Hidden Treasures: WWII Uniforms Found in the Back of an Old Closet

As we are currently in the process of re-renovating the historic house I work at in Perth Amboy, we decided to clean out one of the closets last week, and hanging in the back, completely out of sight, were two World War II uniforms, each one on a wooden hanger inscribed, “October 31, 1942″. Because I will be teaching a weekly class on this war starting in a few weeks, I wanted to learn more, so I took some pictures and posted them on Facebook, with an open request asking for any information, and hoping one of my history buddies would be able to tell me something. Within a few hours, I received some comments, until a friend sent me more information than I thought I would ever be able to find out about two simple uniforms.

On the Rink with Gootz: What We Learned in the Rangers & Bruins First Showdown

By Guest Blogger Chris “Gootz” Hoeler

Yesterday’s game between the Boston Bruins and New York Rangers was the first meeting of the season between the two Eastern Conference powerhouses. For most of the season, these two clubs have just dominated the opposition and have vaulted themselves to the top of the league standings. It is no surprise that the Bruins are where they are, after having won a Stanley Cup this past spring and not having much of a turnover. The Rangers, however, have been a surprise for many who expected they would be battling for the sixth, seventh, or eighth spots in the East. Yes, you can count me as one of the surprised. When Marian Gaborik scored in overtime yesterday with 3.6 seconds to go, I was at work in the break room and yelled. Of course, being that many people were at my job, they were all confused and a few were afraid I think. But now that my emotions have leveled off and I have gotten a chance to watch the highlights a few times, there are a few things that have stood out:

NHL Needs to Bring Down the Hammer on Ference for Hit on McDonagh

What has changed in the last few months? What has changed since Brendan Shanahan gloriously took over as the NHL’s disciplinarian, promising much stricter action? The only noticeable one has been that things have not gotten better or even stayed the same, they have gotten worse. Blindside hits and cheap-shots never seemed to be a problem until the last couple of seasons, prompting a change and an ushering in of the new era of safer hockey. Suspensions would be handed out like candy to children at a carnival, and because of it, dangerous hits would stop, and the offenders would gradually find themselves out of a job. Well, as most teams near the 50 game mark in this safe hockey haven, thanks to the tireless efforts of Shanahan and league officials, do you feel that the status quo has changed at all? When your favorite players skate near the boards, do you feel any safer watching them?

Blu-Ray Sales Figures for “Gods and Generals” Skyrocket; Hope for “The Last Full Measure”?

Since released in May, the director’s cut releases of both Gods and Generals and Gettysburg have garnered rave reviews, as the missing pieces of the enormous puzzles were finally put in place and made available to the general public. In many articles, we have read that sales figures for these two films have been good, but just how good, exactly? After browsing on Blu-Ray.Com, which has become a daily read for me, I just happened to scroll down the right side of the page to view the top-sellers for the United States, and lo and behold, there was the Limited Collector’s Set of both films that was released in July, sitting at #3 overall (with a total, worldwide sales rank of 23). This definitely came as a pleasant surprise, if not complete shock. This was no mirage or speculation, but actual statistics detailing the success of these two films. The LCS also currently sits at #1 on Blu-Ray.Com’s best bargains list, where you can now purchase the massive boxed set, loaded with extra goodies, for only $36.49

Mike Milbury: A Joke Amongst Hockey Broadcasters

Mike Milbury, an in-studio analyst for NBC and their newly formed network NBC Sports, has long been a critic of the New York Rangers. For years, his slanted, biased pre-game, intermission, and post-game anti-Ranger tirades have polluted the airwaves and have come with such regularity, that normally, they do not even upset or surprise me. Coming out of the lockout, Milbury never ceased to amaze, as he tore into then-Rangers superstar winger Jaromir Jagr all season long for being soft or not having what it takes to be a leader, even in the midst of his franchise record-setting 54-goal, 123-point season. One would think that the bias shown in those years bordered on xenophobia, but thankfully, we have Don Cherry up in Canada for that. More recently, before last night, that is, during the pre-game show of the Winter Classic, when describing the Rangers and using their nickname “Blueshirts”, he just so happened to leave the “r” out of the word, causing him to call the team an expletive. Accidental? Probably. But a Freudian Slip? Most definitely.

“All Quiet on the Western Front” & “A Night to Remember” Headed to Blu-Ray

Film enthusiasts and historians, the next few months will prove to be very exciting! For the first time ever, two of the best, most classic movies ever made will be heading to Blu-Ray. The first, All Quiet on the Western Front, hits shelves on February 14th (and will be in DigiBook Packaging). This film, best known as one of the first accurate depictions of what warfare is really all about, premiered in 1930, and shocked audiences with the graphic brutality of war, which was a far cry from the Hollywoodesque romanticism of war that had become a mainstay of theater at that point in time. It was so shocking that it was actually banned in Germany, though mainly for political reasons, and its unflattering portrayal of a losing German Army, the nation blamed for starting World War I, which was punished severely by the Treaty of Versailles in 1918. The second of these films is one that deals with the luxury of the most famous ship in history, the Titanic, and the subsequent disaster of its sinking, in one of the most accurate tellings of the story, based on the book by legendary author Walter Lord, titled, A Night to Remember. This film will be released a month later, on March 27.

Interview with Author and Hockey Writer Alan Bass

Alan Bass and I have known each other since 2007, when we both started writing for a sports website called Bleacher Report. We quickly became friends, though the relationship was, and still is, a severe case of love-hate, considering he is a die-hard fan of the Philadelphia Flyers, while I root for the New York Rangers. In the summer of 2008, that intensity led us to create an online hockey radio show for the Youcastr Network, which has since dropped its programming of all individual shows. From July to November of that year, we broadcasted weekly, interviewing a wide array of people such as New York Rangers radio announcer Kenny Albert, Tampa Bay Lightning radio announcer Dave Mishkin, Toronto Maple Leafs television announcer John Bowen, and members of the Philadelphia Flyers broadcast team for both television and radio, Jim Jackson and Keith Jones, as well as their pre-game anthem singer Lauren Hart. We were also able to land interviews with then-current Rangers goaltender Steve Valiquette, and later, Colin Wilson, future center of the Nashville Predators. In retrospect, it is hard to believe how much time we actually spent doing these shows, even though they were only around an hour long each, and working on individual episodes, which were difficult in themselves to produce, because we had to talk through Skype, since we live almost two hours apart from one another.

When the radio show ended, Alan continued to write for Bleacher Report for a few more years, and I moved around to other blogs, before finally settling in on this one. He then got himself an internship with The Hockey News, and from there, the creativity kept on blossoming. It was in early 2010 when he first told me his initial idea to write a book on the 1967 NHL Expansion, and I offered my encouragement and said I would help him if he needed it. The topic was definitely an interesting one, as it was never written about previously. Little did I know, those early drafts and revisions that I got a chance to read through would actually turn into a finished product that would be published in 2011, titled, The Great Expansion: The Ultimate Risk that Changed the NHL Forever. This book, as I can personally attest to, was meticulously researched and mapped out, and will prove to be the definitive work on this great, important, and now, almost forgotten era of hockey history. Brad Kurtzberg, author of Shorthanded: The Untold Story of the Seals, said the following about the book, “Alan Bass has captured the history of the biggest turning point in NHL history. [He] brings both the highlights on the ice and all the important maneuvers behind the scenes to fans, including what happened and why. Full of in-depth analysis and interesting and never before heard stories, this book is a must for any hockey fan.” Below is our interview:

Thoughts on the Rangers-Flyers Winter Classic

This is not really a post-game recap, just my general thoughts on yet another amazing and magical Winter Classic that the NHL has put on for us, between the New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers. Surprisingly, for what seems like the first time in the brief five-year history of the event, there were no ice malfunctions, and the passing and skating was pretty smooth early on. Though the game did slow down in the second, I would definitely rank the overall pace of this afternoon to be one of the better ones yet. And of course, there was plenty of drama with yet another photo finish—something that seems to happen every year, which I will elaborate on later.

Civil War Journal: The Human Element of War

Whenever we think about the American Civil War, perhaps we look back to the old, foggy black-and-white images and yellowed pages of history textbooks that we were forced to study in school, or even the idea of such that has been forced down our throats because history is generally seen as a boring subject, full of nothing but names, dates, and rote memorization. Maybe, when you look at the picture of a soldier who fought in the War Between the States, you see him as just another part of that boredom, because after all, he existed 150 years ago and is long gone—perhaps his distant relatives themselves do not even know where their ancestry crossed paths. But behind that way of thinking, there is something much, much deeper. That soldier, whose eyes you can stare into, if you so choose, was a living, breathing, thinking human being. He played as a child and worked as an adult, just like every single one of us. The major difference, aside from the times, is that he happened to get caught up in our nation’s greatest internal conflict, one that literally pitted brothers against brothers, and in some even rarer, more tragic instances, fathers against sons.

FNYTSF Year-End Awards Results, and a Look to 2012!

Patrick Gorman, winner of the 2011 Interview of the Year!

Awards

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the moment has arrived to reveal the four award winners in From New York to San Francisco’s first annual year-end awards! I would like to thank everyone who voted, as there was a much larger turnout than I expected. Below are the winners:

Picture of the Year: “Lawrence Gets Into Trouble” (50%)

Interview of the Year: Actor Patrick Gorman (55%)

National-Level Idiot of the Year: Harold Camping (29%)

Local-Level Idiot of the Year: A Waitress in Virginia (44%)