Hi everyone! Welcome back to another update on Golden Seals Hockey! Have we got an exciting announcement for all of you today, but we’ll get to that in a minute. First, this week’s new addition to the Overexposed wing of the Hockey Hall of Shame. We’re hopping in the way-back machine and stopping off in 1975 when the Washington Capitals were still in their infancy. That first season did not go well for the poor Caps, as they won just one road game (against the Seals) and finished the campaign dead last at 8-67-5. One would think they would have finished higher considering the human experimentation that was going on in D.C. In fact, many people don’t know that the Capitals may have been the first hockey team, maybe the first sports franchise to ever employ a two-headed player. You read that right folks, and as usual, I can hear you sighing and not believing me. Come on, did you think I would just drop a bombshell like that on you, and not back it up with some photo evidence? Take a stroll down the Overexposed wing to see for yourself what really went on in Washington oh so many years ago.

And now on to the big news…

As you know, my book, The California Golden Seals: a Tale of White Skates, Red Ink, and One of the NHL’s Most Outlandish Teams is going to paperback October 1, and to celebrate the occasion I would like to announce a new contest in which the winner will win an autographed copy of the book! The contest couldn’t be any easier too. All you have to do is write me an e-mail at stevecurrier@goldensealshockey.com or here at Contact Steve and explain, in 100 words or less, why YOU are the biggest, most dedicated California Golden Seals fan. The contest will remain open until October 9, on which day the winner will be announced. Good luck to all of you, and may the best man or woman win!

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! Well, we’re down to the nitty gritty in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and the mug is going to end up somewhere in the deep South this year. I think Tampa is finally going to do it after coming so close so many times. That four-game sweep against Columbus last year was a real wake up call, much like the New York Islanders endured in 1979 when they were beat by the Rangers. They didn’t lose another playoff round until 1984. I’m not saying the Lightning is going to start a new hockey dynasty, but I think they’ve got a Cup in them this year at least. They kept their foot off the gas just a little bit during the regular season, sacrificed a few points to stay fresh in the playoffs, and now they are being rewarded. They went all out last year and won 62 games, yet zero in the playoffs. They learned. I pick Tampa in six.

I realized recently that it has been a long time since I posted any links to Seals-related audio or video, so this week, I’ve added new links to great interviews with Wayne Carleton, Dennis Maruk, and Rick Smith, which you can find here. You can find all of these interviews and many more from other legends of the sport at the Pro Hockey Alumni Podcast.

If there is anyone who has not already pre-ordered their paperback copy of my book The California Golden Seals: a Tale of White Skates, Red Ink, and One of the NHL’s Most Outlandish Teams, the University of Nebraska Press is making you a special offer, and you can download the flyer right here. which will get you 40% off the cover price! WOW!

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! This week, part two of our exploration of the Cleveland Barons’ near death in February 1977. As we left the Barons last week, the team was basically dead and people were having their mail forwarded to their parents’ home until they found out where they were playing next, if they even had a spot on a professional roster. This week, the Barons rise from the dead! Just one day after the Barons’ death was announced, a miraculous resurrection. Unlike most resurrections, from Jesus to Jon Snow (spoiler alert!) where the person’s return is hailed as a great moment that will forever change history, in the case of the Barons we find the most disappointed bunch of hockey players you ever did see. You can read all about how the Barons were saved, as well as a special bonus article about the team’s first game afterwards here.

In the Overexposed section this week, we feature the former Toronto Maple Leaf Leo Komarov doing his impression of a Florida-based creature that spends a lot of time in the water, and I’m not talking about a crocodile either. If you haven’t figured out which animal I’m talking about, and you skipped over the title of today’s post, you can find out here.

That’s about it for this week. Have yourselves a great weekend, and stay responsible and safe out there. Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! Lately, the media has been accused of publishing fake news, being less than objective, and posting stories before getting all the facts straight. Yes, 2020 has not been kind to the media, which for many, many years, was the only way to get our hands on information about current events. Now, I don’t want to dump on reporters and writers; they are doing the best they can in a very difficult time. They get drenched by waves in the middle of hurricanes, they get rubber bullets sprayed at them as they report on riots, and they get wild animals biting them in the face as they try to interview the local zookeeper. Being a reporter is hard work, and they get nothing but grief. That being said, back in February 1977, some media members were a little too quick to predict the dissolution of the Cleveland Barons. Sure, the Barons were basically in a coma and on life support at that point, but sometimes people do wake up, and the Barons did exactly that. You can read all about the premature death of the Barons in the articles section.

And for all of you sumo fans out there, and I know there are dozens of you out there, you will definitely want to check out the first hockey-sumo crossover in NHL history. At least, its the first one, as far as I know, that has been immortalized on cardboard, and it is being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Shame’s Overexposed wing, which you can visit right here.

I hope everyone has a great Labour Day weekend and is able to enjoy the final days of warm-ish weather. At least, up here in Ottawa, warm-ish is about all we can hope for in September, but I’ll take it as long as it’s sunny. Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! Well, my beloved Habs are once again out of the playoffs, but it was a nice 10-game run, a run that never would have happened in the first place had it not been for COVID. I would have preferred landing Alexis Lafrenière in the draft, but there was no guarantee they were going to win the lottery anyway if they had lost against Pittsburgh. As we’re down to just one Canadian team, here’s hoping Vancouver can continue their string of good luck and great performances and bring Stanley back home.

This week, there is a new article about Walt McKechnie and his on-ice partnership with Joey Johnston and Craig Patrick. McKechnie owed a lot of his career to the Seals, who rescued him from obscurity in Minnesota. He immediately became one of the team’s most productive players and enjoyed three solid seasons in Oakland before going on to greater success in Detroit and Toronto.

And in the Hockey Hall of Shame this week, we have a brand new Overexposed induction featuring former Boston Bruin goaltender Doug Keans dealing with a… shall we say… personal problem. To find out what problem I’m talking about, you’ll have to head on over to this week’s newest Overexposed card.

Until next week, stay gold!

Hi everyone! The contenders are beginning to fall by the wayside. Goodbye Columbus. Goodbye Arizona. Goodbye Chicago. Goodbye Carolina. We’re down to teams 12 now and of those twelve, a couple are teetering on the brink of defeat. By next week at this time, we’ll be down to our final eight teams and then things will get really interesting. I’m particularly looking forward to the second round as so many of the league’s best teams, namely Vegas, Boston and Tampa Bay, are only beginning to gain steam, so we should be in for a real treat. Unfortunately, I will miss the rest of round one since I will be going to the in-laws who live where the Internet forgot to show up, so I’ll be lucky to find out what’s about to happen to my Habs, and the other eleven contenders who are left.

At least these teams got to play at least a few playoff games, unlike the 1971-72 Seals. They came awfully close, though, and one can only wonder if they would have made it with Carol Vadnais in the line-up. On February 23, the Seals were 18-29-14, which put them right in contention for the fourth and final playoff spot in the West Division. GM Garry Young was hoping that by trading the disgruntled Vadnais for Reggie Leach, Rick Smith and Bob Stewart, the Seals would improve their depth at several positions (namely defense). This week, we look into the famous trade since we are nearing the date of Carol Vadnais’s passing August 31, 2014 at the age of 68. You can find a brand new Hockey News article from March 1972 in the articles section.

On that note, I wish you all a pleasant playoff, and I’ll have new stuff for all of you next week upon my return. Until next time, stay gold!

You’ve picked a great time to check out Golden Seals Hockey, my friend! Not only have we got a brand new Overexposed induction featuring wrestling star Chris Jericho’s dad, Ted Irvine, but we’ve also got a brand new Hockey Hall of Shame induction featuring this site’s main subject, the California Golden Seals

The Seals really did nothing to deserve this induction, and in fact, it isn’t really about them either, but rather about the worst-ever California Golden Seals replica jerseys on the Internet today. I don’t know who created some of these, but they obviously had no access to hockey books, hockey cards, newspaper archive or Internet website, because none of these things are even close to being “replicas”. You have to see these for yourself to believe they exist, but I warn you, the shock may take days, even weeks to wear off, much like the sting Leafs fans have been feeling since their heroes fell off the playoff cliff earlier in the week. I’m not a Leafs fan, so I don’t know the feeling myself, but I do like mocking Leafs fans, so I know how I want Leafs fans to feel, and I imagine it isn’t pleasant. Anyway…

You should also check out this week’s cardboard catastrophe, courtesy of O-Pee-Chee. The card says that its photo is of Ted Irvine, but I have my doubts, and you’ll find out why right here. It also contains one of the worst St. Louis Blues jersey renditions ever.

Anyhow, my little girl has been waking up repeatedly this evening, and I may not have much time left before her next crying spell or diaper leak, so I’ll have to wrap this up quickly.Hope everyone is enjoying this year’s playoffs. They’ve been a little unorthodox, but fun nonetheless. The games have been exciting. There have been some surprises. I can’t complain. It’ll be strange not having a new season start in October, and it will be strange seeing someone walk away with the Stanley Cup in the fall, but I’m just glad hockey is back.

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! That’s right… how to taste a smell. That is not a typo, but rather some key words in the headline of the article I have posted this week about the Cleveland Barons ending their awful 15-game winless streak in the dying weeks of the 1977-78 schedule. It seems the team tasted the smell of success, whatever that means. Maybe you’ll find some sort of explanation in the article itself, but I sure couldn’t find anything. If you want to read up on one of the Barons’ very last wins as an NHL franchise, you can head on over here to the articles section.

It will be a short update this week, as I’ve been invited to participate in a new thread about my book on HFBoards, which houses a bunch of a message boards and interesting forums all about hockey and the NHL. It’s a great place to chat with other hockey aficionados, post comments, ask questions, and hob-nob with a few people who have written hockey books and articles. On Sunday, I’ll be starting a new thread about my book on the Seals, so if you want to contribute by submitting questions or comments, please feel free, the more the merrier! The thread isn’t up yet, but if you go to https://hfboards.mandatory.com/forums/the-history-of-hockey.126/ you’ll find my thread there on Sunday. If you go now, you’ll find a whole bunch of other interesting topics and some threads created by other writers who have just released books. I’m actually kinda lucky to be participating in this Society for International Hockey Research Project since it’s been almost three years since my book was published.

Anyway, that’s about it for this week. Keep enjoying the Stanley Cup playoffs as we never truly know how long they are going to last this year. So far, so good. Players are keeping their noses clean and staying inside their bubble, so we may actually crown a Stanley Cup champ this fall.

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! As I was rocking my daughter to sleep I was thinking about the article I wanted to post this week, and like a bolt of lightning, I realized that the former Seals great shares the same name as a certain beloved Simpsons character. That’s right, Mr. Burns actually played for the Seals! Well, maybe not THE Mr. Burns, one Charles Montgomery, but rather Charles Frederick Burns. Still, it is fun to picture Homer’s sadistic, century-old, cranky, billionaire boss hipchecking the Plager Brothers. The three-dimensional Burns played six years in the Bay Area and was widely respected by teammates and opponents for being one of the hardest-working players game-in, game-out. You can read this great, classic piece on Burns from the February 1968 Hockey Pictorial right here.

If that isn’t enough of a treat for you, there is also a brand new induction just waiting to be read in the Hockey Hall of Shame, and it is going to bring back some warm and fuzzy memories. Just kidding, it’s a bunch of awful photos of some truly awful jerseys that hopefully will never be seen again. You may want to claw your eyes out, but don’t let that stop you from reading and expanding your mind.

If you’ve got a few minutes, be sure to check out the Surveys section of the site to vote for the best line in franchise history. Come on, dude, you’ve got the time. Go ahead, check it out and make your vote count.

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! This week, we’ve got a bunch of new stuff for you, so let’s get started, shall we?

First, we’ve got a new article from the March 15, 1976 Oakland Tribune‘s John Porter about the night the Seals were officially eliminated from the playoffs for the sixth year in a row. This time, however, there remained the feeling that there were better days ahead as the Seals gave the Boston Bruins all they could handle. You can read the game report over in the articles section.

You may also want to read this week’s bonus article, which was sent to me by site subscriber Mark Harris. It is about the five best former Pittsburgh Penguins who had a significant impact with another franchise. That other franchise would be the Seals. You can read the piece over here.

Since it’s been a while since the last Overexposed induction into the Hockey Hall of Shame, go take a look at the latest dose of cardboard weirdness featuring the Hartford Whalers’ Adam Burt about to get hit. How is he about to get hit, you’ll have to go read this week’s piece to find out.

Anyway, that’s about it for this week. I’m going to be spending the next few days in the pool and feeding neighbour cats with my wife and kids. Supposed to be a hot weekend, so we’ll be seeing lots of water, I’m sure. Hope all of you stay cool and relaxed and enjoying the outdoors. Wear a mask if you have to and stay safe!

Until next time, stay gold!