FeaturedThis Day In Hockey History

This Day in Hockey History – June 17

Today in hockey history, one of the most, uh, “colorful” personalities in the sport today is born, a great drafted breaks a bit of a nationality barrier, a few new Hall-of-Fame inductees, and an impressive record is set and another is tied in the same game.

hockey history

June 17, 1952 – The notorious player, GM, and TV analyst Mike Milbury was born in Brighton, Massachusetts. Milbury is known for many things, although none of them are necessarily for being good at any of his jobs. His most famous moment as a player is climbing the glass in New York as a Bruin and beating a Rangers fan with the fan’s own shoe. He’s known as being one of the worst general managers in league history, trading away players like Zdeno Chara, Roberto Luongo, Wade Redden (when he was considered good), Olli Jokinen, and Tim Connolly for basically nothing, and then drafting Rick DiPietro with the #1 overall pick. Oh, he also traded Chara and the second overall pick, who became Jason Spezza, for the infamous Alexi Yashin, who he then signed to a ridiculous 10-year, $87.5-million contract. Yashin proved to be useless, and was bought out in 2007. As for his television career…well, you can find a lot of his shenanigans with a simple YouTube search, but to summarize, he’s a bit of an irrational clown.

June 17, 1989 – With the #1 overall pick, the Quebec Nordiques drafted Mats Sundin, making him the first European player to be taken first. Yes, although he played virtually his entire career with the Leafs, he did in fact play four seasons with Quebec before being traded, then playing 13 seasons in Toronto (and one with Vancouver).

June 17, 1990 – Three new members to the Hall: Gil Perreault, Bill Barber, and Fernie Flaman.

June 17, 1995 – The Devils set an NHL record by winning their ninth road game of the postseason, a 2-1 win at Detroit in Game 1 of the Finals (Detroit had just 17 shots). The Devils would also win Game 2 to extend their streak, but that’s where it ended…because they won the next games as well, ending the series and preventing the opportunity to win any more road games. Also, Scotty Bowman became the first coach in NHL history to appear in the Stanley Cup Finals with four teams: St. Louis, Montreal, Pittsburgh, and now Detroit.

 

Source: Hockey Hall of Fame

Scott Finger
Scott is the former managing editor at Hooked on Hockey Magazine. He loves hockey, writing, and writing about hockey. He graduated from Roger Williams University in 2011 with a useless degree in Media Communications (concentrating in Journalism). Being a New York Rangers fan (and NY Giants and Mets fan) living in Boston is very uncomfortable for him, and it'll be awkward trying to celebrate a Rangers Cup win in the streets when they inevitably win sometime in the next 100 years. He also likes long walks on the beach.
Back to top button