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1966 Stanley Cup Finals
1966 Stanley Cup Finals
	* indicates periods of overtime.
Location(s)	Montreal: Forum de Montréal (1, 2, 5); Detroit: Olympia Stadium (3, 4, 6)
Coaches	Montreal: Toe Blake; Detroit: Sid Abel
Captains	Montreal: Jean Beliveau; Detroit: Alex Delvecchio
Dates	April 24 – May 5, 1966
MVP	Roger Crozier (Red Wings)
Series-winning goal	Henri Richard (2:20, OT, G6)
Hall of Famers	Canadiens:; Jean Beliveau (1972); Yvan Cournoyer (1982); Dick Duff (2006); Jacques Laperriere (1987; did not play); Henri Richard (1979); Gump Worsley (1980); Red Wings:; Andy Bathgate (1978); Leo Boivin (1986); Alex Delvecchio (1977); Bill Gadsby (1970); Gordie Howe (1972); Norm Ullman (1982); Coaches:; Sid Abel (1969, player); Toe Blake (1966, player)

The 1966 Stanley Cup Finals was the championship series of the National Hockey League's (NHL) 1965–66 season, and the culmination of the 1966 Stanley Cup playoffs. It was contested by the Detroit Red Wings and the defending champion Montreal Canadiens. This was the fifth Detroit-Montreal Cup Final; they previously met in 1952, 1954, 1955, and 1956, with the Red Wings winning the former three and the Canadiens winning the latter. The Canadiens defeated the Red Wings in six games to win the Stanley Cup for the seventh time in eleven years. This was the last Cup Final appearance for the Red Wings until 1995.

Paths to the Finals

Montreal defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs 4–0 to advance to the finals, and Detroit defeated the Chicago Black Hawks 4–2.

Game summaries

With this series, Toe Blake had coached the Canadiens to seven Cups in eleven years. Henri Richard, a member of all seven championship teams, would score the series winner in game six in overtime. Two minutes into the extra period, Richard broke in on Red Wing goalie Roger Crozier, lost his footing on the newly resurfaced ice as he cut across the goalmouth, and sprawled into Crozier. The puck went in, and even though Crozier and the Wings protested that Richard had pushed the puck in with his hand, the goal stood. His brilliant play in goal, even in defeat, earned Crozier the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs, becoming the first player to win the award as a member of the losing team.

April 24	Detroit Red Wings		3–2	Montreal Canadiens	Forum de Montréal	Recap
Floyd Smith (3) - 13:25		First period		No scoring
Bill Gadsby (1) - 5:14		Second period		4:23 - Ralph Backstrom (2)
Paul Henderson (3) - 2:14		Third period		2:36 - Terry Harper (2)
Roger Crozier 33 saves / 35 shots		Goalie stats		Gump Worsley 32 saves / 35 shots

April 26	Detroit Red Wings		5–2	Montreal Canadiens	Forum de Montréal	Recap
Andy Bathgate (6) - pp - 18:39		First period		6:55 - pp - J.C. Tremblay (2)
No scoring		Second period		No scoring
Bruce MacGregor (1) - 1:51 Ab McDonald (1) - 2:45 Floyd Smith (4) - 12:28 Dean Prentice (5) - 16:25		Third period		12:00 - Yvan Cournoyer (1)
Roger Crozier 23 saves / 25 shots		Goalie stats		Gump Worsley 29 saves / 34 shots

April 28	Montreal Canadiens		4–2	Detroit Red Wings	Olympia Stadium	Recap
Dave Balon (1) - 15:40 Jean Beliveau (3) - 19:12		First period		4:20 - Norm Ullman (3)
No scoring		Second period		No scoring
Gilles Tremblay (3) - 1:45 Gilles Tremblay (4) - pp - 3:21		Third period		19:59 - Gordie Howe (4)
Gump Worsley 29 saves / 31 shots		Goalie stats		Roger Crozier 27 saves / 31 shots

May 1	Montreal Canadiens		2–1	Detroit Red Wings	Olympia Stadium	Recap
No scoring		First period		No scoring
Jean Beliveau (4) - pp - 19:51		Second period		11:24 - Norm Ullman (4)
Ralph Backstrom (3) - 13:37		Third period		No scoring
Gump Worsley 22 saves / 23 shots		Goalie stats		Roger Crozier 3 saves / 3 shots Hank Bassen 28 saves / 30 shots

May 3	Detroit Red Wings		1–5	Montreal Canadiens	Forum de Montréal	Recap
No scoring		First period		1:06 - Claude Provost (2) 19:21 - pp - Yvan Cournoyer (2)
Norm Ullman (5) - 14:22		Second period		1:05 - Dave Balon (2) 11:22 - Bobby Rousseau (4)
No scoring		Third period		5:31 - Dick Duff (2)
Roger Crozier 28 saves / 33 shots		Goalie stats		Gump Worsley 20 saves / 21 shots

May 5	Montreal Canadiens		3–2	OT	Detroit Red Wings	Olympia Stadium	Recap
Jean Beliveau (5) - 9:08		First period			No scoring
Leon Rochefort (1) - 10:11		Second period			11:55 - pp - Norm Ullman (6)
No scoring		Third period			10:30 - Floyd Smith (5)
Henri Richard (1) - 2:20		First overtime period			No scoring
Gump Worsley 28 saves / 30 shots		Goalie stats			Roger Crozier 19 saves / 22 shots

Montreal won series 4–2

Roger Crozier wins Conn Smythe Trophy.

Stanley Cup engraving

The 1966 Stanley Cup was presented to Canadiens captain Jean Beliveau by NHL President Clarence Campbell following the Canadiens 3–2 win over the Red Wings in game six.

The following Canadiens players and staff had their names engraved on the Stanley Cup

1965–66 Montreal Canadiens

Players

Centres

Wingers

Defencemen

Goaltenders

30 Lorne Gump Worsley
1 Charlie Hodge

Coaching and administrative staff

Hartland Molson (Chairman/owner), J. David Molson (President)
Sam Pollock (Vice President/Manager), Hector Toe Blake (Coach)
Andy Galley (Trainer), Larry Albut (Asst. Trainer)

Stanley Cup engravings

Montreal Canadiens name was misspelt MONTREAL CANADIENE. This mistake was later corrected on the Replica Cup created in 1992–93.

Broadcasting

In 1966, NBC became the first^[1] television network in the United States to air a national broadcast of a Stanley Cup Playoff game. The network provided coverage of four Sunday afternoon playoff games^[2]^[3] during the 1965–66 postseason.^[4] On April 10^[5] and April 17,^[6] NBC aired semifinal games between the Chicago Black Hawks and the Detroit Red Wings. On April 24^[7] and May 1,^[8] NBC aired Games 1 and 4^[9] of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Montreal Canadiens and the Detroit Red Wings. Win Elliot served as the play-by-play man while Bill Mazer served as the color commentator for the games.^[10]

NBC's coverage of the 1966 Stanley Cup Finals marked the first time that hockey games were broadcast on network television in color.^[11] The CBC would follow suit the following year. NBC's Stanley Cup coverage preempted a sports anthology series called NBC Sports in Action, hosted by Jim Simpson and Bill Cullen, who were between-periods co-hosts for the Stanley Cup broadcasts.

Aftermath

The next season, the Red Wings finished a distant fifth, 24 points out of the playoffs, marking the beginning of a 20 year slump known as the "Dead Wings" era. The Red Wings only made the playoffs four times in the next 20 years between 1967 and 1986, and would not return to the Stanley Cup Finals again until 1995, where they were swept by the New Jersey Devils.

The Canadiens would return to the Stanley Cup Finals the next season, but lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs in six games. However, the Canadiens would eventually become a dynasty, winning the Stanley Cup in 1968, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1976, 1977, 1978, and 1979.

Notes

^ "Stanley Cup Hockey Playoffs on Today". Hartford Courant. April 10, 1966. p. 3G.
^ "NBC May Televise Stanley Cup Play". Hartford Courant. Associated Press. February 27, 1966. p. 6C.
^ "NHL Near Deal for TV of Cup Games". Chicago Tribune. February 27, 1966. p. C1.
^ "NBC Makes Plans to TV Stanley Cup Playoffs". Los Angeles Times. February 28, 1966. p. B6.
^ Don Page (April 9, 1966). "Let's Ear It for Transistor Man". Los Angeles Times. p. D2.
^ "More Than Feelings Hurting—As Black Hawks Limp Back Home". Hartford Courant. Associated Press. April 16, 1966. p. 20.
^ "TV News Notes". Chicago Tribune. April 24, 1966. p. IND_A17.
^ "NBC to Carry Stanley Cup Games on TV". Chicago Tribune. March 29, 1966. p. C1.
^ Bob Gates (April 29, 1966). "Abel's 'switcheroo' works". The Christian Science Monitor. p. 7.
^ Stan Issacs (January 19, 1990). "TV SPORTS Hockey Gets Network – for a Day". Newsday. p. 137.
^ Ted Damata (April 10, 1966). "Black Hawks in Colorful Color". Chicago Tribune. p. C1.

References

"All-Time NHL Results".
Diamond, Dan, ed. (2000). Total Stanley Cup. NHL.
Podnieks, Andrew; Hockey Hall of Fame (2004). Lord Stanley's Cup. Triumph Books. ISBN 978-1-55168-261-7.