Hi everyone! I don’t know what the weather is like for all of you throughout Hockeyland, but in my neck of the woods, things are really looking up. We’ve had sun and just a little bit of heat all week long, and it’s going to continue throughout the weekend. Haven’t had this type of consistently pleasant weather since last August, and with this lock-down stuff seemingly unending, it certainly is appreciated. The weather, I mean, not the lock-down.

More and more, I keep hearing rumors that the NHL season is going to resume sooner rather than later. Whenever it does, it is probably going to feel like a brand new season, so why not get into the early-season mood with a brand new Seals article from the early days of the 1968-69 season. The Seals were playing the Kings in a game that featured a little bit of everything: hitting, punching, comebacks and controversy. And you’ll find out what the word “puncheroo” means too, so there’s an added bonus for your vocabulary. As always, you can find all Seals-related articles right over here.

Finally, if you’re a Calgary Flames fan, and you love receiving fashion tips, this is the card for you! I’m talking about the classic Zarley Zalapski sittin’-on-the-boards-wearin’-the-tightest-black-shorts-you-ever-did-see card. What, you don’t remember this one? Oh, then you absolutely must head on over to the Overexposed wing of the Hockey Hall of Shame, but be forewarned: you will never be able to un-see what Upper Deck concocted once upon a time.

Before you leave, don’t forget to cast your votes for this year’s inductees to the Seals Hall of Fame. You have until the end of June, so you still have time, but why wait, right?

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! Well, it’s week 47 of quarantine, and still no hockey. Bunch of rumors going around, but that’s it. Getting harder and harder to come up with some sort of hockey-related, even sports-related intro to these postings. Doesn’t help much that the main topic of this site, the California Golden Seals, haven’t played a game in over four decades, but we keep plugging along hoping that tomorrow will bring some good news. It feels like forever since COVID-19 took sports away from us like Donald Audette used to kick the skates out from under his much-bigger opponents.

So, like I said, I… wait, what? You didn’t know that Donald Audette had such a violent streak? He sure did, and I gots the proof. You should check out the latest induction to the Overexposed wing of the Hockey Hall of Shame, a fantastic new card featuring the former Buffalo Sabres star.

This week, we’re going back to season one of the Seals’ NHL life. Back to the time when the Montreal Canadiens paid their first visit to the Oakland Coliseum… and lost. The Canadiens would have the last laugh, however, winning the 1968 Stanley Cup, but one brief shining moment the Seals came out on top. It was also the Seals’ very first win against an Original Six club, in fact, the one on which star goaltender Charlie Hodge had enjoyed so much success. You can read all about it here.

Don’t forget to cast your vote for your fave candidates for the 2020 Seals Hall of Fame induction! You can find the ballot right over there on the right-hand side of the page. Easy!

Until next time, folks, stay gold!

Hi everyone! I hope everyone is doing well and not going too stir-crazy spending all this extra time at home. I’m glad to hear that before long I’ll be able to escape my cellar where I do all my teaching nowadays. Almost like back in January 1976 when the Seals were inching ever so closely to a playoff spot and attempting to climb out of their division basement for the first time since 1972. This week’s article comes from that point in time just after a big win over division rivals the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Continuing the “at home” theme, have we got a treat for you! Yes, we’ve got two new Overexposed inductions, which I had to post together in one posting, which you will understand why when you check out these classic Shayne Corson cards. These beauties were produced during that strange period in the mid-to-late 1990s when card companies loved featuring NHL players engaging in their favorite hobbies. You probably remember the crap-load of golfing cards we’ve featured in the past, not to mention Mike Ricci riding around on a golf cart like a four-year-old, and Joe Sakic eating soup. Ah, memories! In Shayne Corson’s case, his hobby was apparently… DUM, DUM, DUM… MURDER! I know, I know, you don’t believe me, and if I were you I wouldn’t either. But I’m not you, I’m me, and I’m tellin’ ya there was something fishy going on at the Corson residence between 1997 and 1998. You’ll just have to check out this week’s induction to find out for yourself.

One last thing I wanted to announce… The paperback version of my book is now available for pre-order on Amazon if you want to pick it up, but there’s a catch. You won’t be able to get it in your hands until October 1 when it is officially released. So, if you’re looking to get your Christmas shopping done early – and let’s face it, there’s still a chance you won’t be leaving the house anytime soon – wouldn’t it be great for a book to just one day show up in your mailbox? Yup, that’s what I thought, so head on over to Amazon and get clicking!

Until next time, stay gold!

In watching a lot of these classic NHL games on TV to satisfy my need for sports during this pandemic, I’ve noticed that the game definitely had a lot more clutching and grabbing than I remember. Case in point, this week’s Overexposed card featuring the Florida Panthers’ Johan Garpenlov. Take a look at the moment when a photographer captured the guy getting his lunch money stolen by a gang of angry schoolyard thugs.

This week’s Seals article is not so much about mugging your fellow man, but more about pushing and shoving a… wait, what’s that I see? Is that a cartoon Seal shoving a boy scout in the face? Yup, that’s what it is all right, and it can be found right here in the latest Lee Susman cartoon which was published just before the Seals’ first-ever game against the Kansas City Scouts October 23, 1974. This week’s article is not a very long one, but more of a companion piece to the Susman caroon. It is interesting that the Seals may have been giving the expansion Scouts a little extra motivation by not being able to name a single one of them when asked to do so by a Bay Area reporter, which was strange considering four-year Seals veteran Gary Croteau was now on the Scouts’ roster.

Also, friend of the site Greg Enright let me know recently that his book titled The Pittsburgh Penguins: the First 25 Years has been published, and it looks like a great read, which I’m looking forward to digging into. Most of you here right now are fans of old-school hockey and the post-expansion era, so you’ll want to check out this book. There is a sample on Amazon, and it is available there, but in Kindle form only. If you prefer a more traditional softcover version, you can pick it up on the McFarland website here.

In closing this week, I’m sending out an S.O.S. (thanks, Sting!) hoping a few of you out there can think of some brutally awkward hockey cards that need to be posted on this site. In fact, if anyone has any suggestions for topics they would like to see roasted in the Hockey Hall of Shame, send them on over to me, and I’ll see what I can do to make your dreams come true! And once you’re done sending me snaps of God-awful cardboard crap and goofy hockey marketing ideas, don’t forget to vote for your picks for the Seals Hall of Fame. The online ballot is right there to your right, and you can vote up to three times per device.

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! With all the talk about hockey coming back, there is finally a little enthusiasm in the air. Sure, no one will actually be able to attend any games, but in my opinion, as long as there is some sort of competitive current-day sports for us to watch on TV, I’m happy. Not sure if the excitement is similar to the excitement that Seals fans felt after their team won their opening game of 1973-74, but I needed some sort of introduction to this article I wanted to post, so voilà! As an added bonus, there is also a nice Lee Susman cartoon from the previous day’s Oakland Tribune.

And for those of you who are wrestling with the notion of retiring, but are not sure if you still want to go to the office every day even though your boss has told you don’t work there anymore because you were replaced with someone else, well have I got an Overexposed card for ya! It features little-known, but rather underrated defenseman Tom Edur in an underrated O-Pee-Chee blunderfest from 1978-79.

As always, a friendly reminder to vote for the people you believe should be inducted into the Seals Hall of Fame. While the hockey world is completely shut down right now, we keep chugging along and taking your votes, so start clickin’ if you haven’t done so already.

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! I’m sure you’ve all been immersed in a number of books since you’ve been in self-isolation mode. I know I have. I’ve read through Henry Boucha’s autobiography, a history of the Montreal Canadiens-Quebec Nordiques rivalry, and I’m in the process of reading a history of the Vegas Golden Knights as well as The Curse, a history of the L.A. Clippers of the NBA. It’s been nice having time to read so much and catch up on all those books I’ve collected over the years but never had a chance to read, so I thought I’d share with you my views on a book on NHL expansion, Changing the Game by Stephen Laroche. It contains a chapter on the Seals so if you haven’t read this book before, you may be interested in doing so now that you have some spare time. You can read my review of it here.

I’ve also added an article on the night Rick Hampton broke the Seals’ record for most points by a defenseman in a season. I always felt Hampton, like many other high draft picks of doormat teams, got a bad rap as he was asked to deliver the impossible even though he wasn’t even legally old enough to drink. He was in way over his head as the third overall pick in the 1974 amateur draft. In any other year, he probably would have been a low first-round pick, maybe even a second-rounder, but because the WHA had signed so many under-aged players, many who would have been drafted lower were drafted way too high. The ’74 draft, not to mention the next few drafts, were among the weakest in hockey history as first and second overall picks were not nearly as great as previous tip top draftees like Guy Lafleur and Denis Potvin.

As an added bonus to the Hampton article, there is also a cartoon from the Oakland Tribune‘s Lee Susman, courtesy of Bob Marceau, who also sent me the article, and several others I’ll be posting in the coming weeks.

That’s about it for this week. Stay healthy and stay safe. Enjoy your time with your families and take advantage of the nice weather as Spring rolls in. Read a good book in your back yard, bask in the sunshine, and drink lots of coffee and beer!

Until next time, stay gold!

Hi everyone! A lot to discuss this week, so let’s get started…

Well, another week has gone by with really very little to report on the NHL front, except for a non-stop series of rumours. Is the NHL coming back? If they do, do they continue with the regular season? Do they just let in the top 16 teams regardless of the number of games they have left to play? Do they invite all 31 teams to the dance? Who the hell knows? Personally, I’m no fan of the 31-team proposal even if that means my Habs missing the playoffs yet again. I just don’t think that a team that played terribly in the regular-season should get a free pass to the playoffs. I also don’t feel it’s fair some team ranked 9th in a conference but with a game or two in hand should miss the playoffs all on account of a virus wiping out the remainder of the regular season. That, and it would give the hated Leafs a free pass to the playoffs, so forget that proposal too. I think the league should invite all the teams who are reasonably close to a playoff spot and have the lowest ones, maybe even all the teams, compete in a best-of-three preliminary round like back in the late 70s, and then once you have 16 teams left, you have a regular old playoff. Of course, before any of that happens, you need to give the players a short training camp so that they can burn off the extra calories they put on in self-isolation, so who knows how, when, or if the season ever gets back on track.

This week, in (late) commemoration of the Seals’ final game, April 4, 1976, a nice piece from the Oakland Tribune courtesy of the great John Porter. Thanks to Bob Marceau for sending this article my way as I had never read it before. As a added bonus, there is also a cartoon from the Tribune‘s Lee Susman. You can find it all here in the Seals/Barons articles section.

On a sad note, I’m sorry to announce the death of former Seal, and WHA Hall of Famer Tom Webster, 71. This comes just a day after the passing of another WHA Hall of Famer and former Chicago Black Hawks star defenseman Pat Stapleton. Webster was sent to Oakland in a one-for-one swap for defenseman Ron Stackhouse, which was a fair deal, but Webster played only a handful of games for the Seals at the start of the 1971-72 season before going down with a leg injury. He had scored 30 goals for Detroit the year before, so the hope was for him to come back and be a major contributor to the Seals’ offense in 1972-73, but the World Hockey Association came calling and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Webster, like many other former Seals who left the white skates behind, became a big star in the rebel league, scoring 425 points in 352 games leaving many Seals fans to wonder how the team’s fortunes could have been different had the WHA never sprung up in the first place. His best game in Oakland was October 27, 1971 when he scored a goal and an assist, his first two points as a Seal. You can read the write-up to this game in the Seals/Barons articles section.

Until next time, stay gold, and please stay safe and healthy.

Hi everyone! Well, it’s now been three weeks since sports came to a sad and sudden end, and we’re still here. It’s been nice to be able to catch up on some NHL classics on Sportsnet. I got to watch Ron Tugnutt’s 70-save masterpiece against Boston from 1991, a game I remember hearing about the next day, but had never seen. I also got to see the 1980 All-Star game which featured Reggie Leach and Gilles Meloche. I’ve got an ’82 Vancouver Canucks-Chicago Black Hawks game as well as game six of the 1974 Stanley Cup Finals on tap in the next few days, so I’m looking forward to those. Still, they are not the same as watching a game where you don’t already know the outcome ahead of time.

In this week’s blast from the past we’ve added a new piece on Gary Smith’s tough game on March 2, 1969, in which the Seals blew a 4-1 lead to Philadelphia and ended up in a 4-4 tie. You can find this week’s article, as usual, in the Seals/Barons articles section.

And in a brand new Overexposed, we’re featuring Tom Kurvers in either the most selfish or the most depressing moment of his life. It’s a card whose background story is arguably more confounding than an episode of Tiger King. Or maybe I’m once again just reading way too much into a simple early 90s hockey card. I leave it up to you to look at the evidence right here and decide for yourself.

Before you go, be sure to vote for the player or players you feel deserve to be inducted into the Seals Hall of Fame for 2020. You can vote up to three times per device and the voting will continue into early July like we’ve always done here at Golden Seals Hockey.

WordPress has also made a long-awaited and much appreciated update to its parameters and functions, so this site is just about back to where it was before the unpleasantness occurred before Christmas, which made updating this site a real ordeal. That being said, you can once again subscribe to this site to receive this kind of update each and every week! Go ahead and sign up right now by typing in your e-mail address over on the right-hand side of the page. It’s free and it’s fun! Besides, it’s not like you’ll be going out to the restaurant, the opera or Disneyworld today or anytime soon, so go ahead, sign up! I promise you won’t regret it!

Until next time, stay safe and stay gold!

Hi everyone! I received an e-mail from site visitor and Seals fan Stephane Quinty last week, which I thought you all should read. It’s a great little snippit from the life of Pete Laframboise, the first player in Seals history to score four goals in a game. You may remember the game, the famous 11-3 thrashing of the Vancouver Canucks where Charlie Finley, attending his first game of the season, was whooping it up and hollering, and wondering what all the fuss was about in Oakland, because these guys were great! Anyway, enough with the introduction. Here is Stephane’s e-mail:

“I worked for Peter Laframboise from 1992 until his death in 2011. Knowing this, my brother got me your book for Xmas. He was an extremely colourful character who could be generous to a fault but also had it in him to be a tough sob when he needed to be. I’ve been a lifelong Habs fan since the 70’s but the first thing I asked him when we met was about dealing with the Broad Street Bullies. He replied “we beat up so much on each other in Junior that we pretty much left each other alone after that”. I’m not sure how accurate that is after reading your book but perhaps you can shed more light than I can.

“When the Ottawa Senators joined the league and were close to beating the Washington Capitals record for futility, the late (great) Brian Smith came to our shop to interview Peter about being part of that expansion team and how difficult it was to be a part of it. He said that in the dressing room, they didn’t talk about winning, they talked about keeping it close.

“The last tidbit I have about him is that there is a tavern near where our shop used to be where we would drink quarts on Friday afternoons after payday but it was allegedly not the safest place to be after hours. Pete was in his element in that place (for better or worse) but he did make me laugh on one occasion when he said that one guy was giving him a bit too much of a hard time so Pete said that he dialed into his NHL past, pulled the sweater over his head and gave him the business.”

Thanks Stephane from one Ottawan (and Habs fan) to another!

Here’s a little riddle for all of you: How do you get old young?

If you’re looking for the answer, head on over to the articles section and find out how this riddle is related to the California Golden Seals.

Until next time, stay gold, and please stay safe locked away in your home!

Hi everyone! I don’t know about you, but I’m bored. It’s been, what, two months since the sports world went dark, and… what’s that? One week? IT’S ONLY BEEN A FREAKIN’ WEEK???!!! Holy sweet Jesus, what the hell am I gonna do for the next… who the hell knows how long! Man, this sucks. At least during a hockey lockout, you’ve got the good old NBA, some Blue Jays baseball, even the always exciting UFC, but now? OK, calm blue ocean… I’m one with the universe… just a piece of driftwood floating down the river. OK, I think I’m alright. Onto this week’s business.

I was looking through my archives and I found two interesting pieces on the Seals Booster Club. Let’s go back in time when life was a LOT simpler, when the Booster Club, 130+ members strong was craving the return of the NHL to the Bay Area. By 1991, that dream came true, but before it did, what was the Club up to. You can find out in the two new articles from 1988 and 1991, both from the San Francisco Examiner in the articles section.

If you’ve got time (oh, come on, that’s the ONE thing we’ve all got in spades right now, and we’ve got to do something to pass it, right?), head on over to the right-hand side of the screen and cast your vote up to three times for who you feel should be inducted into the Seals Hall of Fame for 2020. The leading vote getters will be formally inducted in July, as tradition dictates on this here site.

Until next time, stay healthy!