Those Were The Days: King Clancy

King Clancy talked about the 1935 Stanley Cup finals, as well as sharing his impression on hockey in the 1970s, in the book The Stanley Cup by John Devaney and Burt Goldblatt:

"The two teams were pretty evenly matched in that 1935 series. The difference was in the goaltending. The star of the series was Alec Connell for the Maroons in the nets. He was sensational. I used to play with him when we won the Stanley Cup at Ottawa in 1927. The only thing about Connell, you could sometimes knock in a rebound against him. My job at Ottawa was to get that puck out of there, clear those rebounds, and I think that's how I scored my only goal of that series - on a rebound.

"In those days most goals were scored from close up. It was a positional game, and most every play ended up in front of the nets. In my Stanley Cup days I can't remember many of those long shots going in, as they do nowadays. You didn't see so many of those ricochet shots going in off somebody's skate. The scores were 1-0 and 2-1 affairs, none of these 5-4 and 7-6 things. Those ricochet shots make it tougher on the goalkeepers today.

"But the game today is much more exciting, gosh, yes! And don't let anybody tell you that the players of today aren't as good - they're probably better - than the hockey players of the old days. You wouldn't get a better checker than Bobby Clarke of that Philadelphia club. In those Stanley Cup finals in 1974, the Philadelphia club was the hardest working hockey club I have ever seen in my life - from goalkeeper on out.

"And I have never seen any hockey player the equal of the Bruins' Bobby Orr."