Next up is Dirty Bertie. The one award that was always out of reach for Bert Olmstead was the Lady Byng and I am more than sure he was fine with that. Every team needs a little grit and sandpaper to win a championship and it was safe to say Bert provided that service for the Habs. Bert would win four Cups in his career with the Habs and one more with the Leafs before retiring from hockey.
While Bert never lead the league in PIMs, he was never one to shy away from physicality or taking the occasional penalty. Bert was best known for being able to dish out hits with the best of them but he could also dish out passes and actually lead the league in assists in back to back seasons (1954-1956).
1953-54 Parkhurst Bert Olmstead
Bert has great colour like the last couple cards but a few more creases and some rounded corners. Based on the look on his face and body language my best guess is he's dished the puck off and is about to be hit by another player.
Here is the back side of the card which points out that he was traded to Montreal from Detroit. What is most interesting is that trade occurred during the regular season but he would never actually play a game in Detroit. He would start that 1950-51 season in Chicago and would be traded to Detroit in Dec of 1950. Then got flipped to Montreal about 17 days later in the trade mentioned on the back of the card. The original trade from Chicago to Detroit saw Bert being traded with Vic Stasiuk for Lee Fogolin and Steve Black. What I find neat about that trade is both players going from Detroit to Chicago are from my hometown (Fort William which eventually becomes Thunder Bay). Needless to say the best piece of any of these trades was Bert and I am sure both the Hawks and Wings may have regretted those deals eventually.
These are great cards, I dont get to see much vintage hockey-especially '50s. I almost bought a Bert Olmstead on COMC but they gave me some BS about an inventory error. I wrote a blog post about it a few months back. Still mad about that one..
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