Now You Know Big Book of Sports. Doug Lennox

for 96 points to win the Art Ross as scoring champion. Iginla also won the Lester B. Pearson Award as the NHL Players’ Association pick for most valuable player and the Maurice Richard Trophy for most goals. He won the Richard Trophy again in 2003–04 when he potted 41 goals.

       Who is the only NHL player ever to receive permanent possession of a trophy?

      Between 1927–28 and 1934–35, Frank Boucher of the New York Rangers won the Lady Byng Trophy for gentlemanly play seven times. During that period, Boucher played 364 games and only incurred 87 penalty minutes. When the Ottawa-born centreman received his seventh Lady Byng in 1935, the NHL decided to give him the trophy for good. A new piece of hardware was then donated to the league by Lady Byng herself. Incidentally, as a player, Boucher helped the Rangers win Stanley Cups in 1928 and 1933. As coach of New York, he steered them to another Cup in 1940, their last until 1994 when they finally won it again.

       Quickies

       Did you know …

      that the first NHL player of Asiatic descent was Larry Kwong? The son of a Chinese grocer in British Columbia, Kwong was pretty much only in the NHL for a cup of coffee when he played a single shift for the New York Rangers in a game on March 13, 1948.

       What kind of car was Tim Horton driving when he was killed?

      Cochrane, Ontario-born Tim Horton is now better known as the franchise name of a colossal doughnut-and-coffee empire, but for 24 seasons he was one of the NHL’s most durable, dependable defencemen. After a couple of brief stints with the Toronto Maple Leafs in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Horton came to stay in 1952–53. He was a fixture on the Leafs’ defence until he was traded to the New York Rangers in 1969–70. During the 1960s, he and a crackerjack blueline squad that included Allan Stanley, Bob Baun, and Carl Brewer helped Toronto win four Stanley Cups (1962–64, 1967). Horton’s 16 points in 13 playoff games in 1962 set a record for defencemen (long since outstripped), and he was capable of rushing up ice in a burst of speed to deliver a pretty hard slap shot to an opponent’s net. The brawny defender played briefly for the Pittsburgh Penguins after his time with the Rangers, then ended up with the Buffalo Sabres and back with his old Leafs coach George “Punch” Imlach in 1972–73. Horton, now in his forties, wanted to retire the next season, but Imlach persuaded him otherwise. On February 21, 1974, Horton was killed in a car accident near St. Catharines, Ontario, after a game in Toronto. A notorious speeder, he was headed back to Buffalo in the new Ford Pantera sports car that Imlach had given him as a signing bonus to play one last season. During his long NHL career, he played 1,446 regular-season games and scored 115 goals and 403 assists for 518 points, adding another 11 goals and 39 assists in the playoffs. Today the doughnut company Horton founded in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1964 (later taking on former Hamilton policeman Ron Joyce as partner) has nothing to do with his survivors except in name, but it has mushroomed into a billion-dollar corporation that employs more than 70,000 people in Canada and the United States.

       What NHL superstar was offered the position of governor general of Canada?

      After Jean Béliveau retired from the front office of the Montreal Canadiens in 1993, he was offered the post of governor general the next year. However, he declined the honour, citing family obligations. Although never idolized the way his Canadiens teammate Maurice Richard was, Béliveau was one of the greatest hockey players ever to lace on a pair of skates. Born in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, the gentlemanly centre played 20 seasons (18 full) for the Canadiens and scored 507 goals and 712 assists for 1,219 points. In the Stanley Cup playoffs he added another 79 goals and 97 assists in 17 competitions, helping the Habs win 10 Cups. Béliveau won the Art Ross Trophy in 1956, the Conn Smythe Trophy in 1965, and the Hart Trophy in 1956 and 1964. Le Gros Bill, as he was nicknamed, retired as a player in 1971 and was employed by Montreal as vice-president of corporate affairs for 22 years.

       Quickies

       Did you know …

      that the first NHL shutout was recorded by the Montreal Canadiens’ great goaltender Georges Vézina? Appropriately, given the teams’ latter-day rivalry, he achieved this milestone on February 18, 1918, in a game against the Toronto Arenas (later to change their name to the St. Patricks, then to the Maple Leafs). Vézina and the Habs won the match 9–0 in the league’s 29th game in its first season.

       When and where was the first official NHL All-Star Game played?

      Great hockey isn’t something usually associated with an NHL All-Star Game, but fans do get to see the year’s best players assembled in one spot, the players selected get to have a bit of fun (and grab some more money), and players who aren’t picked get a rest. The league began choosing All-Star teams in 1930–31 and staged a few All-Star benefit games for the survivors of dead players (Ace Bailey in 1933, Howie Morenz in 1937, and Babe Siebert in 1939). However, the first official All-Star Game was played on October 13, 1947, at Maple Leaf Gardens. The initial format had the Stanley Cup champions from the previous season play a team of All-Stars picked from the league’s other five clubs. In 1947 the All-Stars beat the Cup-winning Toronto Maple Leafs 4–3. Since that first official match, the All-Star Game has been moved from the beginning of the season to the middle and now the Eastern Conference All-Stars play the Western Conference All-Stars.

       Why is Kingston, Ontario, thought by many to be the birthplace of hockey?

      The first recorded games of shinny on ice were played in Kingston, Upper Canada, in 1839. A British Army officer, Arthur Freeling, said he and fellow soldiers played “hockey on the ice” in January 1843 in Kingston. Edward Horsey, in his diary, noted that shinny was played on the ice of Kingston’s harbour in the 1860s by soldiers. However, an organized game with some rules wasn’t played in Kingston until 1886. That match pitted Queen’s College students against Royal Military College cadets and occurred 11 years after the first recorded indoor game in Montreal.

       What is the Frozen Four?

      Since 1948 the U.S. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has crowned the Men’s Division I champion in American college hockey. Today, through an extremely complex system, college teams across the country are winnowed down to 12 clubs that play one another in the annual NCAA Tournament. The quartet of semi-finalists that comes out on top is called the Frozen Four (so-called to differentiate it from basketball’s Final Four), and from the playoffs in this group the year’s best college team is determined. The Frozen Four playoffs are held in a different city each year, usually one associated with college hockey (such as Detroit, St. Paul, Minnesota, or Albany, New York), but not always. In 2008 the Boston College Eagles were crowned Men’s Division I champions after defeating the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame 4–1 in Denver, Colorado. The NCAA started a Women’s Frozen Four in 2001. The women’s champion in 2008 was the University of Minnesota at Duluth.

       Five Outstanding NHL Head Coaches

      • Scotty Bowman: There’s no argument that Bowman is the best NHL coach of all time. He’s the all-time victory champ with 1,244 regular-season and 223 playoff wins as head coach of the St. Louis Blues, Montreal Canadiens, Buffalo Sabres, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Detroit Red Wings from 1967–68 to 2001–02. During that time, he won a record nine Stanley Cups.

      • Al Arbour: A solid defenceman in the 1950s and 1960s for various NHL teams, including the Detroit Red Wings, Toronto Maple Leafs, and St. Louis Blues, Arbour turned to coaching with the Blues in 1970–71 and became a huge success. His most famous coaching stint was with the New York Islanders, who he backbenched from 1973–74 to 1993–94. In order to give him his 1,500th Islanders game coached, New York had him helm one game in 2007–08. Naturally, Arbour won, bringing his total coaching victories to 782, second only to Bowman. He also became the oldest man, at 75, ever to coach an NHL game. And let’s not forget the four Stanley Cups he won in a row during the Islanders’ salad