November 12, 1942: The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 3-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Gaye Stewart scores 2 goals for the Leafs, Jack McLean 1. Former Leaf Frank "Buzz" Boll scores the only goal for the Bruins.
Among the players for the Bruins was left wing Bep Guidolin. He was 16 years, 11 months and 2 days old. He remains the youngest player ever to enter an NHL game.
Armand Guidolin (no middle name) was born on December 9, 1925, in Thorold, Ontario, outside Niagara Falls. When he was a boy, the family moved considerably further north, to Timmins, Ontario. He was the youngest child in the family, and his Italian mother pronounced "baby" as "beppy." This got shortened to "Bep."
He was just 5-foot-8, 175 pounds, and not yet 17 years old. But the manpower drain caused by World War II had already thinned NHL rosters, especially since Canada was still part of the British Empire. The Bruins' entire main front line of Milt Schmidt, Woody Dumart and Bobby Bauer, which had led them to the 1939 and 1941 Stanley Cups, were now serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force.
That line, all Canadians of German descent, were known as the Kraut Line. Come the war, the name was changed to the Kitchener Line, for their common Ontario hometown. There was precedent: Kitchener, outside Hamilton, had long been home to German immigrants and their families, and had been known as Berlin until World War I. The name was changed to memorialize Lord Kitchener, the highest-ranking British officer killed in that war, and whose image on recruiting posters predated America's Uncle Sam "I WANT YOU for U.S. Army" posters by a year.
Despite his youth and size, Guidolin had already distinguished himself on the ice. The previous season, he had led the Oshawa Generals to win the Ontario Hockey Association title, and got them to the Final of the Memorial Cup, the championship of Canadian junior hockey, where they lost to a team from Manitoba, the Portage La Prairie Terriers.
Guidolin played in 42 games for the Bruins that 1942-43 season, helping them reach the Stanley Cup Finals, where they lost to the Detroit Red Wings. He remained with them through the 1947 season, played the next with the Wings, then played 4 more with the Chicago Black Hawks. He scored 107 goals in NHL play, topping out at 17 in 2 seasons, and, in those "Original Six" days, with only 120 NHL playing jobs available, was still playing in hockey's high minors until 1961, at age 35.
In 1958, while still playing, he coached the Belleville McFarlands (of Belleville, Ontario, hometown of Bobby Hull) to the Allan Cup, the championship of senior amateur hockey in Canada. In 1965, the Bruins brought him back, to coach the Generals, including a teenage phenom named Bobby Orr. In 1966, once again, this time as head coach, Guidolin got the Generals to the Final of the Memorial Cup but lost it, this time to the Edmonton Oil Kings.
Midway through the 1972-73 season, Tom Johnson stepped down as coach of the Bruins, then the Stanley Cup holders, and Guidolin was named to replace him. He became the 1st NHL head coach ever to win his 1st 5 games. He got them to the 1974 Stanley Cup Finals, losing to the Philadelphia Flyers. He coached the expansion Kansas City Scouts in the 1974-75 and 1975-76 seasons, and was still coaching in professional hockey as late as 1984. He died on November 24, 2008, at age 82.
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November 12, 1942 was a Thursday. Only 1 other game was played in the NHL: The Montreal Canadiens beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 5-2 at the Montreal Forum. The New York Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings were not scheduled.
There were no other scores on this historic day: Baseball season was over, football was in midweek, and the NBA hadn't been founded yet.
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