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Why the Toronto Maple Leafs did NOT Draft in 1965?

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Really, who cares? Right? I wonder how many Maple Leafs fan even know the Leafs didn’t draft in 1965… let alone why?

I didn’t know, though there was no reason I should have known. I like NHL hockey but not THAT much to know such trivia. I wouldn’t have cared, either, except that in doing my first post for a Athletic Analytics, a sports analytics blog I’m starting with JavaScript visuals I can’t embed here, I saw an anomaly in the visual. Curiosity then got the better of me.

In the first post about the number of drafts in which NHL teams participated, I saw that the Toronto Maple Leafs had one fewer year of participation than the other five Original Six teams. I’m not a hockey historian but I know the Leafs had been around long before 1963 when the drafts started, so what was going on?

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The Players in the “Spelling” NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs Commercial

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I LOVE this NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs commercial! It’s so simple, but it shows and says so much! And so wonderful to see all these NHL legends again, out of uniform as themselves in life.

This is the full length version, which isn’t always played during the games… and better than the shortened version, for sure!

It took me five tries before I identified all the players, though when I went to check online, I couldn’t find a list. Once I got it confirmed with some hockey nut friends, I thought I’d share it. The players are listed below in the order of appearance in the commercial above, with the letters of their last names that they spelled out in the commercial.

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NHLers GoPro with Action Cams on Players – Sample Video

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The NHL will have players wear GoPro action cams starting at the All-Star game to get footage for live hockey broadcasts. You’ll never have seen the game this way if you’ve never played, and not at this speed unless you’re a professional level player. For a sample, they put together this fantastic video of some NHL stars stick handling, taking shots and so on. Wow! is all I’ve got to say! Can’t wait!

Why Has NFL Football Remain America’s #1 Sport?

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On this biggest sports day of the year, the Super Bowl, I pondered why NFL football remains America’s #1 sport.

NFL football became America’s #1 sport through a variety of complex, interwoven and additive reasons as analyzed here in the Bleacher Report. The reasons why it has remained so, and only widened the gap, are a little different, in my opinion. The latest survey from Harris for ESPN shows some interesting demographic divides among the popular sports, though, but it’s not these demographics I’m looking at, rather the overall results. Finally, I have to be clear that #1 is for watching and interest, not participation. That belongs to soccer, probably for its ease to be able to play without huge costs for gear and facilities to play in.

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