Hi everyone! I’m back and I’ve got lots of new stuff to share. Had a great holiday with the family. Got a chance to read Moneyball, the great baseball insider’s book about the Oakland A’s of the early 2000s, and I advanced quite a bit on my new book on the early years of the Washington Capitals and Kansas City Scouts. The little one got to spend lots of time with his friends, and for the most part, he hung on to his uncle Mark like a cape on Superman. I also got my first royalty check while I was away so that was pretty cool ($264,000!… just kidding), not to mention the new Hockey News season preview issue (Spoiler alert: Montreal is going to suck badly this year too), and George Swarbrick and Gerry Pinder autographed cards (I’ll post those soon along with a few other great custom cards I’ve had signed recently).

It’s been a while since I posted anything related to the Cleveland Barons so this week I’m posting two interesting pieces that I discovered in my archives. The first article is about how the Cleveland Barons’ logo was created. I don’t know who wrote it, however, and I’ll I know about it is that I found it years and years ago on a long-defunct site called The Cleveland Barons Retrospective. The other article, from the Cleveland Press, is about how the 1976-77 Barons looked to build their team like the Montreal Canadiens, that is stressing skill and speed rather than muscle, like the Philadelphia Flyers had done with such success. Of course, in the 1976 playoffs, the Canadiens had handed the Flyers an embarrassing four-game thrashing and wrested the Stanley Cup from the Bullies, and it would remain in Montreal for four years before moving on to Long Island and Edmonton, two other teams who possessed a dazzling array of talent. While the Barons never came close to capturing that elusive Cup, they never did jump on the goon band-wagon either. Today, the Barons, and the Seals, are known for their skill players rather than their tough guys.

In the Overexposed wing of the Hockey Hall of Shame, we have a feature on former Seals draft pick Chris Oddleifson, whose rookie card is… intimidating-looking to say the least. You’ll have to check it out for yourself to see what I mean, unless you already own the card. In this case, you’ve probably already been scarred for life and don’t really need to be reminded of past horrors. Enjoy!

Until next time, stay gold!