Search for your favorite player or team
© The Hockey News. All rights reserved. Any and all material on this website cannot be used, reproduced, or distributed without prior written permission from Roustan Media Ltd. For more information, please see our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.
Inside Hockey - Yearbook 1991
The Hockey News has been providing the most comprehensive coverage of the world of hockey since 1947. In each issue, you'll find news, features and opinions about the NHL and leagues across North America and the world.
THE GOODS ON GOODENOW
When he was first approached last November, Bob Goodenow didn’t picture himself as executive director of the NHL Players’ Association. He was a respected sports attorney, sure. He was schooled in labor law. He was captain of the 1974 Harvard hockey team, a center-right winger who spent one season with the U.S. national team and one with Flint Generals of the International Hockey League. And he had just turned 37, young enough to understand what the NHLPA wanted and old enough to know what it needed. But Goodenow’s stable of NHL clients had ballooned to 25 since he started in 1985. He was soon to hit the headlines by making free-agent-to-be Brett Hull rich. There was no reason to forfeit the lucrative herd he had taken five years to assemble, especially since…
MAPLE LEAFS
The toughest thing about taking a big step forward is the step that comes next. That’s the predicament facing the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1990-91. For years, the Leafs were the not-so-funny laughingstocks of the league under the destructive ownership of Harold Ballard. They finally awakened last season with their best campaign in more than a decade. Toronto’s .500 record (38-38-4, 12th overall) and third-place finish in the Norris Division seem modest on the surface, but the season was significant given that in August of 1989 the club had no coach or general manager. But a humbling first-round loss to the St. Louis Blues in the playoffs last spring left much uncertainty in the Leaf camp. However, general manager Floyd Smith maintains the team is poised to make the jump from middle-of-the-pack pretenders…
PARTNER IN CRIME
More than 50 communities across Ontario have declared themselves unilingual: English-only. But in Toronto, the heart of English Canada and home of the Maple Leafs, there is a distinct French flavor. Until this year and Denis Savard’s off-season move to the Montreal Canadiens, it was one of hockey’s delicious ironies that Vincent Damphousse and Daniel Marois play not for the Canadiens or the Quebec Nordiques, but for les Feuilles d’erable. The Maple Leafs. Montreal now has Stephane Richer and Savard to compare—and compete—with Damphousse and Marois, but in 1988-89, Toronto had the highest-scoring francophone partnership in the NHL. No other Quebec-born teammates could match the 170 points accumulated by Damphousse and Marois. Granted, had Mario Lemieux played a full season, he probably wouldn’t have needed teammate Gilbert Delorme’s 10 points to outscore the…
CANUCKS
You don’t have to be a brain-baked West Coast sun-worshipper, a certified loon or salaried club employee to envision better days ahead for the Vancouver Canucks. Nor do you have to be a total cynic to believe those better days will probably not become a reality in 1990-91. This kind of mixed message is nothing new to Canucks’ fans. For 20 years they’ve been given promises and rebuilding plans and excuses, and for 20 years they have witnessed mediocrity. Last year was one of the most frustrating in Canucks’ history—a 10-point decline after an encouraging 1988-89 season and playoff battle with Calgary—but attendance was up and a record crowd of almost 20,000 fans showed up for the entry draft at B.C. Place June 16. They were rewarded, in a way. The fourth draft of…
Made possible with the support of
