The Holidays are Here at Last! Hazaa!

Hi everyone!

Woohoo! It’s my last day at work before my holidays!  Two weeks of sitting in the backyard with the cats, drinking coffee and beer, and catching up on my summer reading.  I haven’t had a long holiday since Christmas, so I’m definitely due. This last day has been one of the longest, and I’ve been struggling to keep my eyes open since about 9 o’clock this morning.  I always fear the last day before going on vacation, because my brain and body always buy a ticket out of town a day before I can officially do the same.  I yawn constantly, I search the office kitchenette for toothpicks to hold my eyelids up, and I have absolutely no interest in doing anything productive, but I have to make it seem like I’m really busy.

Anyway, on to more serious business. New to the site this week is a profile of Seals coach Fred Glover, and how the team showed so much improvement over the course of the 1968-69 season that the AHL legend garnered attention as the NHL’s coach of the year.  He would end up winning the award at the end of the season, but only unofficially (from The Hockey News) because the NHL hadn’t yet started handing out hardware for the league’s top bench boss.

The other new addition this week is a goofy-looking piece of cardboard featuring Luke Richardson and his award-winning science fair project.  You heard that correctly.  And if you didn’t, you must be new to this site, because if you are a regular, you really can’t be shocked anymore by any cards I present you.  At this point, you have literally seen it all.

Since I will be on holidays with the wife and kid next week, no updates next week, I’m afraid, but that doesn’t mean you can’t come back and revisit some of your old favourites, like Rogie Vachon’s hairy chest, Crayola Fun Time with preschoolersRene Corbet staring down the blade of a hockey stick, that chicken always looking for a fight, Mike Grier wishing he was back in college, and trying to guess why Ted Bulley’s face looks like a rat exploded.

You can also visit the survey section to place your vote on which Seals uniforms you think were the sharpest from the 1961-1970 era. In a few weeks, the next group of uniforms will be announced, and the winners of each group will face off so we can find out which Seals/Barons uniform was the best.

Until next time, stay gold!

Homer Simpson Once Said TV Was Bart’s Best Friend… and the Boy’s Clearly Not Alone!

Welcome back to Golden Seals Hockey, the only place on the World Wide Web where you can celebrate the complete history of the California Seals and Cleveland Barons!

We have some great new additions for you this week.  The first is a brand new section where I invite you to give your opinion on all matters concerning the Seals and Barons.  In this week’s survey, I am posting the first two brackets of our new Seals/Barons Uniform Playoff, where I intend to find out which of the franchise’s uniforms was the best.  Even though the team only existed for seventeen years, there were a TON of different uniforms designed over that span, some of which were fantastic, while others were… well, let’s just say we probably won’t be seeing them at any heritage nights in the near future due to the fact using certain bright colours nowadays is probably considered some sort of pollution that even Donald Trump would be willing to spend money eradicating.

The other new addition is a wonderfully stupid card from the 1990-91 Score set, featuring the 1990 Memorial Cup Champion Oshawa Generals and their very special, usually-unseen, uh… teammate? Road-trip distraction? Paper weight? I think you’ll have to check out the silliness for yourself to figure it out.

Until next time, stay gold!

Where Would You Put a Horse Poster in Your Locker Room?

Welcome back everyone!  These posts are really starting to get difficult to write.  Man, is summer ever boring if you’re a hockey fan.  Hell, if you’re a SPORTS fan, it’s pretty damn boring.  Even if you like baseball, chances are your team is already out of the running for a playoff spot already.  If you’re a Blue Jays fan like me, that means you’ve been on neutral since about April.  There’s just nothing to talk about during the summer.  All they talk about on sports radio is tennis and golf, and I really couldn’t care less about either.  The UFC has gone down the toilet since GSP retired and Anderson Silva’s leg turned to Jell-O (if you saw “that” fight, you know what I mean).  Belts change hands every two weeks now, but just a few years ago, those things were practically welded to the waists of guys like them.  At least Jon Jones is back to bring back some form of legitimacy to the titles, and Cris Cyborg looks dominant too.  Anyway, I digress… Once NHL free agency season passes by, and the entry draft is nothing but a memory, the summer just drags on until about mid-September when we start hearing about training camps again.  And then October hits and we get the World Series, a new NBA season, and a new hockey season, and Sportscentre becomes must-see TV again.

Hey, how about that, I actually wrote a whole eight lines about how I had nothing to talk about.  Stay tuned for the exciting sequel to my lament next week!

This week, however, we present to you an interesting piece from February 1975, where Seals fans expressed their opinions on everything from what the Seals meant to them, how they felt about Marshall Johnston’s dismissal, how much Clarence Campbell didn’t give a damn about the Bay Area, and how bright the future seemed in Oakland. This week’s article is really an editorial from the Hayward Daily Review, and it will give you the opportunity to see the full scale of emotions that permeated among Seals fans during their “orphan” season when the NHL had possession of the team, and had really no idea what to do with it except wish for it to die.  Luckily, along came Mel Swig, and all was well, at least for another year or so.

The other new addition this week is a bizarre hockey card featuring Hall-of-Famer Denis Savard, during his not-so-memorable tenure with the Montreal Canadiens.  Luckily, Denis had his horses to pick him up when he was feeling down.

Until next time, stay gold!