Sweet Hockey Card of the Week (February 22nd, 2008)

Hey there, hockey fans! Well, it's Friday again, and that means it's time for another Team Teal in the Twin Towns Sweeeeeet Hockey Card of the Week!

This week's sweet hockey card (drum roll please...)


Glen Sather, Minnesota North Stars, 1975

I actually didn't know that Glen Sather was once a member of my Minnesota North Stars until I turned up this hockey card a few years ago. Sather, of course, is far better known as the coach of the spectacular Edmonton Oilers teams of the eighties that won four Stanley Cups.

Sather (career stats here) only played one season for the North Stars. It was his final year in the NHL before jumping to the WHA, where he actually played for the Oilers for a time before becoming player-coach towards the end of the 1977 season.

In his excellent book The Rebel League, about the WHA, Ed Willes tells how then-Oilers coach Bep Guidolin, saying of the team "They're not responding to me," thrust Sather, his captain at the time, into the player-coach role. The Oilers seemed sparked by the change, and went on to edge out the Calgary Cowboys for the last spot in the WHA playoffs. A few years later, four WHA teams merged into the NHL (in addition to the Oilers, the Quebec Nordiques, Hartford Whalers, and Winnipeg Jets made the jump). There was this kid called Gretzky on the Oilers' roster. And the rest, as they say, is history...

New Sweet Hockey Card next week!