Hi everyone and welcome back! It’s been an exciting week here at the site. Lots of people have been writing in looking to help make the site even better! Others have just wanted to share their thoughts on the Seals or let me know how much they appreciate the site. Thanks guys!

As you know, this weekend the San Jose Sharks are hosting the NHL All-Star Weekend for the first time since 1997. Some of you may remember this as the moment when the California Golden Seals (along with other California hockey heroes from the Sharks and Kings) reunited to play a team of alumni from other NHL teams, losing a close game. To celebrate the All-Star Game’s return to the Bay Area, I am posting the San Francisco Seals’ game by game summary. (I know, I know, San Jose is NOT San Francisco, but you have to remember that the Sharks played their first few years in the Cow Palace, where the Seals used to play). Thanks to the Herculean efforts of Chuck Nan and his research skills, I have been able to update the WHL Seals’ home attendance figures and finally get around to posting the game by game summary. Thanks so much, Chuck for sharing your great research with the world! The Seals’ history is a tricky one to trace, but we’re getting there one small step at a time.

What I find truly fascinating about the WHL Seals is how well attended their games were. I can truly understand why the NHL wanted to put a team in the Bay Area. There were a lot of nights when the old Cow Palace was hosting a capacity crowd or a near sell-out. The other thing I find interesting is the bizarre schedule WHL players had to endure. Eight and ten-game home stands were the norm rather than the exception, and road trips were usually brutal! I can understand that teams wanted to keep expenses low so they had lots of two-game series in the same city and teams did most of their traveling in long bursts, but players must have absolutely hated being away from their families for long periods like that. Go check out the stats section to download the San Francisco Seals’ game by game summary. It is not complete as far as attendance figures go, but we’re inching closer to finishing it.

For those of you who are looking for your weekly dose of cringeworthy cardboard, check out this week’s Overexposed victim, former Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Igor Ulanov looking rather queasy. Or maybe he’s just sick and tired of being manhandled by the Colorado Avalanche; you’ll have to decide for yourself.

Weekly reminder time: make sure to cast your vote for the 2019 Seals Hall of Fame by glancing over to the right side of your screen and clicking next to your favorite player or personality. Thanks also to everyone who keeps coming back to the site to check out all the latest updates. Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone!

This week, a huge thanks goes out to site subscriber Mark Harris for sending me a whole bunch of Seals-related photos from his trip to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. Head on over to the photos section to check out some awesome shots of Seals pucks, Morris Mott’s green-and-white skates, and Gary Simmons’ first Seals mask.

Speaking of the man they call “Cobra”, the man he was traded for in January 1977, Gary “Scoop” Edwards, is our feature player this week. Check out the site’s newest article to find out more about Edwards’ sensational debut game with the Cleveland Barons.

Weekly reminder time… Don’t forget to cast your vote for the Seals Hall of Fame, if you haven’t done so already. The race has been very tight so far, but I expect a few candidates to break away from the pack as induction day approaches.

Last but not least, much thanks to everyone who has been writing in and sharing their stories with me, not to mention everyone who has been contributing photos and stats, which I will continue to post every chance I get. Thanks also to all those who have discovered the site through my book. Whether you’ve picked it up at the library, on Amazon, or at your local book market, thank you for helping get the word out!

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! How are you all doing this fine week? I’ve been doing some reading about the Seals this week, but in an unintentional way. You see, I’ve been reading Troy Treasure’s Icing on the Plains, which is a great book detailing the history of the Kansas City Scouts. I was surprised to learn that the Scouts enjoyed one single solitary sell-out in their two-year history, and it wasn’t against Montreal, Boston, or Philly. No, the Scouts’ one sell-out was against California. Yup, March 20, 1976, 16,219 fans crammed into Kansas City’s Kemper Arena to watch two teams that, within a few months, would both be relocated. Of course, there is an asterisk attached to that sell-out: it was Media Appreciation Night and tickets were all $2 apiece, but a sell-out, even a fake one, was still a sell-out. It was the Scouts’ third-last home game ever. The 2-2 tie was also the Scouts second-last point earned in the NHL. When you think about it, maybe they should have thought of the promotion a little earlier. It’s not like they were making much more money drawing 6,000-7,000 fans to the other games.

I’ve been busy trying to drum up some publicity for my book this week, not to mention I’m also putting together a brand new article about the Seals with the help of a fellow fan. I hope to have it completed and posted by next week, so just a small update this week, but I think you’ll like the article I’ve added, an interview with the then recently traded Gary Simmons. As you may or may not know, Gilles Meloche had asked Cleveland general manager Harry Howell for a trade, but instead of trading Meloche, Howell traded Simmons and Jim Moxey to L.A. for goaltender Gary Edwards and one-time big scorer Juha Widing. What I like about this article is all the little tidbits of information about Simmons, including why and where he got his tattoos, his feelings about Newfoundland, and his dislike of pizza despite owning a pizza parlour. Head on over to the articles section to find out more about “Cobra”.

Weekly reminder time… don’t forget to cast your votes for the 2019 Seals Hall of Fame. The competition is starting to get interesting, and a few front-runners are starting to emerge, but there is still lots of time left before the voting closes.

Also, keep those e-mails coming and the stories flowing. I love hearing about how much the Seals meant to you. Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! I hope everyone had themselves a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. After some interesting moments on some of the Quebec Eastern Townships’ infamously horrid dirt roads, I am happy to say we all survived and have safely returned to Ottawa.

This week, I’ve updated the year-by-year scoring and goaltending stats for the NHL Seals and Barons, which you can find in the stats section. Next up will likely be the Seals and Barons all-time scoring totals, which will hopefully be updated in a few weeks.

Also new to the site this week, a classic goofball card featuring former Quebec Nordique and Colorado Avalanche legend Joe Sakic! As you all know, one of my favorite all-time inductions is the legendarily bad 1994-95 Upper Deck Be a Player set. The thing was so bad I inducted the whole damn bunch of cards some two years ago, but in doing so, there was so much garbage I completely overlooked, and that’s what brings us to this week’s Overexposed induction: the infamous Joe Sakic lunch time slab of cardboard which you can find here.

Don’t forget to cast your votes for the 2019 Seals Hall of Fame. You can find the online ballot just over there to your right, and you can vote up to three times per device, so go nuts!

If you’re one of the many people who bought my book about the Seals this Christmas season (thanks so much for that, by the way!), please head on over to Amazon or any other website that rates books, and leave some feedback. Get the word out too if you know of anyone else who loves the Seals or who likes reading hockey history books.

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! It’s that time of year again. Of course, I’m talking about the World Junior Championship, and to celebrate, I’ve added a brand new abomination to the Hockey Hall of Shame’s Overexposed wing. This week’s card comes from that utterly bizarre Upper Deck subset known as “National Heroes”, in which the players goof off in front of the camera and then live to regret their teenage behaviour for the rest of their lives. God bless the Internet!

There is also a brand new article about Seals defenseman Ron Stackhouse and his first season in the NHL. As a hockey writer and historian I’ve always liked articles like this, because they are small glimpses into the more mysterious and forgotten corners of a player’s career. It’s stuff like this that is fun to include in your writing.

Don’t forget to cast your votes for the newest inductees to the Seals Hall of Fame. You can vote up to three times per device, and you can find the nominees on the right side of the screen.

Since I will be away for the Christmas season, and I may or may not have Internet access, this will be the last update until January. Until then, I invite you to check out some classic Hall of Shame inductions such as the Toronto Maple Leafs’ atrocious all-white uniforms, that horrible hockey playing monkey movie, and the Apple USB Mouse that everyone has pretended never existed.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! All the best to you and your loved ones in 2019!

Hey everyone! I’m at home watching the Sens-Habs game and having just finished my Christmas shopping for this year. Got to enjoy myself a nice long weekend too, having taken Friday off to take in a matinee viewing of Bohemian Rhapsody with my wife. All in all, it has been a good weekend, and now I’ve got myself a few minutes to add some new stuff to the site.

This week I’ve added an updated version of the Seals goaltenders register to the stats section. As you may already know, the NHL has since made all of its game summaries available for public viewing, and anyone who keeps tabs on league stats from before 1990 is busy completely rewriting everyone’s records, from superstars to fourth-liners to back-up goaltenders who have played less minutes than you have fingers and toes. Just about everyone’s stats have been updated, which means that just about every hockey book you have sitting on your shelf is now completely inaccurate. Sigh… Anyway, gradually, everything will fall back into place and our beloved stats will be as accurate as they will ever be.

There is also a brand new induction to the Overexposed wing of the Hockey Hall of Shame. This week, we are featuring an awkward shot of Elmer “Moose” Vasko which may give you a splitting headache, but probably not worse than the one Vasko surely had after this photo was snapped.

Weekly reminder time: Don’t forget to cast your votes for who you think should be inducted into the Seals Hall of Fame for 2019. You can vote up to three times per device, and the voting will continue until the summer, when the site celebrates its 3rd anniversary.

You can also pick up my book, The California Golden Seals: a Tale of White Skates, Red Ink, and One of the NHL’s Most Outlandish Teams here. I don’t need to explain (but I will) that it makes a great Christmas gift, and since there are a limited number of shopping days left, you might want to get on that now.

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! It’s that time of year again when I ask all of you to cast your votes for who you believe should be elected to the Seals Hall of Fame in July 2019. Like last year, you can vote up to three times per device, but unlike last year, I have whittled down the list of nominees from 10 to 8. The nominees come from all eras of the franchise’s history, from the early years in the WHL, all the way to the final two years in Cleveland.

Here are the eight 2019 nominees: Tom Thurlby, Charlie Burns, Bill Hicke, Ivan Boldirev, Gary Simmons, Jim Neilson, coach Fred Glover, and broadcaster Joe Starkey.

I invite you to check out the short bios of each nominee here to help you make your choice(s). The voting will continue until the summer, and the new members of the Hall of Fame will be announced at GoldenSealsHockey’s third anniversary in July. You can cast your votes by clicking on the player’s name right next to his picture, and you can vote up to three times on the same device.

The launching of the 2019 Hall of Fame vote is the big news on this site, but the big news in the Bettman circuit is the addition of Seattle as its 32nd franchise. In honour of this week’s big announcement, I’ve added a series of short articles from 1917 that are about the time when the Seattle Metropolitans took on the Montreal Canadiens in San Francisco in a three-game exhibition series that introduced hockey to the Bay Area.

That’s about it for this week. Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! This week’s Seals article comes from the dreadful 1972-73 season when the team enjoyed a surprising amount of success against teams like Boston, Chicago, and the New York Rangers. Yet, for some reason they just couldn’t be the 30-point New York Islanders. Go figure. Of course, when speaking about the Seals, the term “success” is rather relative. You see, the Seals picked up ties against the three aforementioned teams, and for the season they went a combined 1-10-4, but when you lose half your team to another league, and win all of four games by Christmas, you twist around whatever word you can to try and make it sound positive. You can find the article here.

This week, in the Overexposed wing of the Hockey Hall of Shame, we present to you a delightful piece of cardboard featuring former NHL star John Tonelli, who definitely had a different definition (the right one) of the word “success”! You see, Tonelli won four Stanley Cups with the New York Islanders during their early 1980’s heyday, and he also participated in two other Cup finals, and he was a two-time Second Team All-Star to go along with his 325 career goals and 836 career points. You’re gonna love this Tonelli card, especially if you have anger issues, hate referees, or just enjoy people making funny faces that probably weren’t meant to be funny.

And that brings me (in the worst segue ever) to my weekly shill-fest… I must remind you that Christmas is now less than a month away, and if you haven’t finished your Christmas shopping yet, and are still looking for a great gift for great aunt Gladys, you can still pick up my book, The California Golden Seals: a Tale of White Skates, Red Ink, and One of the NHL’s Most Outlandish Teams, over at Amazon for the low, low price of… honestly I have no idea; Amazon keeps changing it like every 15 minutes, but it’s under $30 bucks U.S. most days, so head on over there now to pick up one for that special elderly aunt of yours, and pick up another for uncle Bernie too while you’re at it.

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! The world has become a very dark and dreary place, indeed. I really need to find a way to look on the bright side of things, and accept life as it comes. I’ve recently been thinking of brushing up on Buddhism again. I found the religion interesting a few years ago when I visited the local temple and bought a couple of books that made me look at the world differently. I’m not a religious person, but I could see myself going Buddhist one day if sports, and TV, and the Internet ever disappeared from existence. If I could ever truly focus my energy, I could maybe even end up like Chris Kontos, the most blissful-looking hockey player in history. Just check out this classic Upper Deck card to see what I mean. If I can ever find that level of calm-blue-oceanness, I’m so going to achieve enlightenment like a boss!

There is also another new article from April 1972 that is all about the turmoil that took place in the Seals’ front office as the World Hockey Association threat was on the verge of becoming all-too-real. You can check it out here.

In case you haven’t done so already, please sign up for my weekly update by typing in your e-mail address in the box to the right. I promise no more than one e-mail update per week. You can’t ask for a better deal than that!

And since I haven’t shilled my book in a while, I would also like to remind everyone that Christmas is only a month a way, and what better way to say Merry Christmas than with the gift of The California Golden Seals: a Tale of White Skates, Red Ink, and One of the NHL’s Most Outlandish Teams. If you glance up you’ll notice a box with a picture of my book’s cover. If you scroll down, you can click on “Preview” to read a free sample chapter.

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! Can you believe it? It’s November 16th, and we’ve been walloped with 15cm of snow! I haven’t even had a chance to get my snow tires put on. Worst, this warm-up to winter is not even really a warm-up at all; we actually had snow before Halloween this year!

Traffic was lousy all day, it’s bitterly cold, my boots are wet, and I’m just glad it’s the weekend, and I don’t have to face nature for a few days. Looking to get my mind off the awful crap going on outside my house, I did a bit of searching for some new Seals articles people might be interested in, and I’ve been able to locate some great new stuff so come back to find out what I’ve got.

Two great new additions to the site this week! For those of you looking for more accurate Seals stats, check out the updated year-by-year scoring and goaltending records. The goaltending stats, which have always been the bane of old time stats hounds because there was absolutely no way to accurately determine how many minutes a goaltender played in each game, and how many shots they faced. Now, however, these stats, for all NHL goaltenders, can now be considered complete and accurate thanks to the NHL publishing all of its game summaries on NHL.com. You can also find all of these updated stats on Hockey-reference.com if you’re looking for numbers pertaining to your other favourite goaltenders of the 1960s and 70s. Goaltending stats will literally never be the same as just about every goaltender that has played the game in the pre-expansion and immediate post-expansion eras will have slightly, if not completely different stat lines now that we have easy access to shots-on-goal and minutes-played records. Be warned, however, that I have not yet updated the Seals goaltender register, so the stats do not match up, but that will change in due time when I get the chance to update it.

In the articles section, I’ve added a brand new piece from Hugh McDonald of the San Mateo Times about a March 1972 game against the Chicago Black Hawks. The game featured some great action, including a scuffle between former teammates Paul Shmyr, Gerry Pinder, and Keith Magnuson.

Until next time, stay gold!