This Day In Hockey History: Feb 20th

1919 - The Toronto Arenas were allowed to cease operations due to financial difficulties.

1924 - Canadiens' fans waited two hours in the Mount Royal Arena for the Senators to arrive for their game. But they never showed! The team was stranded on a snowbound train 50 miles from Ottawa. The game was played the next night (a 3-0 Habs' win).

1926 - Montreal Maroons' goalie Clint Benedict and Alex Connell dueled to a 0-0 scoreless tie, in a game played at Ottawa. It was just the second scoreless tie in NHL history.

1930 - Montreal Maroons goalie Clint Benedict played wearing a mask to protect his broken nose

1963 - Boston's Tommy Williams (a native of Minnesota) became just the second U.S. born player to score more than 20 goals in a season, when he connected for his 21st of the year as the Bruins tied 3-3 against the Rangers at New York.

1970 - Los Angeles Kings traded Bryan Campbell, Bill White and Gerry Desjardins to Chicago in exchange for Dennis DeJordy, Gilles Marotte and Jim Stanfield.

1971 - Gordie Howe scored a goal and added three assists, including his 1,800th career NHL point, in a 6-5 Red Wings' win over Buffalo in Detroit. It came in Howe's 1,670th game.

1974 - Phil Esposito became the first player in NHL history to get four straight 50 goal seasons

1981 - Quebec rookies Peter Stastny and Anton Stastny each scored their first career hat tricks as the Nordiques won 9-3, at Vancouver. Peter also added three assists, and Anton picked up two assists.

1983 - Philadelphia Flyers' rookie goalie Bob Froese extended his record to 12-0-1 in his first 13 NHL games, with a 3-0 shutout over New Jersey. The win lowered Froese's GAA to 1.85. Froese's streak ended with a loss three days later.

1993 - New York Islanders' retired Billy Smith's #31 jersey in a pre-game ceremony.

1995 - Detroit's Mike Ramsey became the 99th player in NHL history to appear in his 1,000th career regular season game as the Red Wings won 4-2, at Toronto.

1998 - Pavel Bure scored 5 goals for Russia in an Olympic semifinal game against Finland.

1999 - Toronto Maple Leafs played their first home game at the Air Canada Centre.

Happy Birthday to Phil Esposito, Christian Ruuttu, Dave Scatchard, Rick Green, Martin Hanzal, Brendan Witt, Pierre Bouchard, Niclas Wallin, Glen Hanlon, Joe Daley and Brent Gretzky