(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Top Comments: Witnessing History NHL Edition [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-08
All my life, my dad told a story how he was at Madison Square Garden in 1959 when Hall of Faner and 5 time Stanley Cup winner, Jacques Plante became the first goalie wear a mask during a regular season NHL match between the NY Rangers and the Montreal Canadiens. During the game, Plante got hit in the face with a puck and sustained a broken nose. He left the game to get stitched up but refused to come back out unless he could wear a mask to protect his face and head. Back then, NHL teams did not have backup goalies. Instead, the NHL had an emergency goalie in the stands should a team need one for whatever reason. The Montreal coach, the famous Toe Blake, hated these goalies and always refused to use them. Unfortunately, Blake was also really old school and hated goalie masks. Remember this was the time when players neither wore helmets nor did goalies wear masks. As time passed and Plante did not come back to the ice keeping the game paused, Blake went back to the locker room to find out what was keeping Plante. He was told by Plante that unless he, Plante, would be allowed to wear a mask, he refused to return the ice. The mask must have been the lesser of two evils for Blake because the game resumed when Plante came out wearing a face mask. The mask became a permanent feature for him after he agreed to not wear the mask during a game against the Detroit Red Wings which ended an 18 game unbeaten streak for Montreal.
Jump forward 66 years to last Sunday. After scoring two goals on Friday night against the Chicago Blackhawks, Alexander Ovechkin tied Wayne Gretzky for most goals in NHL history with 894. The Capitals next game would be against my New York Islanders on Long Island. I normally don’t like to predict things, but I was nearly 100% sure he would do it at that game. In fact, I had a good feeling as March progressed he would likely do it at that game. I split my season tickets with one of my employees and she had that game. Lucky for me, there was a game I had back in March that my sister and I were no longer going to be able to attend because of a birthday party. I asked her bin early March to switch games with me and she agreed.
Sunday came and my sister and I headed off to Belmont Park to see the game. We also had an extra treat as Islanders legend Bryan Trottier was doing a pre-game Q&A. He is an awesome guy and tells great stories. One I hadn’t heard before was a story about he played in special legends game where a few of the top lines across different eras of hockey played against other in best of tourney. Some of the participants were the Rangers GAG (Goal-a-Game) line, the Buffalo Sabres French Connection line, a couple of the great Montreal lines, the Islanders Trio Grande line (Clark Gilles, Bryan Trottier, and Mike Bossy) among other lines. Bryan prefacing this story by saying how Bossy was truly the greatest goal scorer ever (Mike Bossy holds the record for most goal/game with .91 and the record for consecutive 50 goal seasons — 9). However, Bossy had to be convinced to join as he hadn’t picked up a stick or skated in the 5 years prior. Not surprisingly, the Isles line won winning the final 8-7 with Bossy scoring 7 of the 8 goals. Cool story.
Then it was on to watch the game. My seats are in the second level, row two on the side where the Islanders shoot twice. I sit about halfway between the blueline and the end zone faceoff circle. Period one was somewhat uneventful. Ovechkin wasn’t really having a great game but did have one good shot that was stopped by the Islanders goalie. The Islanders did get off to a two goal lead before the period ended. Sitting where I do, I was hoping if Ovechkin scored it would be in the second period when the Caps are shoot at the goal by me. At the 7 minute mark of the period, the Islanders were called for a tripping penalty; I said to my sister, “It’s going to happen in the next two minutes.” The building, not surprisingly, was about 70% Caps fans including the people sitting in front us. For some reason, they all got up and left their seats giving me a clear view of the ice from the blueline to the goal. The Caps PP began right after the TV timeout and it only took Ovechkin 26 seconds to score. He put everything he had into the shot and sailed cleanly into the net. I could not have had a more perfect sightline for the goal. As much as I dislike the guy for various reasons (I also dislike Gretzky for various reasons), it was a really cool thing to see.
The game was then paused to have a ceremony with the NHL commissioner speaking and presenting Ovechkin with some items. There was a handshake line with all the Islanders players congratulating Ovechkin. Ovechkin when skated over to the Islanders bench to shake hands with coaches and training staff. Gretzkey gave a short speech in which he spoke about being happy this didn’t happen in Nassau Coliseum because of all the losing he did there and spoke glowing about our former coach, Al Arbour, and GM, Bill Torrey, and getting to catch up with Trottier. He also gave some nice remarks to Ovechkin. Finally, OVechkin spoke for a couple of minutes acknowledging his teammates and his family and thanking the fans.
Finally, the game resumed and the Islanders scored twice more to win the game 4-1. Why am I not surprised? The third period had a some rough play and one of the Capitals got called for a rare 10 minute misconduct penalty. One of our rookies, Marc Gatcomb, had two goals. He can always say for one night he outscored Ovechkin. LOL
Now I will always have a story to tell about witnessing history like my dad did. Would I have preferred to see some of what the Islanders made history doing in person? Obviously, and they hold quite a few other records besides the ones I mentioned above. Still, when people talk about this moment in the future, I will always be able to say I was there and had a perfect view of it. That’s not nothing.
Diarist reserves all rights to his original writing only. Community material is not covered by this ©
Now a word from out sponsor and onto the Tops!
Here at Top Comments we welcome longtime as well as brand new Daily Kos readers to join us at 10pm Eastern. We strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailbox by 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find!
Top Comments for april 8, 2025
From thesphynx:
knak's perfect satirical adaptation of the absurd logic behind Trump's tariffs based on trade deficits:
TOP MOJO april 7, 2025
First comments and tip jars excluded. Thank you mik for the mojo magic! For those of you interested in How Top Mojo Works, please see his diary on FAQing Top Mojo.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/8/2315432/-Top-Comments-Witnessing-History-NHL-Edition?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
