Hi everyone! Welcome back to another Golden Seals Hockey update. Subscriber Sante Debacco contacted the site recently with some interesting Seals facts many people have probably forgotten or were not aware of at all. Here is part of the e-mail Sante sent me:
A while back I read somewhere that the NHL used to schedule regular season games on Christmas Day (why I am writing about Christmas this time of year I don’t know). Anyway, the last year the NHL scheduled games on Christmas was the ‘71-‘72 season. My first season as a fan. So I researched into this a little further and guess what I found?? The Seals played on Christmas Day: Saturday, December 25th, 1971, against the Kings in Los Angeles! The Seals won the game, 3 to 1. The Seals are the last team in NHL history to win a regular season game on Christmas. Note that other NHL games were already over with by the time the Seals / Kings game was in the books. Stan Gilbertson is the last player in NHL history to score a goal on Christmas. He scored an empty net goal at 19:42 of the 3rd period to give the Seals a 3 to 1 victory. Gilles Meloche is the last goalie to win a game on Christmas, and the last fight on Christmas was between Ernie Hicke and Jean Potvin at 2:04 of the 1st period. What an amazing piece of trivia… The Seals really are famous. I’m proud to still be a fan!
Great pieces of trivia! But now we have to get to the not-so-great, and that would be this week’s Overexposed… pog? Yup, this week we dive head first into the world of pog, that overpriced cardboard coin fad that was all the rage for about six weeks in the early 1990s. What makes this week’s pog “not-so-great”, you ask? You’ll have to head on over to the Overexposed section to find out for yourself, but I can tell you for sure that it has something to do with the exaggerated use of sports terms we often take for granted. Think you know what a hockey “legend”? If you’re reading this now, and you were responsible in any way for this week’s pog, you most definitely have NO idea what the word means.
There is also a new article for you to read this week, this time featuring Wayne Merrick and the 1975-76 Golden Seals. Ah, January 1976 was a GREAT time to be a Seals fan. For the first time ever, the Seals put together a truly dominant stretch, a 7-1-1 mark that started on January 2nd and ended on the 25th. For the first time since 1972, the Seals actually had a realistic shot at the playoffs and looked to be gunning for their first-ever .500 season. Merrick went so far as to exclaim, “We’re going to make it this year.” Unfortunately, the team went into its usual late-season tailspin and ended up missing the dance by 18 points, but for a very brief period, it was indeed good to be a Seals fan.
One last reminder that the voting for the Seals Hall of Fame inductions will conclude in exactly one week. June 28 will be the last day to cast your vote, and the new inductees will be announced two weeks later, so if you haven’t done your Seals civic duty yet, you had better get crackin’.
Until next time, stay gold!