Saturday, March 8, 2008

Sweet Hockey Card of the Week (March 8th, 2008)


Most exuberant greetings, hockey fans! The deepest apologies are due from the management for its failure to provide a new edition of the Team Teal in the Twin Towns Sweet Hockey Card of the Week yesterday. However, the appearance on the calendar of a Sharks game obliged it to place its attention thereupon. But now, 'tis a new day, so let us get right to it--this week's sweeeeeet hockey card is...


Pete Stemkowski, New York Rangers, 1975

Stemmer!

Pete Stemkowski played fourteen seasons in the NHL (fifteen if you count the one game he played in the 1963-64 season) for Toronto, Detroit, the Rangers, and the Los Angeles Kings. (Career stats here.) On the back of this card, the text says that Stemkowski was born in Winnipeg in 1943 and that he was "Known for clutch plays, especially in the playoffs."

Historians of the NHL are in general agreement with this statement. In the index of their book '67, about the last Toronto Maple Leafs team to win the Stanley Cup (of which Stemmer was a member), Damien Cox and Gord Stellick provide a listing for Stemkowski, Peter (Stemmer) "as playoff warrior, page 31". His greatest playoff moment, though, was his triple-overtime winner against Chicago in 1971 as a member of the New York Rangers.

Of course, I personally will always think of Stemmer as an analyst for the Sharks. At various times he has served both in the television booth and on the radio for San Jose...I associate his voice with my early fandom for the team.

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