Portal:Ice hockey/Selected picture archive

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[edit] June 28 to July 31, 2006

Image:Richard sculpture.JPG
A statue commemorating Maurice "Rocket" Richard stands in Jacques Cartier Park in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, having been unveiled by the Canadian government on June 27, 2001, thirteen months after Richard's death. Richard spent his entire 18-year National Hockey League career with the Québécois Montréal Canadiens, becoming, in 1944, the first player in league history to score 50 goals in 50 games, and leading the Canadiens to eight Stanley Cup championships, including five as captain. Richard, over a career during which he was selected as an all-star fourteen times, including eight times, the second-most ever for a right wing as a starter, scored 544 goals and contributed 421 assists, ranking, at the time of his retirement, first amongst NHL players for most goals scored over a career; it was in recognition of this, amongst other achievements, that the NHL, in 1999 titled the award presented to the regular season goal-scoring leader in his honor. Richard's sweater number (9) was retired by the Canadiens in 1960 and Richard was specially honored by the club in 1996 on the occasion of the closing of the Montreal Forum.

[edit] June 2 to June 28, 2006

Image:Joe-Louis-Arena.jpg
Opened in 1978, the Joe Louis Arena, located in Detroit, Michigan, and built in honor of the eponymous boxer, has been home to the Red Wings of the National Hockey League for 26 seasons. The team have been successful in the arena, having claimed the 1997 and 2002 Stanley Cup titles on their home ice. Fans have maintained the Legend of the Octopus tradition, in which octopi are thrown onto the ice rink prior to and during home playoff games, begun in 1952 at the Red Wings' erstwhile Detroit Olympia home. The eight arms of the octopus were said to represent the number of wins required for a team to capture the Stanley Cup; league and playoff expansion now require that a team win four, rather than two, best-of-seven-game series to claim the league title. The team, in spite of protests from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (who assert that the act is barbaric) and the League (who have expressed concern about the time required to remove octopi from the ice), have adopted the octopus as a mascot and have hung two purple octopi from the rafters of the arena.