Hi everyone! It’s good to be back after spending a week in balmy Playa del Carmen, Mexico. If you’ve never stayed at an all-inclusive hotel before, I can’t recommend it more highly. It was amazing just walking around and having access to snacks, drinks, and other goodies at every turn. I ate so many mini muffins and brownies, I seriously put on five pounds over the week. There may be no greater feeling in the world than having a Mexican coati (sort of like a cross between a cat and a raccoon) steal the hamburger right off your poolside plate and not caring a lick about it because someone will just bring you a new burger no questions asked. Yes, those little creatures, not to mention all sorts of cats, geckos, and something called a Jesus Christ lizard just blend in to the scenery at the resort, coexisting with its human customers. It was awesome just watching them do their thing. Alas, all good things must come to an end, and we had to get back reality, but we look forward to going back next year.

I can’t say I missed Ottawa’s frigid winter weather much. In the span of six hours or so we went from 28-degree Celcius weather in Mexico to about -20 upon landing in Canada. Word to the wise, when you go from very, very cold to very, very hot weather and back again, make sure you have some sort of access to warm coats. We didn’t. For some reason, we had the brilliant idea of leaving home in nothing more than hoodies and sneakers, since we were driving to Toronto to catch our plane to Mexico. We didn’t really think that once we got back to Canada we could be faced with a winter storm or something. Sure enough, when we left our hotel in Toronto on Sunday morning, the city was hit with a storm complete with 40cm of bitter, blowing snow. Stopping at service stations for pees and gas was interesting to say the least. Now that we’re back though, it’s nice to get familiar with our “old” life again, and that means getting back to work.

This week, I decided to do something a bit different. I received an email two weeks ago from a guy named JD Vercett asking about a photo that inspired me to eventually write my book on the Seals. The photo in question is this one:

Yup, if you’ve ever wondered why anyone born three years after the Seals’ demise would ever start writing the history of our favorite defunct franchise (and at the tender age of 12, no less), well, look no further. This photo of George Swarbrick comes from page 39 of the May 1988 issue of Hockey Illustrated, and stumbling upon it was a life-changing event, believe it or not. I was at the Pop Shoppe with my dad one day and I saw the magazine featuring then Edmonton Oilers star Wayne Gretzky on the cover. I had just started getting into hockey that season, and I knew that Gretzky was the biggest star in the league, so I asked my dad to buy the magazine for me, not at all knowing that the real treasure in that issue was the Swarbrick picture featured in an article about the 1967 expansion. I was so captivated by the unusual logo on Swarbrick’s chest. Soon after, I began seeing little hints here and there that the Seals had once existed. In my 1987 Panini sticker album, there were three players, Gilles Meloche, Dennis Maruk, and Charlie Simmer, who had mysterious the “CAL” and “CLE” written into their career statistics. In a later Esso sticker book, there was a brief mention of the Seals stating that they eventually “disappeared entirely,” making the team even more intriguing.

As I started collecting vintage hockey cards in the early 1990s, I picked up other clues here and there as to who the Seals and Barons were, and being a curious young lad, I wrote to the NHL asking for any information they had on defunct teams like the Seals, Atlanta Flames, Colorado Rockies, et al. Someone at the league either wanted to get rid of a pesky kid asking for what would have amounted to a crap load of research effort, or that same person was incredibly thoughtful, but whatever the case, this league employee photocopied the entire 1975-76 Seals media guide and sent that back to me. To this day, I still have that media guide. I absolutely devoured it memorizing every statistic and every name, and even though I was only 12 years old at the time, I started writing what would eventually become my first book.. So there you have it, my background story, and the picture that inspired it.

In closing this week, I’d like to thank everyone who logged on for my Seals presentation Thursday night. I had a great time connecting with Seals fans and answering questions. I only wish I had had more time, but an hour really flies by when I get to talk about hockey. I look forward to more opportunities like this one, and if ever they present themselves, I will be sure to let you know.

On that note, I hope everyone has a pleasant weekend, and I will see you again next week. Stay gold!