In USSR, bears were trained and forced to play ice hockey as part of circus performance.
Here is the video.
During the 1987 Junior Hockey Championship, a brawl broke between Canada and the USSR. It lasted so long the officials had to turn off the lights in an attempt to quell the fight, but they were unsuccessful.
In 1974, Buffalo Sabres’ manager purposefully drafted a hockey player, who didn’t exist to mock the slow drafting process. No one realized it until training camp started.In Space Jam, after Daffy suggests naming the team “the Ducks”, Bugs asks “Please! What kind of Mickey Mouse organization would name their team The Ducks?” This actually did happen. In 1993, Anaheim Ducks were established by The Walt Disney Company.
Two of the greatest hockey players of all time, Mario Lemieux and Patrick Roy were born on the same day only 200 km (124 miles) apart.
Doctors in British Columbia are banned from talking about hockey during surgery.
Due to their maturational advantage in development, ice hockey players born in the first quarter of the year enjoy a more easy passage into the NHL. They go more than 40 slots earlier in the draft compared to those born in the third and fourth quarters of the year.
There is a team of hockey-playing Roman Catholic priests called the Flying Fathers. They only play exhibition games to raise money for charities.
At the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, NHL pro Jarome Iginla struck up a conversation with four fans sitting next to his table and found out that they were sleeping in their car. He excused himself from the conversation and booked them at his own expense at the hotel his family was staying in.
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If both NHL goalies are injured, the team can literally choose any available goalie to suit up and play and this includes fans.
Only in 1997 was a rule passed (grandfather clause) that all hockey players in the NHL were required to wear helmets. + The 1979 NHL draft were the first group of players, who had to wear a protective helmet. The last player in the league to play under the “helmetless grandfather clause” was Craig MacTavish in 1997.
Tiger Williams holds the record for most career penalty minutes in the NHL. He has spent approximately 2.7 days (3966 minutes) of his professional life in the penalty box.
The Buffalo Sabres hold the title of being the only team to have killed an animal (a bat) during an NHL game in 1974.
Former NHL player, Duncan MacPherson went missing while on a trip to Germany. His body was found after 14 years frozen in a shallow crevasse at the Stubai Glacier ski resort. It is believed that after a fatal accident, his supervisor concealed his body there to avoid bad publicity.
Mark Messier has taken the Stanley Cup to a strip joint twice. And speaking of which, in 1905, players from Ottawa Silver Seven, while drunk, kicked the Stanley Cup into the frozen Rideau Canal and had to retrieve it the next morning.
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