Today after church I had the privilege of standing around with my Dad & Ellie K as they reminisced a bit about their memories of hockey night in Canada. I wish I had a recorder actually – as I often do as I listen to these type of stories, but here’s a few highlights I remember. I hope they don’t mind me publishing for the world to see! If either one of them reads this – I beg their forgiveness for my grammar and writing skills, I’m sure there will be a few places they could make improvements, since they are hockey fans but also long time grammar/spelling/writing critics!
Ellie (and Eloise just happened to be there and toss in a few words which was great) was talking about gathering around the radio with his family when he was young – the radio was run by two “B” batteries and one “A” (I think that was it) – I forget what voltage he said. It took a while for it to warm up. The battery would run out every few weeks (again – I think it was weeks not months but not sure) so he and his brother Bordy would carry it into town to get it charged. For the few weeks when it was getting charged there was no radio and no listening to Hockey! The batteries would also run out in the spring usually, and new ones were not bought until the fall. I’m not sure if that coincided with the hockey season, farmwork, or some other factor.
Imperial Oil was the sponsor for Hockey Night in Canada, and sold “3 Star” gasoline. Ellie figures this is where the Three Stars of the game came from (wikipedia says the same thing). It sounded like the Three Stars were a lot bigger deal in years gone by than they are today.
Another significant fact was that the first period (and for a while the first and second) was broadcast from Toronto. This was likely similar to the “TV blackouts” of today, or maybe because Imperial Oil only wanted to sponsor one period!
The broadcast was always from Toronto, the Leafs against one of the other five teams. I did ask Ellie why he (and therefore many of his descendants) chose Toronto to cheer for. It sounded like it was a bit because they were the default team, and the one they always heard about, and there was also a local connection as a number of Leaf players at the time came from SK. One neat story from our family that my Grandma told once was that each of the boys, Grandpa and Grandma all picked a favorite team from the Original Six. Grandma was always a Leafs fan, my Dad cheered for Detroit, Uncle Glen for the Bruins, Uncle John for the Canadiens – and I can’t remember who Grandpa and Uncle Dave chose.
One last thing – the hotstove started with a bunch of guys sitting around a hot stove discussing the league – and I got the impression they were a little more respected than the Hotstove of today.
Great stories – seems like the more history I hear from men or women like this, the more gaps in my story are filled in…. anyone else want to add some pieces to the puzzle?
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