All World Hockey by T. Michael Travers

de.cath.lon (definition): an athletic event taking place over two days in which each competitor takes part in the same prescribed 10 events. Before the Trials for the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games, Milt Campbell, of Plainfield New Jersey, had never competed in a decathlon. He'd never pole vaulted, never thrown a discus, never thrown a javelin and had never run a 1500 m race. How is it possible that he won the Olympic gold medal four years later in the decathlon at the Summer Games in Melbourne, Australia at just 22 years of age? Several American athletes have earned the gold for the same 10-event Olympic contest, including Jim Thorpe (who was the very first), Bob Mathias (twice), Rafer Johnson, Bill Tomey and Bruce Jenner among others, all claiming the mantel as the World's Best Athlete.  Each of them became famous following their athletic careers. Their names are familiar to many of us who follow sport. Milt Campbell was the first black decathlon winner. He was one o

It started with Danny Gallivan ... He was the TV hockey caller  for the Montreal Canadiens  for 32 years.   I hated him because he was so Montreal and I was so Toronto Maple Leaf.   I hated the sound of his voice.  There was something strange about it - something foreign.  To me, it seemed to say ...  "we are the Habs and it doesn't  matter  what the score is, we are going to win".  We have "little Charlie Hodge"  and "big Robinson" and   "the speedy Cournoyer".  He was such a Hab, he even had his own  Montreal Canadien hockey card.     He enunciated with an unusual flare.   He seemed to create new words while describing the game.  It was distracting.  He wasn't like Foster or Bill Hewitt.   He said stuff that didn't sit well with me and my Leaf buddies. You know,  the "Savardian Spinerama",  "the dearth of whistles" ... "6 and a half ounces of vulcanized rubber finds its way into the seats"...

FUN FACT ... We might never have heard of Frank Sinatra if it hadn't been for Louise Tobin. Who? Louise was a 1930s big band singer who urged her husband, Harry James to audition a singer she'd heard at a New Jersey Roadhouse bar, Rustic Cabin. Louise had also performed with Benny Goodman, Will Bradley and Bobby Hackett -- she had a few hits with Goodman. Her husband hired the singing waiter on a year-long contract for $75. a week. Louise Tobin died at her Texas home in November 2022 -- she was 104 years old. Francis Albert Sinatra was born in Hoboken New Jersey on Dec. 12.  If he were alive in 2022, he'd be 107 years old. He started as a singer with the Harry James and Tommy Dorsey big bands and always referred to himself as a "saloon singer". Perhaps because of his apprenticeship in the roadhouses and bars of New Jersey, like the Rustic Cabin where he was a singing waiter accompanied by a piano player, Bill Miller -- 60 years later, they'd still be togethe