January 11, 1948: The Montreal Canadiens lose a game, and a player for the season due to injury. But it turns out to be a blessing in disguise -- perhaps, to borrow Winston Churchill's phrase, very well disguised.
Joseph Hector Blake was born on August 21, 1912 in Walden, a mining town that no longer exists, outside Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. His father was English and from Massachusetts, and his mother was from Quebec, so he spoke both English and French fluently. A younger sister had trouble pronouncing "Hector," and it came out "Hec-toe," and he was "Toe" for the rest of his life.
A left wing, he debuted in the NHL with the Montreal Maroons in 1935, and helped them win the Stanley Cup as a rookie. But the Maroons were bankrupt -- they folded in 1938 -- and so they took the cash when the Montreal Canadiens offered it to them for Blake.
In 1939, he won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the League's Most Valuable Player. He also led the League in scoring, although the Art Ross Trophy, given for that achievement, would not be created until the 1947-48 season. Because of the red light bulb behind every net that would be turned on by a goal judge for a goal, Blake became known as "The Old Lamplighter." (That was also the title of a 1946 hit song by Sammy Kaye.)
In 1943, the team known as Les Habitantes (the Inhabitants, or "Farmers," or "the Habs" for short) put him on a forward line with center Elmer Lach and right wing Maurice "the Rocket" Richard. This became known as the Punch Line, and it led to Stanley Cup wins in 1944 and 1946. In 1945, while they didn't win the Cup, the assists of Blake and Lach enabled Richard to become the 1st player to score 50 goals in a season -- which was then only 50 games.
But on January 11, 1948, in a 3-1 loss to the New York Rangers at the old Madison Square Garden, Blake collided with the Rangers' Bill Juzda, awkwardly hit the boards, and suffered a double fracture of his ankle. He was only 35, and should have had at least a couple of good years left. But, given the nature of sports medicine at the time, he was finished.
At the time, he was 2nd all-time in career scoring with 527 points, 21 points behind Bill Cowley for the all-time record. He had the all-time record for career points in the Playoffs, with 62 points in 58 games. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame as a player in 1966. In 1998, he was ranked 66th on The Hockey News' list of the NHL's 100 greatest players of all time to date.
The Canadiens offered Blake a minor-league coaching job, and he moved up the ranks until he was named head coach on June 8, 1955, replacing Dick Irvin Sr. (Dick Irvin Jr. would become one of the Canadiens' many great broadcasters.) Blake was fluent in French, and management also felt that Richard's former linemate was better suited to control the star's explosive temper, especially given the riot of the preceding March.
Blake coached the Canadiens for 13 years, winning the Stanley Cup 8 times, including in each of his 1st 5 seasons. Only Scotty Bowman, with 9, has won more, 5 of those with the Canadiens. His 500 regular-season wins are still the most in Canadiens history. He retired after the Habs clinched the Cup in Game 4 of the 1968 Finals, ending 33 consecutive years at ice level with the Canadiens organization.
From 1952 to 1983, he ran Toe Blake's Tavern, at Guy & Ste. Catherine Streets, 6 blocks east of the Montreal Forum. He was honored at the Forum as part of the Canadiens' 75th Anniversary ceremonies in 1985, as the coach on their all-time team. But he had already begun to suffer from Alzheimer's disease: By 1989, the great Montreal Gazette hockey writer Red Fisher reported that Blake no longer recognized him. Blake died on May 17, 1995, at the age of 82.
Toe Blake remains one of the magical names of Montreal Canadiens history. And yet, his Number 6 remains, with 8, the only remaining single digit never to be retired by the team. I can't imagine why, given his significance as a coach and a player.
*
January 11, 1948 was a Sunday. The NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action that night. In the other 2 games, The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings played to a 2-2 tie at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit; and the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Boston Bruins, 4-1 at the Chicago Stadium.
Baseball and football were out of season. There were 3 games played in the league that would become the NBA:
* The New York Knicks lost to the Chicago Stags, 99-86 at the Chicago Stadium. That's right, the Stadium hosted an NHL game and an NBA game on the same day.
* The Boston Celtics beat the Washington Capitols, 84-56 at the Boston Garden. The Caps were coached by Red Auerbach, but nobody in the building that night, not even he, had any idea of what the future had in store for him in that building.
* And the St. Louis Bombers beat the Baltimore Bullets, 69-54 at the St. Louis Arena.
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