Hi everyone! Welcome back to another great edition (Can I call it that?) of Golden Seals Hockey! Some truly great stuff has been put up on the site this week, so check this out…

This week, I’ve posted a great, rare article from Sports Illustrated entitled “These Seals Refuse to Play Dead”. It is one of the first real (as in not found in my local newspaper) articles I ever found about the Seals. I went to the Cornwall Public Library sometime in the mid-1990s and looked through its Sports Illustrated archives hoping to find anything related to the Seals. This was back when I was in high school and I was starting to plan for my book by picking up whatever information I could find. Of course, this was before the Internet had anything of value on it, so it took a real long time to get all of my facts together… about twenty years or so. There really was not much in the library’s archives, however, since the Seals were never a huge topic of conversation in the 1970s, so they never got much ink outside of the Bay Area. In fact, the Seals are probably a bigger topic of conversation today. Back in the 70s, much like now, S.I. spent more time focusing on baseball and football, so hockey didn’t get much coverage at all unless it had to do with Bobby Orr or the Philadelphia Flyers. So when I found this article, I was pretty stoked. I just thought about it a few days ago while I was brushing my teeth or something, and I realized I had never scanned it, along with a few other long articles from vintage magazines I’ve collected over the years, so I’m going to start posting a few of those in the coming weeks too.

And in the Overexposed wing of the Hockey Hall of Shame, an induction that has been begging for entry for many a month now. I’m talking about the classic 1992-93 Parkhurst card of Philadelphia Flyers legend Ed Van Impe. Ed was a pretty tough nut who bent more than a few rules back in the day. We all remember his vicious cross check on one of the Soviet Red Army players (I forget who, perhaps Kharlamov?) when the Flyers played the Russians during the 1976 Super Series. In this card commemorating his career, however, he definitely doesn’t strike fear in anyone’s eye.

Not much else to add other than that. Summer time is quite slow when it comes to hockey, and sports in general unless you’re a baseball fan. And in that case, there’s a good chance your team is already a lock to miss the playoffs. Damn Blue Jays!! Don’t forget to keep sending in your questions, comments, and feedback. Always a pleasure to hear from you! Also, don’t forget to leave some feedback about my book the next time you visit Amazon.com!

Until next time, stay gold!