NHL, Valentine's Day have long-lasting relationship

Erwin Groves Chamberlain, "Murph" to all, nicknamed "Old Hardrock" by many, was born on Valentine's Day in 1915, a fine checking forward bound for an NHL career that would see him twice win the Stanley Cup with the Montreal Canadiens and score 100 goals for four teams between 1937-49.

Chamberlain is but the tip of the proverbial iceberg as the NHL relates to Valentine's Day, one of 37 players born on Feb. 14 who played a total of 12,390 regular-season games.
A list compiled by the NHL Stats team includes 35 skaters and two goalies (the latter being Petr Mrazek and Matthew O'Connor, each born Feb. 14, 1992), from Charles Larose in 1901 through Ryan MacInnis, the son of Hall of Fame defenseman Al MacInnis, and Nikolaj Ehlers in 1996.
The most active of the group was defenseman Calle Johansson, born in 1967, who played 1,109 regular-season games between 1987-2004.

Washington Capitals forward Chris Valentine had an assist against the Colorado Rockies on his Feb. 14 birthday in 1982, and Montreal Canadiens goalie Wilf Cude, who shut out the cross-town rival Montreal Maroons on Feb. 14, 1935. Robert Shaver/Hockey Hall of Fame; James Rice, Montreal Canadiens
Three Valentines have played in the NHL since 1925, the first two commonly known, of course, as Val:
Defenseman Valentine "Doc" Hoffinger, 28 games with the Chicago Black Hawks from 1927-29; forward Valentine Delory, one game with the 1948-49 New York Rangers and forward Chris Valentine, 105 games with the Capitals from 1981-84.
Hoffinger is noteworthy for being the NHL's first Russia-born player, born Jan. 1, 1901 in Selz, Russian Empire and raised in Saskatoon. He had one assist and 28 penalty minutes for the Black Hawks while wearing No. 9, three and a half decades before it was pulled on by Bobby Hull.
Later recruited by Germany to coach its 1936 Olympic hockey team, he studied in Berlin and returned to Canada two years later as a podiatrist, opening a practice in Toronto and including among his patients Danny Kaye, the legendary comedian.

Wayne Gretzky leads all Valentine's Day point-scorers with 18, scoring four goals with 14 assists in his eight Feb. 14 games. Paul Bereswill/Hockey Hall of Fame
And then there are Arizona Coyotes center prospect Valentin Nussbaumer and Washington, D.C.-based NHL.com independent correspondent Harvey Valentine. Of course, Philadelphia Flyers goalie Carter Hart and former NHL defenseman Ben Lovejoy should get a little love as well.
Two other players named Hart have suited up in the NHL over the years: Gizzy Hart, who played 99 games from 1926-33 for the Detroit Cougars and Canadiens, and Gerry Hart, 730 games between 1969-82 for the Detroit Red Wings, New York Islanders, Quebec Nordiques and St. Louis Blues.
Let's not forget the historic Hart Memorial Trophy, presented to the NHL 100 years ago this year by Dr. David Hart. First awarded in 1924, the Hart Trophy today is voted by members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association "to the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team."

Toronto Maple Leafs' Babe Pratt with the original Hart Trophy, which he won for the 1943-44 season, and Detroit's Gordie Howe, with NHL President Clarence Campbell and Red Wings owner Bruce Norris. Howe won the 1962-63 Hart Memorial Trophy (redesigned in 1959-60), which he's holding, and the Art Ross Trophy, for most points scored. Turofsky/Hockey Hall of Fame; James McCarthy/Hockey Hall of Fame
We'll stretch the Valentine hockey connection to include Billy Ray Valentine, Eddie Murphy's magnificent character in the 1983 Philadelphia-based movie "Trading Places."
A few months before the film's release, the Flyers were swept 3-0 from the Patrick Division semifinal by the New York Rangers; the clinching game at Madison Square Garden was played about five miles from Wall Street, where Valentine and his friend Louis Winthorpe III -- played by Ottawa-born Dan Aykroyd, in fact a Canadiens fan in his youth -- would ruin millionaire commodities brokers Randolph and Mortimer Duke over frozen concentrated orange juice stock.
There have been two 13-goal Valentine's Day games, each 7-6 scores: the Buffalo Sabres defeated the San Jose Sharks in 1992 and the Edmonton Oilers defeated the Vancouver Canucks in 1988.
Montreal defeated Vancouver 10-1 on Feb. 14, 1990, the largest margin of victory; Wayne Gretzky's 18 Valentine's Day points lead the NHL, one better than Gordie Howe and Marcel Dionne; Mario Lemieux is the top Feb. 14 goal-scorer with nine, one better than Howe, Steve Yzerman and Charlie Simmer.
There have been 33 shutouts on Feb. 14, three of them in 1935: Dave Kerr for the Rangers, Wilf Cude for the Canadiens and Lorne Chabot for the Black Hawks.

Broadcast pioneer Foster Hewitt began calling NHL games in the early 1920s using a telephone. In fact, it was CFCA Radio's Norman Albert, not Hewitt as stated on the display behind him, who broadcast hockey for the first time: the third period of an intermediate-league Toronto game on Feb. 8, 1923, then that Valentine's night third period of the NHL's Toronto St. Patricks-Ottawa Senators game. Turofsky/Hockey Hall of Fame
Nine NHL games will be played this Valentine's Day, 18 of the League's 32 teams lacing up. Twenty television networks will carry the action live, 19 radio networks calling the play-by-play.
A century ago tonight, all four NHL teams were in action, history made on Feb. 14, 1923 when CFCA, the radio property of the Toronto Star newspaper, broadcast the third period of the Toronto St. Patricks' 6-4 home-ice win against the Ottawa Senators from Mutual Street Arena.
It was the first time an NHL game was broadcast on radio, though details are sketchy at best, not reported by newspapers of the day. Star employee Norman Albert's call was an experiment, almost undercover, done primitively by telephone back to CFCA studios and amplified for broadcast via transmitter. It soon would pave the way for the arrival of legendary broadcaster Foster Hewitt.
Those tuned in on Valentine's night 1923 would hear Toronto forward Jack Adams, the future Detroit Red Wings general manager for whom the NHL's coach of the year award is named, score the first League goal shared with a radio audience, beating goalie Clint Benedict at 1:20 of the third period. Three straight Ottawa goals that period would not be enough to overcome a 5-0 deficit.

The 1933-34 Toronto Maple Leafs and players from the NHL's eight other teams pose on Feb. 14, 1934 before the League's first unofficial All-Star Game. Turofsky/Hockey Hall of Fame
Valentine's Day has seen a handful of historic NHL events since that 1923 broadcast. Among them:
* The Toronto Maple Leafs were born on Feb. 14, 1927, Conn Smythe purchasing the St. Patricks and renaming the team.
* The NHL's first unofficial All-Star Game was played on Feb. 14, 1934 at Maple Leaf Gardens in aid of injured Toronto player Ace Bailey (officially, the first was played in 1947). The Maple Leafs won 7-3 against a team of stars from the League's eight other teams, the retirement of Bailey's No. 6 that night the first sweater retirement in NHL history.
* Jack Adams Night was held on Feb. 14, 1941, at Olympia Stadium in Detroit. Mayor Edward Jeffries was among those celebrating the legendary player, coach and GM who had largely popularized hockey in the Motor City.
* On Feb. 14, 1985, goalie Rogie Vachon's No. 30 was retired by the Los Angeles Kings, the first sweater retired by the franchise.
* And on Valentine's night in 1999, in a 4-4 tie against Philadelphia, Colorado Avalanche goalie Patrick Roy set an NHL record by appearing in his 40th game of the year for the 14th straight season.

From left: In front of a laughing crowd, Boston's Flash Hollett and Murph Chamberlain and Toronto's Sweeney Shriner and Jack McLean share a joke sitting together in the penalty box of Maple Leaf Gardens on Jan. 30, 1943, Hollett and Shriner having just earned fighting majors. Turofsky/Hockey Hall of Fame
Chamberlain had played twice on his Valentine's birthday, in 1943 for the Boston Bruins at Chicago and in 1948 for the Canadiens at Toronto. He recorded two penalty minutes in each, otherwise held off the scoresheet.
Thanks to his rugged, crashing style, Chamberlain had played his way to the NHL by way of a handful of rough-edged northern Ontario mining-town teams that had terrific names: Noranda Copper Kings, South Porcupine Dome Mines Porkies and Sudbury Frood Tigers, the latter winners of Canada's senior-league Allan Cup in 1937.
Chamberlain had played for coach Dick Irvin Sr. in Toronto, purchased by the Canadiens for $7,500 shortly after Irvin arrived to coach in Montreal. Together they won the Stanley Cup with the Canadiens in 1944 and 1946, Chamberlain loaned to the Brooklyn Americans and the Bruins for early 1940s stints.
He would have a colorful career beyond the NHL, with 100 goals and 175 assists in his 510 games, fined $50 for fighting with a Pacific Coast League public-address announcer in 1951, a month later $25 for throwing a stick at a linesman.
"Not good behavior for someone who was born on Valentine's Day," he joked with a reporter.

From left: Montreal Canadiens teammates Dutch Hiller, Murph Chamberlain, Elmer Lach and Terry Reardon following a 1945 victory at Maple Leaf Gardens. Turofsky/Hockey Hall of Fame
Chamberlain would go on to coach at many levels for nearly three decades, leading Chatham (Ontario) Maroons to the 1960 Allan Cup title.
He found his way into a lucrative business of door-to-door advertising-flyer distribution, finally settling on a 375-acre farm in Beachville, Ontario, about 90 miles southwest of Toronto, raising 275 head of cattle and growing corn and grain. He died on his farm on May 8, 1986, a heart attack suffered following a lengthy battle with cancer.
Chamberlain was remembered by teammates and opponents as a ferocious checker and excellent penalty killer, a quarry on skates who you always wanted to be on your side.
"We never let Murph forget his Valentine's Day birthday," former Canadiens captain Butch Bouchard said with a laugh. "One of us would always put a rose in the athletic supporter hanging in his stall, then watch him scatter the petals on the dressing-room floor."
Top photos: Murph Chamberlain hams it up in 1945 with boxing gloves at Doug Laurie Sports in Maple Leaf Gardens, and in a 1940s portrait. Turofsky/Maple Leaf Gardens