The National Hockey League's "original six" teams had their rosters raided 50 years ago today when the expansion draft was held that expanded the size of the league from six teams to 12.
That included the first batch of players who would try out for the Minnesota North Star rosters.
This list of players comes from the @VintageMNHockey Twitter feed, which you should already be following, anyway.
If you're of a certain age, you'd probably heard of a few of these guys, while some of the others used the NHL's doubling in size to carve a solid place as professionals.
The goalie Cesare Maniago was an example of the latter, coming to Minnesota after playing parts of a couple of seasons for the New York Rangers, and establishing himself as a North Stars fixture for the next decade. He shared the goal for several years with Hall of Famer Gump Worsley, who came from Montreal a few years later to close out his career. So was Bill Goldsworthy, who broke in with Boston, but made a name for himself as a five-time All-Star in Minnesota and the creator of the Goldy Shuffle scoring dance.
The veterans included former Chicago defenseman Moose Vasko, Parker McDonald of Detroit and Jean-Guy Talbot of Montreal, all of whom played bigger roles with their old teams than in Minnesota. All six of the expansion teams were put in the same conference for that first season, with the North Stars finishing fourth and defeating the Los Angeles Kings in the quarterfinals before losing in seven games in the semifinals to St. Louis.
We're giving you permission to take a few minutes away from whatever you've been doing and peruse the list. Then ask someone of the right age to match the names with their memories.
