Hi everyone! This week, I went through my archives and found an article I had dug up at Queen’s University some 20 years ago when I was still doing research for my book about the Seals. This, of course, was during the days when finding any article on the Seals was a big deal. I hadn’t yet discovered sites like Newspaper Archive or Newspapers.com (if they even existed at the time), so I was more than thrilled to find this piece from the July 29, 1970 Newsweek. It truly was a rarity when the Seals appeared in a mainstream sports or news magazine. Hockey wasn’t terribly popular at the time, and whenever anyone reported on hockey, it was usually the Boston Bruins, Philadelphia Flyers, or Montreal Canadiens that got the attention. To the mainstream media, Oakland was about as far away as the Moon.

This week’s article goes into great detail about what was going on behind the scenes in the summer of 1970. Of course, this is the period in which Charlie Finley and Jerry Seltzer were duking it out over ownership of the Seals. Of course, we all know how this turned out (If you don’t, well, “Spoiler alert”: It was all bad.). It is truly amazing how many wild, cockamamie ideas Charlie Finley was throwing around (including the idea of white skates), and it is mind-boggling just thinking about how hockey would have been affected if he had been given carte blanche to do what he wanted. You can read all about that tumultuous summer right here.

If anyone happens to be in the Ottawa area this Sunday, December 11 I will be selling and signing copies of my books (as well as a few hockey cards) at the Sports Card and Comic Book Show at the Nepean Sportsplex (1701 Woodroffe Ave., Hall B) from 10am-3pm. If you are a collector, it should be a lot of fun, and you will likely find something that you didn’t know you needed. Hope to see you all there!

Until next time, stay gold!