tedbulley

Holy sh*t! What the hell is wrong with Ted Bulley’s face?  I mean, WOW!  Where to start here? It looks like he has a leech sucking on the part of his face where his eyebrows should be.  Then there’s this weird blackish mark on his chin, which might be some sort of injury, I don’t know.  He also might have a black eye.  According to Hockeyfights.com, he had nine scraps that year, so it’s likely that ain’t eyeliner.

From what I can gather from this picture, Ted must have been way past his prime here, what with the grey hair and all.  How old was he anyway?  Hang on a minute, let me look it up on Hockey-reference.com.

Ok…

Ted Bulley…

Chicago Blackhawks, 1977-78…

and ENTER.

Hmm… drafted in the 7th round, 115th overall.  Oh, a late-bloomer.  Good for him making it all the way to the NHL!

Born in Windsor, Ontario, March 25th, 1955…

Wait a minute?  1977 minus 1955 equals 22?  No, that can’t be right.  THAT is the face of a 22-year-old?  Did he fall face first into a working snow-blower and then after getting up, dive right back in?

After taking a few minutes to go through my 1978-79 O-Pee-Chee set, Bulley’s grey hair shouldn’t have surprised me.  Apparently, grey hair was all the rage back in the late 70s, kind of like how everyone’s getting collagen injections nowadays to match whatever the Kardashian du jour is doing.  At least, that’s what O-Pee-Chee seemed to be telling us by the number of players who have shockingly grey hair in their photos that year.  None though, more grey than exhibit B, Hall-of-Famer, and Bulley’s teammate, Tony Esposito.

tonyesposito

When was this photo taken?  At last year’s Blackhawks alumni game?  He looks to be at least 60 in this photo.  I haven’t seen a young man look this old since Benjamin Button.  How did O-Pee-Chee manage to age Tony forty years like that?  Or did Tony really have battleship grey hair like that?  Didn’t Just For Men or some reasonable facsimile exist back in 1978?  If these cards are any indication whatsoever, I need to build me a time machine, go back to the mid-seventies, patent that product, and befriend as many hockey players as possible, because man were they ever rockin’ that grey hair.