NFT: RIP Stan Mikita

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RIP

Ill always remember the crazy helmet he wore. Well-deserved HOFer but was always overshadowed by Bobby Hull

so much so it was difficult to get a clean check on him...sad as these heroes of yesteryear that I read about daily are just going away

mostly, but no doubt he's a legend.

I learned who he was in squirts before I had a voice in my equipment and my father made the mistake of buying me a Stan Mikita helmet. Shit the Gretzky Jofa would have been an upgrade to this eyesore. I was heckled mercilessly by the other 9 years olds.

RIP Stan, and thankfully RIP to this helmet.

In comment 14031864 kinard said:

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Ill always remember the crazy helmet he wore.

Behold!



Reminds me of Mike Foligno's

anyway, Butch Goring's was the worst

In comment 14031879 Greg from LI said:

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anyway, Butch Goring's was the worst

absolutely, but I don't remember seeing any kids wearing that abomination. LOL, that would be hockey suicide. You'd probably not make teams you tried out for just because of that helmet.

What's funny is now in men's league, we have to wear helmets and for nostalgia reasons quite a few guys have the Gretzky Jofa or the Lemieux golf ball.

helmets were goofy, but at least they were all the same. I was on a team representing the US in 1987 and played in an INTL tournament in Sweden. They had a team from Czechoslovakia there and they all had those Russian helmets. We made fun of them. Then they beat us 8 - 1 (they were 16/17 and we were all 14/5) but still got our asses kicked.

but with Gretzky and some of these other ugly helmet wearers they were the only ones who the ugly helmets.

triggers memories for me - until I was 15 y/o, there were only six teams in the NHL and no one wore helmets at that time. (Seems crazy now, but true.) Going to the Garden to see the Rangers play was great. You didn't know every player in the league, but you knew the top couple of lines on every team, plus there were basically only six starting goalies.

great person too. RIP Stan.

Goals

Hull CHI 52
Mikita CHI 35
Wharram CHI 31
Gilbert NYR 28
McGregor DET 28

Assists

Mikita CHI 62
Goyette NYR 49
Pilote CHI 46
Rousseau MTL 44
Ullman DET 44

Plus/Minus

Pilote CHI 54
Jarrett CHI 43
Mikita CHI 40
Wharram CHI 35
Esposito CHI 34

Blackhawks won the regular season championship by 17 points
The Maple Leafs who finished in third defeated Chicago in 6 games.
Toronto went on to defeat 2nd place Montreal for the championship.

The next year the league went to twelve teams...

RIP to one of the greats...

legend, all that stuff.

and Hull at the old Garden. They made Chicago a tough team to beat.

In comment 14032103 Bill in UT said:

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and Hull at the old Garden. They made Chicago a tough team to beat.

Yeah, should have mentioned my post above was about the old Garden, not the current one. Good times ...

fantastic player. As ColHowPepper said, Mikita had extremely quick hands, and was equally shifty with deceptive speed. RIP. God bless.

player (?) to amass 100 PIMS in a season and win a Lady Byng in his career.

the sports guy I was listening to said someone (I didn't catch who exactly) was talking to him and got him to understand how much more valuable he was to his team when he was on the ice. And he "got it" and reinvented his game.

Sort of like a poor man's Gordie Howe. And I don't mean that negatively, being a poor man's "Mr Hockey" isn't an insult.

In comment 14031864 kinard said:

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Ill always remember the crazy helmet he wore. Well-deserved HOFer but was always overshadowed by Bobby Hull

It was rare for anybody to wear a helmet those days and if they did it was usually something flimsy. I remember when Mikita talked about first wearing it that he would actually get taunted by other players about it being a cowardly move

In comment 14031879 Greg from LI said:

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anyway, Butch Goring's was the worst

I believe that was Butch's helmet from his childhood that for whatever reason he kept through his playing days. Spray painting and repairing it. It basically almost disintegrated on his head. It had no padding and offered no protection

Gretzky's JOFA 235 wasn't even a hockey helmet. It was a broomball helmet. Barely any protection