100 Years Ago Today

The very first NHL game was played! It was a very different time. The world was in the throes of World War I. (at the time called the Great War). Professional sports leagues, other than baseball, were generally small and regional, and struggling to find a footing. Professional hockey had been around a while, and the NHL was born in 1917. In fact, it was born in spite, of the owner of the Toronto team in the previous top professional hockey league (I have not been able to find out what the exact problem was) and has grown into something great over the last century. At the beginning, only 4 teams made up the league, and two of them did not survive that first year- one folding after it's arena burned down!

Today, it's one of the big 5 sports in the world, and considered the top hockey league in the world. 31 teams make up the league- including two of the original four- with expansion looming (I hope). Even more important for the sake of this post- it's my newest obsession. Since I began watching in November 2016, the NHL has taken up more and more of my life. And I'm not complaining one bit. I love the game, already, it's become something that I cannot live without. It has been a part of every single day of my life, and it's not a stretch to say it will be a part of the rest of every day of my life, during the season or off-season.

I've put a lot of effort into studying it and learning as much as I could over the past year. I'm still a rookie, still with much to learn, but I'm going to enjoy learning as much as I can.

I think my hockey addiction should be pretty obvious by how many times I've written about the sport this year. That isn't going to stop any time soon...in fact, it'll probably only increase as I begin to really scan the cards my fellow collectors have gifted me with- I'd say roughly 5500 of the 8000 NHL cards currently in my collection were an outright gift, with the rest coming through trades and purchases. I am eternally grateful. If the entire world was made up of people like those who collect hockey cards, it would be a lot better place.

I'm just so enthused with the sport, and with the cards, that I wanted to get a special post up to celebrate my newfound passion.

I don't have much of the early history of the sport documented in my collection, yet, and even less scanned. The NHL has a rich history of cards, with the first set of NHL cards being issued in 1923-24. My oldest is currently from the late 1950s, so like I say...not much early era is documented.
What I do have, however, are some of the history of the game subset cards from 1991-92 Pro Set.

1991-92 Pro Set #334

This card is the earliest game action photo to appear in my collection. I have no idea when it's from or who appears on the card, but it's a great old shot that's somewhat diminished by the scanner I was using at the time putting lines across it from top to bottom.

The oldest image in my collection comes from the same subset, of Georges Vezina, who the trophy given to the top goalie of each season is named after. He played from 1910-1925, before dying of tuberculosis in 1926. He played every game, from when he debuted to when he went out of his last game, a very impressive feat in my opinion. All this info comes from the back of the card, by the way.

1991-92 Pro Set #333

So I got to thinking...I became a fan of the NHL in it's 99th year. That's a lot of time to miss, which I am always kind of going to be frustrated about, as I almost got into it all the way back in 1995-96....but...what year was it for my other sports that I'm such a big fan of?

NASCAR started in 1948, and I discovered it at Christmas 1992. 44th year.
NBA became my focus in February 1996, and makes up the vast majority of my card collection. That was the tail end of it's 49th year.
The Olympics also play a role, as I'm a huge Olympics fan. Technically, the Olympics started in 776 BC, and I really became a fan in 1992, so 2768th year. Yikes! However, there were no Olympics held between 393 and 1896, so 96 years after the debut of the modern Olympics. Just imagine if they issued cards for the ancient Olympians. How cool would that have been? Of course, they didn't wear clothes for some of that time, so maybe they would need to do a little more close-ups on the cards...of course, if the Greco-Roman world hadn't been crushed by Christianity, nudity wouldn't be a big deal, so maybe not. But I digress. One things for sure, I doubt ice hockey would have been as big a success if you had to play it naked. Brent Burns and Joe Thornton may disagree. (See this year's ESPN The Magazine body issue)

Although I may be disappointed that I didn't discover the NHL until it's 99th year, I'm glad I "discovered" it in time to see the 100th anniversary celebrations. That's something that I hope I remember for a long time. Right now, as I type this, I'm getting ready to watch a matinee game between the Hurricanes and Maple Leafs, who are wearing throwbacks to the Arenas uniforms. It's the only time this season that throwbacks will be worn, which is a shame as the 100th season would have been a great time to wear throwbacks. The new jersey supplier said no, though. Too bad they didn't get the Canadiens to play in Maroons throwbacks, that would have been cool to have the uniform designs of the first game 100 years ago back on the ice...or at least the Oilers, with Patrick Maroon!

I don't usually post this early, but what the heck- matinee game, matinee post.