from October 14, 1976, the day after the Cleveland Barons lost 4-2 to the visiting Atlanta Flames. It was a frustrating game for the Barons. They gave up the first two goals, and the last two, and in between all that, the Flames’ Phil Myre stood on his head. It was a game in which the Barons had every opportunity to win, or at least tie, but in the end, they were just left shaking their heads. You can read all about the game here.

That’s about it for this week. I hope you all enjoy the games on the slate this weekend, and that you come back again soon! Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone, and welcome back! I’d like to start this week with a little feel-good story to set the scene for today’s new article. On Thursday morning, I lost my wedding ring. I noticed it was gone once I returned home from taking the kids to school, and I must have spent close to an hour looking for it under furniture, behind table legs, and beneath toys. I eventually just gave up and figured it would turn up, but I was upset the rest of the day. When I picked up the kids that night, my son was upset that he had misplaced his little tin of Pokemon cards. I replied that he shouldn’t feel so bad, since I couldn’t find my wedding ring. And then my five-year-old daughter uttered a phrase that I never would have expected to hear: “I know where it is!” Whaaaaa? “Where did you see it?” I asked, and she replied that it was in the little front pocket of her backpack. I grabbed her bad and rifled through the pocket and, there it was, my wedding ring. Why it was in the front pocket, I didn’t understand, since I hadn’t put anything in that pocket in days. When we returned home and I told my wife the story, she quickly asked our daughter if she had taken my ring and put it in her bag. Normally, my little one cracks the minute she knows we’ve discovered her lie, but this time, she was very adamant that she hadn’t taken the ring. She said it was in the big pocket of her bag, and that when she found the ring, she put it in the front pocket to not lose it. That’s when I realized the ring must have got caught on the inside of her bag, and slipped off my finger when I was putting in her lunch. I realized how lucky I was to have my wedding ring make a trip to my daughter’s kindergarten class and survive the day. I also realized that my daughter is much more responsible than I ever gave her credit for.

So where am I going with this? I doesn’t really matter if you lose something… there’s always hope that you will find what you’ve lost, and you never really know how you’re going to find it, and under what circumstances. Ted Hampson once lost something during his third season with the Seals. Early in the 1969-70 season, the Seals’ captain had lost his mojo. He had been money in the bank the previous two years, but for some reason when October 1969 hit, he couldn’t find the back of the net, and he couldn’t set up a teammate to do it either. Then all of a sudden one night versus Chicago, Hampson picked up an assist, and everything went right once again. Come April he was leading the team in scoring once again. This week’s article, from Spence Conley of the Oakland Tribune, is all about Hampson (and several other Seals) and their early-season scoring slump, and you can read all about it here.

I hope you all have a great weekend and that you enjoy the quiet before the holiday season officially starts. I’m personally looking forward to spending a wad of cash at the local sports card show with my Pokemon-loving son, and that nothing gets lost in the crowd. Thankfully, I found my wedding ring, and he found his tin of cards, so we’ve got luck on our side, hopefully for at least one more day.

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! After a one-week hiatus, I’m back! It’s been a bit hectic around the Currier abode the last little while. The title of this week’s posting is fitting for more reasons than one. Of late, my children have become masters of procrastination, especially when it comes to getting hair washed, teeth brushed, pajamas on, and stories read. After putting the kids down for the night, I’m usually lucky if I get to watch the last ten minutes of the Habs game. Seriously, there was one game about a month ago where I caught (I kid you not), the last seven seconds of the game. How I can actually keep track of what’s going on this season is nothing short of miraculous. So, yeah… I’ve had way too little time to get much of anything done for this site, usually because it is much too late to even begin.

In keeping with this week’s theme, we’re going back to February 19, 1976. The Seals were enjoying a resurgence in the first half of the season, and for the first time in years, the playoffs were a realistic possibility. All they needed was a good streak and the Leafs would be shaking in their skates. Unfortunately, starting in late January, all the Seals could muster was a bad streak, to the tune of ten straight without a win. By the time the Minnesota North Stars arrived in Oakland that night, the damage had already been done and the playoffs were no longer a possibility despite a Seals victory. It was, as they say, too little, too late, and before anyone knew it, the Seals were on their way out of town. You can read today’s article right here.

That’s about it for this week. I have a busy weekend ahead of me preparing for my kids’ birthday parties, taking my kids to other kids’ birthday parties, wrapping birthday presents, shopping for Christmas presents, and hopefully getting more than seven seconds of hockey under my belt. Wish me luck, folks, and hopefully you’ll be seeing me back again next week. Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! Some of you may know that recently Gilles Meloche was in Toronto to sign some autographs and shake some hands. One of this site’s regular visitors, Mark Harris, who has contributed many a photo of his encounters with former Seals greats Bobby Baun and Walt McKechnie, was fortunate enough to meet one of the greatest Seals of all time.

As much as I love living in the Nation’s Capital, and would never even think of ever living in Toronto (much too stodgy, busy, crowded, prone to frequent flooding, and let’s face it, a crap ton of Leafs crap everywhere… no, no, not goin’ anywhere near any of that), I do envy the fact that T.O. has so much cool stuff at every corner, that they’ve got pro hockey, baseball, basketball, and football going on, every great band visits on a yearly basis, and you can run into celebrities getting a double-double at just about any Timmies. Ottawa? Ehhhh, not so much.

So, this week, I’ve decided to go into the archives and find an article featuring the Seals’ legend. We’re going all the way back to December 1973 this time, when Meloche was nursing his injured hand after having it severed by an errant Reggie Leach skate blade. Even though he hadn’t been off that long, you could see that Meloche was starting to get bored, so he dabbled in bartending. This article, from John Porter of the Oakland Tribune, gives us a glimpse into Meloche’s childhood, and his feelings about his hometown Montreal Canadiens, a team he always well against. You can access this week’s article by clicking on this link.

On a sadder note, I regret to inform you that former Seal Al Simmons passed away on October 28. He suited up for California just one time before finding his way to Boston where he played the final ten games of his NHL career. I invite you to read his obituary to find out a little more about his impressive career outside of hockey. R.I.P. Al, you will be missed.

Until next time, stay gold!