The NHL’s Most Interesting Name: The 1970s Part I

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As we move into an expanded NHL, I get a lot more tasty name tidbits waiting for me.  I get to be more selective; you get to see even better names…we all benefit.  But perhaps you'd like a quick rundown of how far we've come.  So before jumping into an era where your parents (or even, dare I say, grandparents) wore their hair way too long and for some reason your dad decided the moustache was okay to wear all the time, let's take a look at the winners from previous decades.

1920s & 30s: Dit Clapper

1940s: Peanuts O'Flaherty

1950s: Fred Sasakamoose

1960s: Orland Kurtenbach 

A refresher on the purpose of the vote:

…hockey history is chock full of names that can pique a person’s interest, whether it’s because it’s unintentionally funny to the English sensibility (Petr Pohl), almost regal (Normand Rochefort), or lends itself to entertaining wordplay (Darius Kasparaitis). The criteria for our ‘most interesting names’ is a bit loose, in that the name can strike you as any one of the above descriptors, or all of them, but ultimately you are going to vote on the name that ‘strikes’ you the strongest.

Our first set of candidates for the 1970s:

• Jim Boo – A perfect name for some lame Halloween article on the “NHL’s Spookiest Names” (which, according to Joe Pelletier, the Hall of Fame has indeed done on its website), Boo played college hockey at Minnesota with, you know, all those guys who you saw on Miracle. He, on the other hand, wasn’t part of the miracle.
• Rick Shinske – What is it about this name? I feel like “doing a Shinske” was a thing, maybe.
• Bob Paradise – The brother of an unfortunately not-qualified-for-this-list WHA’er Dick Paradise (who according to my local legend died on the blue line; in reality, he’s still alive), he still carries the glorious surname. I guarantee he abused it for pickup lines.
• Inge Hammarstrom – I don’t know, Don Cherry, this Swede sounds pretty tough…
• Frank Beaton – Dude, I really don’t want to know what you do in your free time…nicknamed himself “Seldom,” which is debatable because he looks like Sonny Bono.
• Cam Newton – Allegedly called himself “THE” Cam Newton (I made that up), used the biggest catch glove in world history (also made that up).
• Pete Laframboise – Pete the Raspberry!…or Pete Raspberry, if you want to be a wet blanket. Guy was Movember 24/7 – his mustache had a mustache.
• Merlin Malinowski – Parents, don’t name your kid Merlin, it’s not fair. Sure, it helps dorky sportwriters with their copy (“wizard with the puck”; “a magician on the ice”), but the years before and after the NHL will be fraught with either a.) being teased about not being a wizard, or b.) being teased for looking like a wizard.
• Randy Wyrozub – I feel like, at some point in his life, he just decided to scramble the letters in his last name. Then I saw this picture, and realized the man is dead serious.
• Len Frig – Not sure why I like this name. Guy was a tank in teal.