NHL Hockey Trivia: Bobby Orr

Arguably the best defenseman to ever play the game of hockey, Bobby Orr is a legend in NHL history. Orr played with the Boston Bruins and Chicago Black Hawks over an injury shortened career that spanned from 1966-67 to 1978-79.

Test and expand your hockey trivia knowledge of Bobby Orr with the following four trivia questions.

Q. In 1969-70 and 1974-75, Bobby Orr became the only defenseman to ever win which NHL award?

A. With 120 points in 1969-70 and 135 points in 1974-75, Orr remains the only defenseman to ever win the Art Ross Trophy as the league’s top point-getter. Interestingly, his highest point total was 139 in 1970-71 but he came a distant second to teammate Phil Esposito and his 152 points that season.

The 139 points does still stand as an NHL record for most points in a single season by a defenseman. Paul Coffey came within a point of that mark in 1985-86. Playing for the Edmonton Oilers, Coffey scored 48 goals and assisted on 90 over 79 games. The 48 goals does stand as a National Hockey League record, eclipsing the 46 the Orr put up in 1974-75 with the Bruins.

Q. In what hockey card set was the Bobby Orr rookie card featured in?

A. The Bobby Orr rookie card was number 35 of the 1966-67 Topps series. The card has a book value of $3000, according to Beckett Hockey Monthly. Orr’s RC is by far the most valuable hockey card in the set. Gordie Howe of the Detroit Red Wings is a distant second with a book value of $200.

Q. What was the first major NHL award won by Bobby Orr?

A. Bobby Orr won the Calder Memorial Trophy in 1966-67 as the NHL’s top rookie. Orr scored 13 goals and totalled 41 points that season in 61 games, a far cry from his offensive explosiveness in the 1970’s.

Boston teammate Derek Sanderson won the award the following year. It would then be until the 1979-80 season before another member of the Bruins would be named rookie of the year in the NHL. In 1979-80, it was Hockey Hall of Fame defenseman Ray Bourque. Sergei Samsonov and Andrew Raycroft have been the only Boston players to win the Calder Trophy since.

Q. In what year did Bobby Orr win the Lou Marsh Award?

A. Bobby Orr was the 1970 recipient of the Lou Marsh Award. The Lou Marsh is handed out each year to the top athlete in Canada. Bobby is one of eight NHL players to win the Lou Marsh. The other seven include Wayne Gretzky, Sidney Crosby, Rocket Richard, Phil Esposito, Bobby Clarke, Guy Lafleur and Mario Lemieux.

NHL Hockey Trivia: Al Arbour

Al Arbour played 626 games in the National Hockey League from 1953-54 to 1970-71. Yet it was his accomplishments as a head coach with the New York Islanders than earned him a spot in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Test and expand your knowledge of Al Arbour and the NHL with these hockey trivia questions.

Q. What team did Al Arbour begin his NHL career with?

A. Arbour began his NHL career with the Detroit Red Wings during the 1953-54 season. Arbour played with Detroit until the end of the 1957-58 season. He began the next year with the Chicago Black Hawks. He would also play for the St. Louis Blues and Toronto Maple Leafs.

In 1953-54, Al played in 36 games with the Red Wings and contributed just one assists. He also appeared in 19 games in the QHL with the Sherbrooke Saints. Arbour would not play in the National Hockey League again until the Stanley Cup playoffs in 1955-56. After a full season in the WHL with the Edmonton Flyers, Al joined the Red Wings for the playoffs. He played in four of the team’s ten post season games as Detroit fell in the finals to the Montreal Canadiens.

Q. What team did Al Arbour play his final NHL game with?

A. Arbour played his final season, 1970-71 with the St. Louis Blues. He took over as head coach of the Blues during that season. In that final year, Arbour played just 22 regular season games. He was credited with 50 games as head coach of the team before being replaced by Scotty Bowman. In the playoffs, Al played another six games for the Blues. St. Louis fell in the opening round to the Minnesota North Stars in six games, ending their run of consecutive Stanley Cup finals appearances at three. In his four years as a player with St. Louis, Arbour served as team captain.

Q. How many years did Al Arbour coach the New York Islanders?

A. Arbour coached the Islanders for nineteen seasons, beginning in 1973-74. He coached through to the end of the 1985-86 season. He then took over as head coach again in 1988-89 and lasted until the end of the 1993-94 season. He coached one game in the 2007-08 season.

Q. How many Stanley Cup winning teams did Al Arbour coach?

A. Arbour coached the New York Islanders to four consecutive Stanley Cups from 1979-80 to 1982-83. These were the only four Stanley Cups that Arbour would win. Leading up to that dynastic run, the Islanders reached the final four in four of Al’s first six years behind the bench in Long Island. The team fell in the semi-finals in 1974-75, 1975-76, 1976-77 and 1978-79. In 1983-84, New York reached the final again, looking for their fifth straight championship but fell to the Edmonton Oilers in five games. Arbour reached the semi-finals one more time, losing to the Montreal Canadiens in 1992-93.

NHL Hockey Trivia: Johnny Bucyk

Johnny Bucyk was a long-time Boston Bruins star that was an integral part of the ‘Big Bad Bruins’ era of the early 1970’s. Although, we’ll find out, Bucyk was not a regular in the penalty box like many of his teammates. Test and expand your hockey trivia knowledge of Johnny Bucyk with the following four trivia questions.

Q. What was Johnny Bucyk’s first National Hockey League team?

A. Bucyk played his first two seasons in the NHL with the Detroit Red Wings. Before the 1957-58 season began, Johnny was traded to the Bruins for the legendary goaltender, Terry Sawchuk. Bucyk played the rest of his NHL career with Boston, retiring after the 1977-78 season. In 1955-56, Johnny played 38 games for the Red Wings, scoring one goal and totalling nine points. In 1956-57, he became a regular, appearing in 66 games, scoring ten goals and totalling 21 points.

As for Sawchuk, he was returned to Detroit, a team that traded him to Boston just before Bucyk started his National Hockey League career.

Q. With a career total of just 497 minutes in penalties over 1540 regular season games, how many times did the gentleman Johnny Bucyk win the Lady Byng Trophy?

A. Bucyk won the Lady Byng as the most gentlemanly player in 1970-71 and again in 1973-74. In each season, Johnny totalled just eight minutes in penalties with the Bruins. In two other seasons in which Bucyk played nearly a full schedule did he sit less than ten minutes in the box. In 1967-68, Johnny received four minor penalties over 72 games, yet Stan Mikita of the Chicago Blackhawks was awarded the Lady Byng with 14 PIM. In 1971-72, Bucyk sat just four minutes in the penalty box while playing the full 78 game schedule but the Lady Byng went to Jean Ratelle of the New York Rangers who spent an equal time in the sin bin.

Q. What jersey number was retired by the Boston Bruins in honour of Johnny Bucyk?

A. After his final season, 1977-78, the Bruins hung number 9 from the rafters of the Boston Garden in honour of the player that wore it for 21 seasons. Of course, in his first two years in the NHL, Bucyk did not wear number 9. As a member of the Detroit Red Wings, that number was already taken by Gordie Howe. Johnny wore number 20 while with Detroit. He took on number 9 right from his first game with Boston.

Q. During the 1970-71 season, at the age of 35, Johnny Bucyk became the oldest NHL player to do what?

A. With 51 goals, Bucyk became the oldest NHL player to surpass the 50 goal plateau. With an additional 65 assists for 116 points, Johnny finished third in the race for the Art Ross Trophy behind teammates Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito. Another teammate, Ken Hodge, rounded out the top four that season with all four Bruins surpassing 100 points. Johnny’s 51 goals placed him second in the NHL, 25 goals behind teammate and league leader Phil Esposito.

NHL Hockey Trivia: Montreal Canadiens Nicknames

Colourful nicknames in professional sports have gone the way of the dodo. Just a few decades ago, most hockey players had unique monikers and not just the first syllable of their last name with an -s or an -sy attached at the end.

The Montreal Canadiens were on the high end of the unique scale, most likely due to the language duality of the players and fan base. Here’s your chance to test your trivia knowledge and possibly learn a few new nicknames.

Q. What historic Montreal Canadiens goaltender was known as “The Chicoutimi Cucumber”?

A. George Vezina played for the Canadiens from 1910-11 to 1925-26. He died in 1926 due to tuberculosis, after playing just one game in net for Canadiens in 1925-26. The nickname was derived from the fact the Georges was born in Chicoutimi, Quebec and that he was ‘cool as a cucumber’ in the net.

Vezina led the NHA / NHL with the best goals against average seven times over his career. The Vezina Trophy was introduced for the 1926-27 season to recognize the top goaltender in the NHL each season. Georges won Stanley Cup championships with the Canadiens in 1915-16 and 1923-24. He was part of the inaugural class of Hockey Hall of Fame inductees in 1945.

The Georges Vezina rookie card from 1911-12 is one of the most sought after hockey cards in the world. Book value on the 1911-12 Imperial Tobacco C55 card is $6,000. However, auction prices reach much higher value.

Q. What 1970’s NHL scoring champion was nicknamed “The Flower”?

A. A simple translation from French to English. Guy Lafleur or ‘the flower’ was the Art Ross Trophy winner as the NHL’s top scorer in three consecutive seasons, 1975-76, 1976-77 and 1977-78. Guy was the first overall pick by the Canadiens at the 1971 NHL Amateur Draft. He played in the NHL from 1971-72 to 1990-91 with the Habs, New York Rangers and Quebec Nordiques.

Before entering the National Hockey League, Lafleur played two legendary seasons of junior hockey in the QMJHL with the Quebec Remparts. In 1970-71, his 130 goals in just 62 games shattered any known Canadian Major Junior record. It still stands as the second highest total in QMJHL and CHL history, eclipsed by Mario Lemieux’s 133 in 1983-84 with Laval. However, Super Mario played eight more games than Lafleur.

Q. Which Montreal defenseman was nicknamed “Big Bird”?

A. Tall with a big beak and a shock of curly hair, Larry Robinson somewhat resembled the Sesame Street character as he skated around the ice. The long time Canadien and Hockey Hall of Fame member won two Norris Trophies as the NHL’s top defenseman.

Robinson played in the NHL from 1972-73 to 1991-92 with the Canadiens and Los Angeles Kings. Since, he has kept busy behind the bench in the NHL. He has served as head coach of the Kings and New Jersey Devils, as well as, assistant coach of the Kings, Devils and Sharks. Currently in 2013-14, he is associate coach with head coach Todd McLellan.

Q. Which Canadiens Hall of Fame forward was nicknamed “The Roadrunner”?

A. At just 5’7” and as fast as the cartoon character, Yvan Cournoyer fit the nickname well. Cournoyer was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1982. After three years of junior with the Montreal Junior Canadiens of the OHA, Yvan joined the Habs full-time in 1964-65. He remained with Montreal throughout his career and retired after playing just 15 games in the 1978-79 season. In his final four years with Montreal, he served as team captain. In each of those four years, the Canadiens won the Stanley Cup championship.

Hockey Trivia: Long Lost NHL Teams

Back in the early days of the NHL, before the league was reduced to the ‘Original Six’, an interesting mix of franchises came and went. Test and expand your hockey knowledge with these four trivia questions on the nicknames of teams that were part of the early days of the NHL but are now long gone.

Q. Where was home for NHL franchise nicknamed the Tigers?

A. Long before Jim Ballsillie’s attempts to bring an NHL franchise to Hamilton, Ontario, there existed a team in the Canadian steel city named the Tigers. The team played from 1920 to 1925. The Tigers were created from the demise of the Quebec Bulldogs. The Tigers were NHL regular season champions in the 1924-25 season, their last in Hamilton.

Q. When the Hamilton Tigers left the NHL, Pirates took their spot. Where did the Pirates play out of?

A. Just like Major League Baseball, the Pirates were a hockey franchise in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Pirates played from 1925-26 until 1929-30. Thirty-seven years later, NHL hockey returned to Pittsburgh in the form of the Penguins.

The Pirates played out of the cozy Duquesne Gardens in Pittsburgh. The arena officially sat just 5,000 for hockey, although unofficially it could fit 8,000 spectators. The building was constructed as a Trolley Barn in 1890 and converted to an ice rink in 1895. Duquesne Gardens was closed and demolished in 1956.

In Pittsburgh’s first year in the NHL, the team finished third in the seven team league, behind the Ottawa Senators and Montreal Maroons. The team played in the post season twice but never won a series.

Q. The Pittsburgh Pirates became the Quakers and played out of what city for just the 1930-31 season?

A. The Philadelphia Quakers were a disaster in the NHL. In their one season, the team registered just four wins and four ties over the 44 game schedule. In the American Division, the Quakers finished fifth out of five teams, 27 points behind the fourth place Detroit Falcons and 50 points behind the first place Boston Bruins. Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Syd Howe played his second year in the NHL with Philadelphia.

Q. Another one season team was named the Eagles. Where did this franchise call home during the 1934-35 season?

A. The St. Louis Eagles were the reincarnation of the Ottawa Senators. The team finished last in the five team league during the 1934-35 season with just eleven wins in 48 games. The Eagles played out of the massive St. Louis Arena, a new venue at the time, having opening in 1929. At the time, the capacity of the arena for hockey was 14,200. That seating limit ballooned to as  high as 18,008 when it was home to the St. Louis Blues before being closed in 1994. The building was demolished in 1999.