Street hockey was king when NHL had 6 teams
By the mid-1950s the postwar baby boom had been in full swing for 10 years. Winter streets were alive with the sound of young people playing road hockey.
Adults weren’t welcome. The kids made up their own rules and learned the meaning of fairness through hundreds of small squabbles, resolved finally by the rough justice of the street. Anyone with a pulse got to play if he had a hockey stick, a tennis ball or a couple of spare boots to serve as makeshift goalposts.
For those who played league hockey there were a few outdoor rinks but ice conditions were dependent on the weather and a willingness of volunteers to shovel the rinks after the inevitable snowstorms.
There were no helmets, faceguards or heavy padding in an era just before Jacques Plante and Bill Burchmore pioneered the fibreglass face mask in 1959. Ankle support was a problem with a lot of the skates that kids wore at the time.
The Eagle Toy Company of Montreal produced a primitive board game in 1954 that everybody played. It was three feet long with a realistic looking replica of an ice surface and sideboards decorated with the team pennants from all the NHL clubs. It sold for about $11 and was actually endorsed by the Montreal Canadiens.
With only six teams in the NHL it was the Golden Age of hockey in Montreal. Young fans eagerly awaited the Star Weekly magazine, which featured either a full colour picture of one of the players or a team picture by Harold Barkley, the first person to use the electronic flash in hockey photography. Kids cut the pictures out and pasted them in an album.
Later, the bubble gum companies came out with trading cards that featured a signed picture of a star in each packet. A complete set was a prized possession after the Canadiens started to win the Stanley Cup for five years in a row in 1956.
In that era, there were only about 100 regular players in the NHL. This led to both intense loyalties and bitter rivalries among players and fans alike. Stick-swinging incidents and bench-clearing brawls were common. The Toronto Maple Leafs were roundly detested in Montreal but many of Irish descent in the city had a soft spot for the Boston Bruins.
The only televised game was on Saturday night with play-byplay commentary by the legendary Danny Gallivan. Post-game analysis was provided by the likes of Dink Carroll, Paddy Curran and Vern De Geer of The Gazette, Harold Atkins and a then-up-and-coming Red Fisher writing for the afternoon Montreal Star.
The professional hockey players of that era were mostly laconic working class men, many from Quebec and Ontario mining towns, who didn’t pander much to the media. Unlike today’s players, they didn’t sound like they were all reading from the same predictable script when interviewed.
Journeymen players often spent their summers doing promotional or charity events for the beer companies either to stave off boredom or to pick up a few extra bucks. They didn’t make the stratospheric salaries of today’s pro and there was yet to be much in the way of lucrative endorsements. It wasn’t until the early 1980s that a superstar like Maurice Richard, long out of the game, got a well-paying endorsement for Grecian Formula, a hair dying product.
Retirement for players of the era might mean a coaching job in the junior leagues or opening up a tavern in their old neighbourhoods if they were careful with their money. Others, including some of the truly great, weren’t so lucky.
Elite players like Maurice Richard and Jean Beliveau made about $25,000 annually in the 1959-60 season. The average industrial wage for men at that time was $3,929 a year.
Even as late as 1963-64 the NHL minimum was only $7,500 for entry-level players. It didn’t amount to much for players who might be lucky to have 10 good years.
Many believe that the Canadiens traded Doug Harvey, arguably one of the best defencemen who ever played, to the New York Rangers in 1961 for daring to raise the issue of low player salaries and inadequate pensions with management.
None of this mattered to kids who idolized the players then as they do now. One time the local Gyro club in St. Eustache sur le Lac (now Deux Montagnes) arranged a visit from the Rocket himself.
Richard was in his late 30s and just about ready to hang up his skates for good. He showed up at the event looking stone-faced, overweight from the summer layoff, and bedevilled by a persistent Achilles heel injury.
As he puffed away on a big cigar, the local kids swarmed around him desperately trying to get an autograph. He dutifully obliged, barely looking up at the eager horde as he scribbled out his name on the back of hockey cards, match boxes or whatever free surface was available. The Rocket gave the impression that he’d rather be peeling potatoes in his kitchen than attending one of those autograph-signing functions.