Welcome, everyone. We are so glad to have you
with us for another deep dive. Really excited
for this one. Yeah, me too. And I want you to
imagine something for a second. Just picture
playing professional sports at the absolute highest
level. Okay. You go out there, you're all on
the ice, but you just have a lousy game. Yeah.
You know, the puck bounces the wrong way, you
miss a defensive assignment, and your team loses.
It happens. Right, it happens. Yeah. But instead
of your coach just yelling at you or running
you through drills at practice the next day,
he walks into the locker room, demands you open
your wallet, and finds you $100 out of your own
pocket. Wow. Right then and there. Welcome to
the 1958 -59 National Hockey League season. It
is a completely different universe from the...
highly polished union protected sports world
we know today. Completely. To guide our journey
today, we're pulling from a comprehensive encyclopedia
entry covering the 42nd NHL season. And our mission
for this deep dive is to explore how this single
70 game, six team season perfectly captured a
massive cultural transition. The original six
eras crown jewel. Okay, exactly. We are looking
at the exact moment. Where old school, unapologetic,
bare knuckle sports grit collided with the slick,
record breaking athletic excellence of the modern
era. It's perfect for sports historians and curious
learners alike. OK, let's unpack this because.
To understand the on ice product, we have to
start with the business side of things. Right.
A major shift happens right as the 1958 -59 season
kicks off. And it has to do with how these teams
were actually finding and signing their players.
Yeah, the business of hockey was undergoing a
fundamental transformation here. For years leading
up to this point, the NHL and the Canadian Amateur
Hockey Association. The CA. Right, the CHA. They
had been operating on what was essentially a
gentleman's agreement. The formal deal between
them had actually expired back in 1955. Oh, wow.
Yeah. So heading into the 1958 -59 season, they
finally negotiated and set a new professional
amateur agreement in stone. And the CHA's secretary,
George Dudley, actually came out and announced
the hard numbers, which is fascinating. It really
is. The NHL agreed to pay $40 ,000 Canadian dollars
toward developing amateur players. But I want
to pause on the rules they established alongside
that money. They laid down strict regulations
for things called negotiation lists and reserve
lists. For someone listening who might only follow
modern free agency rules, how did those lists
actually function back then? Think of it as a
system designed to give team owners absolute
control. Okay. Before this formal agreement,
the scouting system was a bit of a Wild West
scenario, heavily based on regional territories.
What's fascinating here is how creating structured
negotiation and reserve lists meant teams could
claim the exclusive rights to a young player.
So they just owned your rights. Exactly. Once
you were on a team's reserve list, you belonged
to them. There was no free agency. You couldn't
just decide to shop your talents to the highest
bidder. Which ties directly back to the $100
fines we talked about. Precisely. Management
had total leverage. If a player complained, they
couldn't leave for another team. They were simply
benched, demoted, or financially punished. That
paints such a clear picture of the power dynamic.
And there was another crucial detail in this
C -A -H -A agreement. They decided that amateurs
age 17 and older would now play using the exact
same rules as the professionals. With the only
exception being how they handled overtime. Right.
It formalized the player pipeline. If you are
a franchise investing heavily into developing
these teenagers. You want them playing the exact
same style of game they will face when they hit
the big leagues. Makes perfect sense. You're
removing the learning curve. They were turning
raw talent acquisition into a structured business
model. So while this season was busy building
the corporate future of the league, it seems
like it was also quietly saying goodbye to its
deep past. A lot of people refer to this as the
Original Six era. Yeah, they do. Can we define
what that actually means for the listener and
maybe look at how this specific season closed
the door on the history that came before it?
Sure. The term Original Six is actually a bit
of a historical misnomer. Yeah. It refers to
the six teams that made up the NHL from 1942
until the league expanded in 1967. That's the
Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston
Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings,
and New York Rangers. Got it. They weren't the
first six teams in hockey history, but they were
the six that survived the Great Depression and
World War II to form the stable core of the mid
-century NHL. Which makes the trivia surrounding
a player named Kenny Mosdell so poignant. This
1958 -59 season, marked his final time skating
in an NHL game. Kenny Mosdell is the perfect
bridge between those two distinct eras of hockey.
He suited up for just two postseason games for
Montreal that year and then retired. And he matters
because he was the very last active player in
the NHL who had played for a team outside of
that original six group. The Brooklyn Americans.
Yes. When Mosdell hung up his skates after the
1959 playoffs, the final remnant of the pre -original
six era officially vanished from the ice. It
sets a beautifully complex stage. You have the
league formalizing the modern amateur draft pipeline
on one hand and the last pioneer of the early
days skating his final laps on the other. It's
incredible contrast. But the story of the 1958
-59 season is fundamentally anchored by the absolute
kings of the ice that year, the Montreal Canadiens.
Dynasty gets thrown around a lot in sports conversations
today, but Montreal defined the word here. They
absolutely did. They won the regular season standings
by a mile, and they became the very first team
in NHL history to win four consecutive Stanley
Cups. The sheer dominance of their roster is
difficult to comprehend. We often see parity
in modern sports due to salary caps and drafts,
but Montreal was operating on a completely different
level. Just look at the All -Star team. Exactly.
When the All -Star nominations came out for that
season, Montreal players secured half of them.
Six of the 12 possible first and second team
All -Star slots went to Canadians. Insane. Let's
talk about the man holding down the net for them,
Jacques Plante. He won his fourth straight Vizina
trophy for being the league's best goaltender.
A true legend. To put his performance in perspective,
he finished the season with a 2 .15 goals against
average. For anyone unfamiliar, that means he
was letting in just barely over two goals per
entire game. And he recorded... Nine shutouts.
Achieving nine shutouts in a 70 -game season
means that in more than 10 % of the games Montreal
played, the opposing team couldn't score a single
goal. Wow. Plante was a tactical genius who was
changing how the goaltender position was played.
He famously roamed out of his crease the painted
area around the net to play the puck, which was
revolutionary at the time. The roster was so
stacked that it actually created some funny anomalies.
I'm looking at the James Norris Memorial Trophy,
which goes to the league's... best defenseman.
It was awarded to Montreal's Tom Johnson. Which
perfectly highlights the internal competition
within that locker room. By winning the Norris
Trophy, Tom Johnson ended a four -year monopoly
on that exact same award. And the player who
held that four -year streak was his own teammate,
Doug Harvey. Right. A team has to be operating
in a different stratosphere when the only person
capable of dethroning your star defenseman is
your second star defenseman. It's unbelievable.
And the scoring records reflect that same internal
push for greatness. Dickie Moore won the Art
Ross Trophy as the league's top scorer. And he
didn't just win it. No. He set a brand new league
record with 96 points, 41 goals, and 55 assists.
The drama of that point total is fantastic. He
broke the previous record by a single agonizing
point. One point. And the man who held that previous
record was none other than the legendary Gordie
Howe of the Detroit Red Wings. 96 points in a
70 -game season demonstrated that Montreal was
fundamentally redefining what peak offensive
performance looked like. Here's where it gets
really interesting. Because underneath all the
shiny trophies, the tactical innovations, and
the record -breaking stats, the NHL in the late
1950s was still an environment of sheer chaos.
Let's revisit those financial penalties we talked
about at the start. The financial penalties are
staggering when viewed through the lens of a
1950s salary. The average player was not making
millions. A $100 fine was a serious blow to their
livelihood. We see this with the Chicago Blackhawks
coach, Rudy Palouse. His team suffers a brutal
9 -1 loss to Montreal at the Forum in late October.
Palouse was so disgusted with the lack of effort
that he slapped his entire team with a $100 fine.
Which is wild. And it was a trend. Detroit Red
Wings coach... Sid Abel, who actually used to
be Gordie Howe's centerman, the player who takes
the faceoffs and anchors the forward line, watched
his team lose five duro to the New York Rangers.
Right. Afterward, Abel went to the press and
called it the worst game of hockey he'd seen
in 20 years. He followed that up by finding 14
of his own players $100 each. Management felt
completely emboldened to use players' bank accounts
as a motivational tool. But the New York Rangers
coach, Phil Watson, took a different approach.
He decided to skip the financial fines in favor
of something much more visceral. Oh, this story.
February 15th at Madison Square Garden. The Rangers
are playing Montreal. Rangers goalie Lorne Worsley
has the Canadians shut out with just 10 minutes
left in the entire game. Looking good for them.
Then, the wheels completely fall off. The Rangers
blow the shutout and give up five goals in ten
minutes to lose 5 -1. Phil Watson is so furious
that he orders his entire team back out onto
the ice after the game for a brutal, exhausting
bag skate. He made everyone skate wind sprints
until they dropped, with one notable exception.
Worsley. Exactly. He spared the goalie, Worsley.
Watson publicly started that Worsley hadn't actually
played poorly, despite giving up the five goals,
placing the blame entirely on the defensive breakdowns
of the skaters in front of him. Unbelievable.
The Rangers general manager, Muz Patrick, even
had to clarify to the press later that this torture
session was meant to take the place of monetary
fines. I won't take your money, but I will take
your legs. Peak old -time hockey. It really is.
Yeah. And the violence wasn't just coming from
the coaching staff. The fisticuffs on the ice.
were genuinely dangerous. Gordie Howe might have
lost his points record to Dickie Moore, but Howe
was still enforcing his will physically. Definitely.
Early in February, the Rangers beat the Red Wings.
During the game, Gordie Howe struck a young Eddie
Shaq with his stick. Lou Fontanato, who was a
legendary enforcer for the Rangers. A guy whose
primary job was to intimidate and fight. Right.
Fontanato became incensed. He skated up and challenged
Howe. If you study the history of Gordie Howe,
you learn very quickly that you do not challenge
him lightly. Never. Howe completely dismantled
Fontanato. He broke his nose right there on the
ice. It was a stark reminder of the physical
toll of the sport. And the fighting wasn't limited
to the enforcers or the forwards. The goalies
were throwing punches too. Yeah, we can look
at Jacques Plante again. In early January, during
a game against the Rangers, Jimmy Bartlett skated
hard and crashed right into Plante. Now, in today's
game, a goalie might look to his defenseman to
clear the crease and protect him. But Plante
takes matters into his own hands and starts throwing
punches at Bartlett. Yep. This immediately sparks
a massive bench -clearing brawl. When the dust
settled, the referee handed Bartlett double major
penalties. For the casual fan, a standard minor
penalty is two minutes in the penalty box. A
major is five minutes for something severe, like
fighting. Right. Bartlett got hit with two of
those, back -to -back, one for charging the goalie
and one for fighting Plante, plus the misconduct.
The goalies had to be just as tough as the guys
checking into the boards. But Plante's toughness
couldn't protect him from everything. Which leads
us to what might be the most bizarre and consequential
story of the entire regular season. I promise
you, you cannot make this story up. It is March
19th, the regular season is winding down, and
Montreal is set to play Toronto. Jacques Plante,
this tough -as -nails, Vazina -winning goalie,
physically cannot play. Why? Because he has a
severe case of boils. It sounds almost medieval.
It does. Boils are painful, deep skin infections.
And trying to wear heavy, unventilated 1950s
goaltending equipment over them would be excruciating.
So Montreal's coach, Toe Blake, has to pivot.
He puts in a substitute goaltender named Claude
Pronovost. Pronovost gives up five goals to Toronto.
By the third period, Toe Blake has seen enough.
So he pulls Pronovost and puts in another substitute
named Claude Cyr. The statistics around Claude
Cyr are fascinating. He played the third period
of that game, led in one goal, and the game ended.
That single period was his first and only appearance
ever in the National Hockey League. A one -game
NHL career, all because Jacques Plante had boils.
Toronto ends up winning the game 6 -3. But this
isn't just a funny footnote in the encyclopedia.
That specific win... sparked the Toronto Maple
Leafs playoff run. It was the turning point for
the Cinderella story of the year. We have to
set the context for Toronto's narrative here.
The previous season, the Maple Leafs had finished
dead last. They were at the absolute bottom of
the barrel. Heading into the 1958 -59 season,
management made some key adjustments. They bolstered
their defense by adding Carl Brewer and Alan
Stanley, pairing them with the legendary Tim
Horton and Bobby Brown. They also made a huge
move in the net, bringing up Johnny Bauer to
share goaltending duties with Ed Chadwick. But
even with those changes, it was a massive grind.
With five games left in the season, the New York
Rangers had a comfortable seven -point lead over
Toronto for the final playoff spot. But then
the Rangers went into an absolute tailspin at
the worst possible time. Meanwhile, the Leafs,
fresh off that win against the Boyle -afflicted
Montreal team, got red hot. It all came down
to the final game of the regular season. Toronto
had to win to oust the Rangers and secure that
final spot. They played Detroit, battled it out,
and won 6 -4. Their Cinderella run didn't stop
there. In the semifinals, they faced the second
-place Boston Bruins. Toronto upsets them, winning
the series four games to three. And if you are
a modern hockey fan, brace yourself for this
next fact. As of the year 2026, this 1959 series
is the last time the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated
the Boston Bruins in a playoff series. It is
a statistic that genuinely defies probability,
given how often those two franchises have met
since. It underscores just how special that 1959
Toronto run was. They were defying the odds at
every turn. But while Toronto was busy shocking
Boston, the other semifinal matchup between Montreal
and Chicago was generating a completely different
kind of drama. This is where the off -ice politics
crash right into the on -ice action. Montreal
and Chicago are battling it out. Game six is
an absolute powder keg. The encyclopedia describes
it as a near riotous environment in the arena.
Tensions were incredibly high. The crowd was
furious. The players were on edge and the officiating
was under a microscope. After the game, things
escalated directly to the league office. The
NHL president at the time, Clarence Campbell,
made a public accusation against the referee
of that game, a man named Red Story. Campbell
accused Story of freezing in the final minutes
of the game. He was essentially implying to the
press that the referee was too intimidated by
the raucous crowd or the weight of the moment
to make the necessary penalty calls. Can you
imagine the commissioner of a major sports league
today publicly throwing one of their top referees
under the bus like that? Never. The fallout was
immediate. Red Story. feeling entirely undermined
by his own boss, resigned as a referee right
then and there. And the situation gets even messier.
A journalist named Bill Westwick was the one
who initially reported Campbell's quote about
story freezing. Once the public backlash hit
and story resigned, Clarence Campbell realized
he had created a massive public relations disaster.
So he backpedals. Big time. Campbell accused
Westwick of taking his words out of context and
claimed the journalist had broken confidence
by publishing what were supposed to be private
remarks. Total damage control by the lead president.
But the press corps wasn't having it. Westwick's
fellow newsmen rallied around him. They publicly
defended his integrity and refused to question
the veracity of his reporting. Which is great
to see. It was a massive black eye for Clarence
Campbell, happening right in the middle of the
most important part of the season. It perfectly
encapsulates the friction of the era. The league
executives were trying to present a polished
professional product to expand their audience.
But the raw emotional human element kept breaking
through the surface. Whether it was coaches finding
players out of pocket, referees resigning in
protest of the president, or executives openly
fighting with the press, the NHL was still a
wildly untamed entity. Montreal survives the
Chicago series amidst all that chaos, and they
meet the Cinderella Toronto Maple Leafs in the
Stanley Cup Finals. Toronto had all the momentum,
all the magic. But Montreal was just inevitable.
They really were. Montreal handles them, winning
the finals four games to one to secure that historic
fourth consecutive Stanley Cup. Toronto put up
a valiant fight, especially considering they
were a last place team a year prior. But Montreal's
depth, led by players like Jean Beliveau, Bernie
Jefferyan, Dickie Moore and Jacques Plant, was
simply too much to overcome. They were a machine
operating at peak efficiency. When we look back
at the 1958 -59 NHL season, it is almost hard
to believe how much action, drama, and pure history
was packed into a schedule of just 70 games.
It's dense. You have a season that perfectly
bridged the gap. On one hand, you have the wild,
punishing days of old -time hockey where noses
are broken, goalies are throwing punches in the
crease, and coaches are making players do wind
sprints in lieu of financial penalties. Right.
On the other hand, you have the slick, record
-breaking skill of Dickie Moore, the tactical
genius of Jacques Lant, and the strategic, dynasty
-building roster of Montreal. If we connect this
to the bigger picture, the business agreements
we discussed at the very beginning really tie
it all together. The amateur development pipelines
and professional contracts established by the
CAH and the NHL in 1958 laid the foundational
groundwork for the highly structured professional
sports ecosystems we see today. They really did.
They were literally building the modern corporate
NHL while simultaneously playing out the last
violent chords of its territorial past. It is
the end of the Kenny Mosdell era and the beginning
of the corporatized sports machine. All of this
history is happening while guys are out there
playing through boils and broken noses. True
hockey history. It is truly the original six
eras crown jewel. As we wrap up our analysis
of this incredible year, this raises an important
question I'd like to leave you with. Okay, let's
hear it. Think about the Montreal Canadiens and
their unprecedented four straight cups. When
an entire era of a sport is utterly dominated
by one seemingly invincible team, Does it stifle
the sport's growth because the outcome feels
predetermined? Or does it actually force every
other team in the league to evolve, ultimately
revolutionizing the game just so they can catch
up? Does dominance create stagnation or does
it demand evolution? Such a great question. Thank
you so much for joining us on this deep dive
into the grit and glory of 1959. Keep exploring,
keep questioning, and we will see you next time.