gold star for USAHOF

1970 Hockey Inductees

The 1970 Class featured a nice triumvirate of players. We had a pair of star Defencemen in the decorated Tom Johnson who was a star in the Montreal 1950’s dynasty and Bill Gadsby who never won nearly as much as Johnson, but matched him in individual accolades and the leading goal scorer (Babe Dye) in the NHL from the 1920’s, you have a pretty solid class. Not bad, Hockey Hall, not bad at all.
Good enough to have become a professional Baseball player (Connie Mack of the Philadelphia Athletics offered him $25,000 to sign with his team), Babe Dye elected to remain with his true love of Hockey and fans of the sport were rewarded with the spectacular sound of his blistering slap shot.
An excellent two way Defenceman, Bill Gadsby did not have the best of fortune with the teams he played on, as even in the Original Six era, he only played 67 playoff games. Most of those playoff games were on good Red Wings teams from the 60’s, when he was still a good player, but not at his prime like he was the decade before.
Another longtime administrator who dedicated his professional career to the sport of Hockey, Robert Lebel rose up the ranks to take over as the President of the Quebec Amateur Hockey League in 1955. Shortly thereafter he took over as the President of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association and in 1960 was elected as the President of the International Ice Hockey Federation. Quite an impressive five year…
A star Defenceman on the 1950’s Montreal Canadians, Tom Johnson is not often the first (or even second or third) player you think of when you discuss that franchise, but Johnson’s peak coincided with the best period of the Habs’ storied history. In 1959, Johnson won the Norris Trophy and was named to the First Team All Star roster and was a key part of Montreal’s…