Hockey's Original 6: Great Players of the Golden Era

· Greystone Books Ltd
5.0
2 reviews
Ebook
144
Pages
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About this ebook

“Hockey historians will appreciate the precision action shots taken of the first cohort of NHL stars . . . a record of how hockey has evolved.” —Winnipeg Free Press
 
The hockey stars of the 1950s and ’60s—Rocket Richard, Gordie Howe, Dave Keon, Bobby Hull, Jean Beliveau, Terry Sawchuk, Tim Horton, and others—were some of the most passionate players in National Hockey League history. These skillful and often colorful athletes played exhilarating hockey and were national heroes in a time when only six teams and fewer than 150 players battled for the Stanley Cup.
 
Hockey’s Original 6 celebrates the most dynamic players and exciting moments of the era in more than 120 photographs from the legendary Harold Barkley Archives, including a number of never—or rarely seen—images. From 1942 until the early ’70s, Barkley was the Toronto Star’s leading sports photographer. He pioneered the use of electronic flash to capture stop-action hockey, and his dramatic work—both black and white and vibrant color—define the pre-expansion period.
 
Two informative essays by Mike Leonetti—hockey historian, archivist, and prolific sportswriter—set Barkley and the photos in context, and short image captions illuminate the players and their feats. The late hockey legend Jean Béliveau provides a personal and insightful foreword.
 
“Will take your breath away . . . a collection that captures players’ grimaces, suture tracks, missing teeth and Brylcreem-lacquered hair; their primitive equipment, joy and considerable pain, even the depth of snow beneath their tubular-steel blades, the individual planks of lumber that were the arena boards, and the octagonal orange crests on the Tyer Rubber Co. pucks whose impact has smudged the fire-engine-red goalposts.” —The Montreal Gazette

Ratings and reviews

5.0
2 reviews

About the author

Mike Leonetti has written more than twenty-five books, including best-selling hockey titles such as Hockey Now, Maple Leaf Legends, Canadiens Legends, and Maple Leafs Top 100. He has also written several best-selling children's picture books, including My Leafs Sweater, A Hero Named Howe, Number Four, Bobby Orr, and Wendel and the Great One. He owns an extensive archive of hockey photographs and memorabilia-including the Harold Barkley Archives-and is a walking encyclopedia of Maple Leafs trivia. He lives in Woodbridge, Ontario.

Harold Barkley was a pioneer of sports photography. Covering three decades worth of NHL hockey for the Toronto Star during the golden era of the Original Six, he was the first to use an electronic flash to take stop-action hockey pictures and he developed special equipment for shooting colour.

For close to twenty seasons, Jean Béliveau was “the gentle giant” centreman and captain of the fabled Montréal Canadiens during the team’s glory years in the 1950s and 1960s. Retiring from active play in 1971, he went on to a successful twenty-two-year career as the Canadien’s senior vice-president of corporate affairs and to life-long service as a goodwill ambassador for the sport.

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