I bet you didn't know that! (Vol. 1)

OK, there's always some weird stats about the greatest game on ice. I've collected a handful of stats, and useless, but rather intriguing


The first puck ever to be used in a hockey game was a frozen piece of cow crap

Many hockey fans know about Gordie Howe, and those who do will say his jersey was #9 his entire career, when asked, but, Howe did wear another number for one season in his NHL career. #17 was his number as a rookie with the Red Wings in the 1946-1947 season. After the end of the season when Roy Conacher moved on to the Black Hawks, Howe was offered the #9. Howe accepted it and to this day every hockey fan recognizes that distinctive red #9 jersey.

Sidney Crosby is slated to be the next great thing. There has been another great hockey player who shares Crosby's first name....Sydney Howe, better known as Syd Howe. No he's not related to Gordie Howe, but he was the NHL's leading goal scorer upon his retirement with 237 goals, 291 assists for 528 points, playing for the Detroit Red Wings (#8) in 1946. A season before the great "Mr. Hockey" made his NHL debut.

Syd also became Philadelphia's first future hall of fame player. He wore #15 for the Quakers one and only season. He went on to the St. Louis Eagles and Ottawa Senators before finding his home in Detroit.

The five interlocking rings of the Olympic flag symbolize a meeting of the athletes from five original continents, Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and America

Bernie Parent is famous for his jersey number, #1, with the Flyers, and #30 in Boston & Toronto, and Philly before Doug Favel got traded but Bernie wore 00, when he played in the WHA for the Blazers in 1973.

A Gordie Howe hat trick, is a goal, an assist, and a fight, but amazingly Mr. Hockey himself only accomplished this unofficial hat trick twice in his career. Only 10 teams have accomplished this to date: The Flyers, San Jose Sharks, Nashville Predators, Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, and Pittsburgh Penguins.

Gary Donhoefer was the Flyers' first Gordie Howe Hat Trick scorer. The latest was Randy Jones in March of last year against the Devils, which we won 5-4

In 1980 Ken Morro from New York Islanders became the first ever to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Stanley Cup title the same year

Ice hockey became an Olympic sport at a Summer Olympics in Antwerp in 1920

The Olympic gold medal is mostly made of Silver

Pakistan's national sport is hockey

The fastest recorded skater is Bobby Hull (Chicago, NHL) who has been timed at 29.7 mph

Eddie Shore, of the Boston Bruins, was perhaps the roughest player in hockey history. Besides the numerous fractured bones he suffered, Shore also had 19 scars on his scalp, and cuts and gashes over his entire body which it had taken 600 stitches to repair