35 Years ago Today - ex-EHLers Help Flyers Defeat Russian Red Army 4-1

Okay, it's a lame pretense for an EHL blog, but it was one of the greatest hockey events ever. 35 years ago today, the Philadelphia Flyers dominated the Russian Red Army team 4-1. The Flyers had ex-Salem Rebel Dave Schultz and ex-Jersey Devils Jack McIlhargey and Bobby Taylor on their squad. I'll let the articles and memories speak for themselves...

From Today's Philadelphia Inquirer:
http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/flyers/20110111_THEGOOD_OL__DAZE.html
35 years ago today, Broad Street Bullies ran Soviet Red Army out of the Spectrum

POSTED: January 11, 2011
By FRANK SERAVALLI

PLAYING IT BACK, like a train wreck in slow motion, Ed Van Impe can vividly remember the hit that made the Soviets fold like a tent.

The date: 35 years ago today, at the Spectrum, with the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Flyers facing the Red Army team in the final game of the 1976 exhibition Super Series.

Van Impe darted from the penalty box, about midway through the first period, and watched the Soviets' breakout develop as he got a glimpse of his favorite kind of pass.

"It was a sucker pass,'' Van Impe, 70, said yesterday from his home in Vancouver. "I could see the play developing. The winger made a sucker pass and [Valeri] Kharlamov had to turn his head to get it. I remember watching it, almost in slow motion. And the same time the puck connected with Kharlamov, I connected with him and flattened him.

"I just wanted to welcome him to Philadelphia.'' Read More

From Flyers.NHL.com:
http://flyers.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=435985
Great Moments: Flyers Conquer the Red Army

By Bill Meltzer - philadelphiaflyers.com

Hockey’s version of the Cold War reached a pinnacle in the 1970s. Team Canada’s narrow victory at the legendary Summit Series in 1972 only heightened the animosity and that had been between brewing between the powers-that-be in North American and Soviet hockey.
...
There was a lot at stake entering the final game. The Flyers were not only defending their status as the NHL’s preeminent team, they also found themselves in the unaccustomed position of representing North American hockey in general and the NHL in particular. Philly was the NHL’s last and best hope for defeating the Red Army.

On the other hand, if CSKA could complete an undefeated gauntlet of games with a win over the Flyers on Spectrum ice (where Philly won a staggering 36 of 40 games in 1975-76, with two ties), the Red Army could rightfully claim to be the best team in any league in the world.

“They didn’t like us and we didn’t like them. So we were ready for a war,” said Flyers Hall of Fame left winger Bill Barber... Read Whole Article

Check out the photos from this article. There's a great shot of Bobby Clarke and Dave Schultz crashing Tretiak in the Soviet nets.

and a little video...

The Original Devils Were From South Jersey…

We may be on a little bit of a Jersey Devils blog roll here...

The Original Devils Were From South Jersey by Eric Model

Before there were the Devils … there were the Devils.

The contemporary version of the hockey Devils are to be found playing their National Hockey League schedule at Newark’s Prudential Center. Their minor league counterparts – also called the Devils – call Trenton their home and play at the Sun National Bank Center, formerly the Sovereign Bank Arena.

But once Devils Hockey was based in South Jersey at the Cherry Hill Arena. Those Devils were the Jersey Devils of the old Eastern Hockey League from 1964-71.

The original Devils were formed when the Philadelphia Ramblers, a member of the Eastern Hockey League, relocated to Cherry Hill at the end of the 1963-64 season, and there they remained until 1973.

Their home was built in 1959. Originally known as the Ice House, its seating capacity was 4,416.

The Arena is probably best known as a now legendary stop in the World Hockey Association, when the new Jersey Knights of the WHA very briefly called it home for the 1973-74 season – after leaving new York as the Raiders & the Golden Blades and before heading to San Diego where the franchise finally expired as the Mariners.

In its early days, the arena was home to the Jersey Larks, who left town for Knoxville, Tennessee when they could not meet their payroll in new Jersey. the Arena also hosted occasional home games of the basketball Philadelphia Warriors in the early 1960’s (before the Warriors left Philadelphia for San Francisco and were later replaced by the 76ers who went on to play at the Spectrum – itself just recently demolished).

Those that had occasion to stop there said that the old arena was a strange place. for example, there were no showers in the visitors’ locker room. Players had to change at their hotel (often the Holiday Inn). What facilities there were did not work well. the toilets backed up and the ice was not the smoothest and included what has been described as a “hill” at center ice.

“There was a crown in the middle,” related John Garrett a former WHA player in Ed Willes’ book the Rebel League. “A pass that was going along the ice would jump five feet in the air all of a sudden.”

The late Gene Hart was best known as the original Voice of the Philadelphia Flyers. less known is that before that time, Hart was the Voice of the Jersey Devils. in his autobiography “Score,” Hart describes the origins and the reasons for the Devils.

A surprise to many, he recalls, Philadelphia was awarded a National Hockey League franchise when the league expanded from six to twelve teams. Play was not to start until the 1967-68, and according to Hart, until that time one of the first things the new Flyers did was to sponsor a new team at the Cherry Hill Arena, the Jersey Devils, in order to get hockey interest started in the greater Delaware Valley.

Therefore, it is understandable that when one looks at a roster of the most notable Jersey Devil players and coaches, many also had ties to the Philadelphia Flyers. the list included:

• Bobby Taylor, who was later a backup goalie for the Flyers behind Bernie Parent.
• Dick Sarrazin, who later played for the Flyers in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
• Marcel Pelletier, who ended his twenty year career as a player/coach with the Devils in 1969.
• Rosaire Paiement played the 1966-1967 season, scoring 125 points. He later played for the Flyers and Vancouver Canucks in the NHL.
• Vic Stasiuk, the Flyers second head coach, was head coach of the Devils for two seasons, 1966-68.

The Cherry Hill Arena, known in its later years as the Centrum, was demolished in the late 1970s and replaced by a shopping center, now anchored by a Shop Rite.

There now is a shopping center across Brace Road called the Centrum Shops. This is not where the arena was, it was in fact across the street.

As for the hockey Devils who once played there, few folks mention them anymore. they died when the Eastern League did in 1973. These days when you say “The Devils,” most folks think of the team up the Turnpike. From a South Jersey perspective, the new Jersey Devils are not their team. Though the name says Jersey, to them the Devs are part of the new York market. Their team is the Flyers.

What the Devils do offer, however, is a home away from home for these Flyer fans (many from South Jersey), who can more easily secure seats for their team in North Jersey than across the river in Philly.

But to those few who still remember, memories of the original Devils endure.

Eric Model explores the “offbeat, off the beaten path overlooked and forgotten” on SIRIUS-XM Radio and at journeysinto.com.

Rookie of the Year Larry Pleau was a Veteran

With Veterans Day upcoming this week, I am reminded of American hockey pioneer Larry Pleau who won EHL Rookie of the Year honors in 1968-69 with the Jersey Devils while serving as an Army Private at Fort Dix. The original NHL.com article by John McGourty which I had bookmarked seems to have disappeared. Fortunately it was saved by Spider-man (really) at this link.

Image: Army Pvt. Larry Pleau (4) of Fort Dix and the Jersey Devils scores against Syracuse. From l to r: Syracuse goalie Anton Gale; Syr d - Bob Graham; Jersey F - Dennis Plant; Syr d - Doug Hillman; Jersey F - Larry Pleau.

..."After my third season, I got drafted into the U.S. Army and took basic training at Fort Campbell, Ky. I got my orders for advanced basic training and then on Labor Day weekend, I got a call from Murray Williamson, who was coaching the U.S. Olympic team. In those days, the military was big on its association with amateur athletics. I had a tryout in Minnesota, made the team and was assigned there by the Army. I was lucky I was able to continue my career. I'm not sure it's fair but it happens.

"After the Olympics, I was assigned to Fort Dix (in New Jersey). My commanding officer said, "What am I going to do with you, you've only got 10 months left?" I told him I had worked at a golf course and I got assigned to the base golf course. While I was there, I played for the Jersey Devils in the old Eastern League, out of Cherry Hill, N.J. My sergeant loved hockey and let me go. I never practiced, just played, and won rookie of the year. We had Forbes Kennedy's brother Jamie, a good little player from Windsor, Bobby Brown, and goalie Bobby Taylor, who played for the Flyers. Longtime Flyers scout Marcel Pelletier was our coach. We had one goalie in those days and Taylor got tossed one game. Pelletier filled in for him. Only problem, Bobby was a left-hand glove and Marcel was right-handed so Marcel wore hockey gloves the whole game." "The funniest part was Marcel asked the players who would play goal and they all ran for the bathroom," said Taylor, now a color analyst for the Tampa Bay Lightning. "The trainer was supposed to be the backup but he didn't even come into the room and we never saw him again until we were on the bus. They never scored on Marcel and we won, 2-1.

Larry was by far the best player in the League. He'd have never been there but for his military commitment." "We had a southern division and I remember a road trip where we left Cherry Hill on a Monday morning and drove to Jacksonville, Fla., and played the next night," Pleau said. "We got on the bus after the game and drove to Charlotte and played the next night and got on a bus and drove to Knoxville, Tenn. Got in at 7 a.m., woke up at 2 p.m., played in Nashville that night and drove back to New Jersey. Got in at 6 a.m. and played that night, then drove to Syracuse and played the following night. All that for $40 a game and $6 a day meal money?"

Pleau spent the 1969-70 season between the Canadiens and their AHL affiliate in Montreal, then made the big club the next season, only to be hurt and limited to 19 regular-season games. That was enough to get his name engraved on the Stanley Cup, though...
As a side note, the goaltender on that 1968 US Olympic Team with Pleau was Pat Rupp who had been the Devils original netminder starting the 1964-65 season.