The Last Hurrah: A Celebration of Hockey's Greatest Season, '66-'67

Albert Stray is librarian and manager of the Streetsville Public
Library.

It is virtually impossible for any hockey fan raised in the
post-expansion era of the National Hockey League to comprehend the
former rivalry between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal
Canadiens. Nowadays, these two teams play each other only twice a year
in a sprawling league dominated by American franchises.

But in 1967, there were only six teams in the NHL. For more than four
decades, Canada’s two largest cities clashed at the centre line 14
times a year. The rivalry between Toronto and Montreal had historical,
religious, and even national undertones. Twelve of Montreal’s 18
players were natives of Quebec. Thirteen of the Leafs had been recruited
from Ontario. Every victory of Toronto over Montreal was an affirmation
that Protestant

Toronto the Good, a city with strict liquor laws, was morally superior
to decadent Catholic Montreal. Every Montreal victory over Toronto was
proof in Quebec that the British victory on the Plains of Abraham had
been a fluke. It made for good hockey. Between 1945 and 1969, Toronto
won the Stanley Cup nine times, and Montreal won it 11 times.

This is the world that Stephen Cole brilliantly re-creates, using a
combination of news articles, NHL statistics, and interviews with former
hockey players from that era. Cole, who has written two other books
about hockey, pumps his text full of sports-writer metaphors: “Punch
was as high as old cheese,” and a New York goalie was “spitting out
$500 dentures in $50 chunks.”

Cole carefully builds tension by taking the reader through the entire
1966–67 season. It was an era of colorful characters. Toe Blake, the
brooding Montreal coach, had a perfect counterpoint in Toronto’s Punch
Imlach, a flamboyant and irritating man who once said that his coaching
philosophy was “Treat ’em all the same. Bad.” The year 1966–67
was possibly the finest season of the NHL’s six-team era. Cole’s
book is a fitting tribute to the players and fans who made it great.