Your favourite Maple Leaf memorabilia- cards, coins, magazines, calendars?

The Leafs seem (I know, I know, it's not guaranteed yet...) headed to the playoffs and that in and of itself brings back such fond memories for me—and I’m sure for a lot of you.  My own Leaf playoff recollections date back to the very late 1950’s. (Including, for some reason, a goal Bobby Baun scored in the playoffs against Montreal.  It was a game the Leafs were trailing like 6-1, in the Stanley Cup finals in either ’59 or ‘60, but I seem to recall Baun scoring on a shot from the point to make it a bit closer…I was watching on our family's little old black and white TV, sitting on the lap of my older brother, John—who was a passionate Hab fan, but he pretended to be happy for me and the Leafs when Baun scored to try and make me feel better…)

I can sense how much it means to fellow Leaf supporters that we are  nearly back "in", and so today I wanted to do something a bit different to honour the different ways we have followed our Leafs over the years and also simply enjoyed hockey as a pastime.

We’ve spent a lot of time here lately talking about our current Leafs, things and players we’re pleased about and what the team may still ‘need’ to achieve some playoff success now—and down the road.  But I wanted to set aside the player-by-player analysis (and the negativity that sometimes comes with it, as Leaf fans fight over who knows more about what Carlyle needs to do, etc…) and just have some old-time fun today.

So here’s a question for you:  when it comes to your love of hockey, and the Leafs (it doesn’t have to be about the Leafs, if you cheer for someone else…) what are some of the things you have enjoyed over the years, either as a youngster or even as an adult, that kept you interested in the game?  Maybe it was collecting hockey cards as a youngster, or collecting memorabilia in recent times with your own children—something I have definitely loved doing when the kids were younger . (Click on the link for a Bobby Hull memory...)

Do you have any favourite old hockey cards, for example?

Maybe it was a treasured autograph of a player from the olden days—an autograph you still have, with a great story to go along with it.  (I have a frustrated story which I have shared here before—two different autograph moments my older sister managed to get for me when I was really young in the early ‘60s.  As a flight attendant, she was able to get the entire Leaf team to sign a piece of paper in 1962, which she gave to me.  She later met Johnny Bower and Gordie Howe (see the fantastic old Harold Barkley photo of the two legends on the right) on the same flight, and brought home signed photos of those two all-time greats.  Being young and foolish, I somehow lost the “team” autograph not long afterwards.  However, I held on to the Howe/Bower autographed photos for years.  Still don’t know how I managed to lose those as well…)

I’ve held on to a few old magazines form my childhood (wish I had kept a few more) but one of my own fondest keep-sakes is a Maple Leaf 'calendar' that I sent away for in the late summer of 1962—the summer after the Leafs won the Stanley Cup for the first time in my lifetime.  I’ve managed to hold on to that calendar through basement floods, many, many location changes and a host of other challenges.  I still love it.  My better half had it framed for me several years ago, and the front of the calendar is the photo I use here on VLM and as my “avatar” (is that the right word?) on Twitter.

Speaking of magazines, here is a pic of an early '80s Sports Illustrated (left).  Wayne Gretzky signed it for my then very young son.  (I knew Wayne a bit when I worked up in the Soo and he played his one year of junior hockey there in 1977-'78.  He later did me a few favours, interviews and such, including showing up as a special guest in Windsor in the summer of 1980 when I was Master of Ceremonies for a big Kinsmen Sports Celebrities dinner.) My son is not a hockey fan now, so it's possible I may have the magazine back in my possession. (Hey, it means more to me....)

One of the other great memories I have (I admit, I was a little older at the time, but I still loved it) was during the 1970-’71 NHL season when Esso (the oil company) had a special hockey promotion.  They issued a great picture “album” with all kinds of tremendous game-action photos, all in colour.  When  you purchased gas there (something my Dad generally did not do at Esso—he had a thing about Esso for some reason; I think he saw them as a big, bad oil company, but he he did it for me…) during the promotion, you would get ‘x’ (I can’t remember how many) number of little colour photos as well that you could paste into your album.  That’s another memento I have from those golden days of hockey. I’m betting some of you do as well who were around in the early '70s.

In any event, it might be anything that triggers great memories for you. I've written here before about those wonderful old Bee-Hive hockey photos.  Those were treasures.  Sending away for and receiving those brown envelopes with the pictures inside was such a thrill.  (I still pass by the old St. Larence facility in Port Credit every once in a while.  The only remnant is what I assume was once the company's head office.  The smallish brick building/land is now up for lease.  The old plant is now housing, I believe...).  That's a 1950s Bee-Hive picture of long-time Hab - and late career Maple Leaf - Donnie Marshall, at right.  Marshall was a slick player, great defensively, who had a fine 20-year NHL career and later worked for a few years as an analyst for Hockey Night in Canada.

So share your “collecting”-related memories and a story, if you have one.  (I remember, just now, as I’m writing, when you could collect bottle tops from Coca-Cola with tiny little “head shots” of various NHL players; didn’t the Shirrif (sp?) company also have a promotion where they included small photos of NHL’ers -in a kind of octoganol shape- in their tea or something along those lines?)

All this stuff was so much fun.  So whether it was old magazines, old newspaper clippings you still have, cards, pennants, autographs, send a note.  Let’s step back from the “pressure” of making the playoffs (and other more important and serious things ongoing in all our lives) for the first time in seemingly forever and just enjoy talking hockey from a little different perspective today.