Good day everyone, and Happy Black Friday to you all!  What a big week it has been in hockey.  I feel as though with the unveiling of the “Vegas Golden Knights”, the NHL has officially arrived in the desert.  Not sure how I feel about the name though… it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like California Golden Seals.  I’m also not a big fan of teams using shortened versions of their cities or team names in any capacity.  I don’t like the fact the Tampa Bay Lightning has “Bolts” written across their fronts, or the fact that the Golden State Warriors sometimes have “The City” written on their jerseys, or that sometimes you’ll see teams with “ATL,” “SAC,” or “PHX” right there for all to see.  Those are not abbreviations!  Never were!  Stop trying to make these things catch on; they never will.  NY? Fine.  LA? Cool.  Other than that, nuh uh!  Just had to get that off my chest once and for all.

Anyway, huge update today!  Three new articles have been posted, and they are a mix of nostalgia and embarrassment.  First, the nostalgia… a brand new article written by yours truly on the old Wrecking Crew Line of Dave Hrechkosy, Butch Williams, and Ron Huston.  For a very brief time, the Wrecking Crew took the Bay Area by storm and seemed to signal the Seals were heading in the right direction, but then everything took a turn for the worst, and a little over a year later, none of the three were playing professional hockey at its highest level.  Seals fans still remember that line fondly though, so I thought it was time to write a short piece on this, one of the few line combinations that actually worked for the Seals.

Another bit of nostalgia for all you old school Oakland Seals fans is the heated rivalry that once existed between Chicago’s Keith Magnuson and the Seals’ Carol Vadnais.  I found this article online a few years ago, and kept it in my archives, but I forgot to write down where I found it.  If anyone has any information on its origin, please let me know, and I’ll be sure to post it.

Finally, the embarrassment… I had to post this article on one of the lowest moments in franchise history: March 28, 1975, a date that will live on in infamy.  This was the night the first-year Washington Crapitals (not a typo) visited Oakland with a 0-37 record on the road, and defeated the Seals, who were in the midst of an 8-game winless streak to finish off the season.  The Caps justifiably treated this victory like it was the Stanley Cup.  Considering they won all of 8 games that season, they didn’t enjoy many greater moments than this.

I’ve also added a new induction to the Overexposed wing of the Hockey Hall of Shame: a review of the 1995-96 Upper Deck Be a Player set, which, somehow, is actually worse than last week’s induction.  Venture into the Hockey Hall of Shame to see what I mean, if you dare!  Until next week, stay gold!