In this edition of the Sports Break, we cover the top events in sports history along with the players and athletes that were a part of them on December 20. As a bonus, we also place the jersey number worn at the time with the athlete.
20 December in Sports History
Article: Sports History » Sports Jersey Memories » December » 20Daily Digits December 20
Sports history is made every day of the year. We will preserve at least a small sampling from some great athletes every day based on the uniform number they wore.
16 - 3 - 9 - 19 - 89 - 10 - 5 - 4 - 8 - 6
December 20, 1938 - Boston Bruins rookie goalie Frankie Brimsek recorded his 3rd straight shutout with a 3-0 win over the New York Americans, making it his incredible sixth shutout in his first 8 NHL games
December 20, 1966 - NBA awarded the Seattle Supersonics a franchise for 1967-68 season
December 20, 1973 - Montreal Canadiens Number 16, Henri Richard scores his 1,000th NHL point
December 20, 1979 - Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Number 3, Behn Wilson scored with 4:08 remaining in regulation to earn a 1-1 tie with the Pittsburgh Penguins and equal NHL record for longest undefeated streak of 28 games; go on to break record and extend to 35 games
December 20, 1981 - Winnipeg left wing Number 9, Doug Smail set an NHL record by scoring just 4 seconds into Jets' 5-4 win over the St Louis Blues; fastest goal from opening face-off to back of net in history; later tied by Number 19, Bryan Trottier and Number 89, Alex Mogilny
December 20, 1983 - Guy Lafleur, Number 10 of the Montreal Canadiens, became the 10th NHL skater to score 500 goals is a career
December 20, 1985 - New York Islanders legend, Number 5 Denis Potvin passed another hockey great in Number 4, Bobby Orr as NHL defenseman scorer (916 points)
December 20, 1991 - NHL granted permanent franchises to the Tampa Lightning and the Ottawa Senators
December 20, 1994 - Ballon d'Or: FC Barcelona's Bulgarian forward Number 8, Hristo Stoichkov was named Europe's best soccer player ahead of Juventus striker Number 10, Roberto Baggio and Milan defender Number 6, Paolo Maldini
Credits
A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites: On This Day Sports, the Sports Reference's family of website databases & Stathead.com.
Banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of Henri Richard, Montreal Canadiens Printed on Chex Cereal Boxes from 1963 to 1965 per [1]. No copyright notices are observed on the obverse or reverse of the photo,taken by an unknown.