Sweet Hockey Card of the Week (February 29th)

A resounding Welcome! to all hockey fans, and card fans, and hockey-card fans who have tuned in for this week's edition of the Team Teal in the Twin Towns Sweet Hockey Card of the Week.




The 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens

Gaze, o hockey fan, upon possibly the greatest team ever to lace 'em up. The 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens compiled an amazing record of 60-8-12, and won the Stanley Cup in a four-game sweep of the Boston Bruins. They lost only once at home all year. In the sport of ice hockey, in which games are so often decided by the thinnest of margins, that level of success is truly extraordinary.

This team is only the shiniest of a series of gleaming Habs squads that reclaimed dominance of the National Hockey League from the upstart Philadelphia Flyers in the mid-to-late seventies, winning the Stanley Cup in 1976, 1977, 1978, and 1979. I recall my uncle, who saw these teams play the North Stars, telling me once that Montreal's control of play would be so comprehensive that Habs' goalie Ken Dryden would occasionally leave his crease and skate around his own zone just to stay loose.

The back of this card is a list of other Montreal Canadiens who were featured on Topps cards this year. Steve Shutt. Serge Savard. Jacques Lemaire. Bob Gainey, the current GM of the Habs for whom the Selke Trophy (best defensive forward) was essentially invented. Dryden. Guy LaFleur. Yvan Cournoyer. The peerless Larry Robinson. It almost makes you dizzy. (Check out the team's stats here.)

I hope you enjoyed this week's sweeeet hockey card. By now you are certainly wondering about next week's selection. I'll give you some hints. He played for the Rangers. The back of his hockey card says (correctly) that he is "Known for clutch plays, especially in the playoffs". And he has a connection to my very own San Jose Sharks. Intrigued? Watch this space next Friday, when all will be revealed!