1963 Stanley Cup Finals
| 1963 Stanley Cup Finals | ||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
| Location(s) |
Toronto, ON (Maple Leaf Gardens) (1,2,5) Detroit, MI (Detroit Olympia) (3,4) |
|||||||||||||||||||||
| Coaches | Detroit: Sid Abel Toronto: Punch Imlach |
|||||||||||||||||||||
| Captains | Detroit: Alex Delvecchio Toronto: George Armstrong |
|||||||||||||||||||||
| Dates | April 9 to April 18, 1963 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Series-winning goal | Eddie Shack (13:28, third, G6) | |||||||||||||||||||||
The 1963 Stanley Cup Final was contested by the defending champion Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings. The Maple Leafs would win the best-of-seven series four games to one to win the Stanley Cup, their second straight NHL championship.
Toronto defeated the Montreal Canadiens 4–1 to advance to the finals and Detroit defeated the Chicago Black Hawks 4–2
Johnny Bower limited the Wings to 10 goals in the five games, and five different Leafs had multiple-goal games: Duff, Nevin, Stewart, Kelly and Keon.
The Leafs had finished first in the regular season, and were installed as 13–5 favourites by oddsmakers.
In the first 68 seconds, Dick Duff scored twice on Detroit's Terry Sawchuk, the fastest two goals to start a game in Stanley Cup history. The Leafs would suffer a second-period letdown but would win 4–2 to take the lead in the series. Because of the second period letdown, Punch Imlach would put the team through a morning practice the next morning.
The Leafs would again win 4–2 and would again have to have a morning after workout assigned by Imlach.
The series now moved to Detroit. The team was sequestered out of town in a Toledo, Ohio hotel. The Red Wings, led by rookie centre Alex Faulkner's two goals, including the winner, captured the game 3–2. It was his third game-winning goal and all had been scored on Sundays. Faulkner was a native of Newfoundland and Howie Meeker, excaimed that there would be "dancing in the streets tonight".
The Leafs felt that they had let game three slip away due to overconfidence and were determined to not repeat the mistake in game four. The game was close, and was tied 2–2 until with ten minutes to go Dave Keon scored. Red Kelly added another to make the score 4–2. On the way to the dressing room the Leafs' players were pelted with paper cups, programs and food containers.
...
Wikipedia