04/25/24
December 26, 2017
SportsFilter: The Tuesday Huddle:
A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.
Another one is gone whom I remember from the time when I first began to follow hockey. RIP.
posted by Howard_T at 11:00 PM on December 26, 2017
Yeah, that guts me hearing that he passed away. He was the "grandpa" of Leafs Nation, and it was well known that he was saving a bottle of champagne for the opportunity to open it when the Leafs won the Stanley Cup again.
I loved the stat that every single game that he played as a Toronto Maple Leafs player, he was the oldest Leafs player on the ice. That was for 12 seasons in a row, for 475 games. For the final 10 seasons of his career, he was the oldest player in the league.
There is famous video of him getting his face clipped by a stick, making a save, and then getting hit in the face AGAIN with a stick.
However, this bit of video about him DELIBERATELY using his face to block a shot is insane.
RIP, China Wall.
posted by grum@work at 11:01 PM on December 26, 2017
RIP, Johnny Bower...