During the month of May, the newsroom will be featuring a series of ice hockey articles celebrating Ice Hockey Philately presented by the American Philatelic Society and The Royal Philatelic Society of Canada in the May issue of The American Philatelist, available to read now. Check back weekly for new articles.
As a former sports official for more than a dozen sports, I found a real challenge when beginning a thematic collection of sports officials on stamps.
The first sport stamps were a set of 12 issued by Greece in 1896 for the Athens inaugural Olympics; issues related to the Olympic games have predominated ever since. Sports on stamps evolved gradually. It wasn’t until 1925 that Hungary issued the first sports series that was not Olympics related. The set of eight semi-postal stamps included skiing, skating, swimming, diving, fencing, soccer, and track.
Sports philately began to take off in the 1930s and the pace picked up so that by 1950 the total had risen to 842. By 1960, the total was just over 2,100 sports stamps. Since then, the number of issues has skyrocketed, topping 47,000 in 1990. Sports philately has become one of the prominent topical collecting specialties.
Despite the subject’s popularity, I estimate that in the universe of sports stamps less fewer than one percent includes a referee, umpire, judge, scorekeeper, timer, or other official. Referees and umpires for soccer and baseball are the best represented group on stamps, but many sports have only a handful of officials depicted on stamps.
Ice hockey and its cousins, field hockey and roller hockey, have all been illustrated on stamps, but only ice hockey stamps have featured officials. Table 1 is my listing of ice hockey officials on stamps. It features just 23 stamps, including several where the official appears in the souvenir sheet selvage. I have separately listed items that are not listed in the Scott Catalogue or Michel Catalog. Table 2 lists the ice hockey stamps with officials by year of issue.
Table 1. Checklist of Ice Hockey Stamps with Officials (23 Stamps)
Country
|
Date
|
Scott #
|
Denomination
|
# in Set
|
Notes
|
Bulgaria |
2/29/1984 |
Mi 3251 |
1 lev |
SS/1 |
face-off; Mi BK140 (SS); Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics |
Burundi |
2/3/1972 |
389 |
17 francs |
9 |
face-off; Sapporo 1972 Winter Olympics |
Canada |
9/20/1997 |
1660 |
45 cents |
2 |
goal celebration; 1972 Canada-USSR Series of Century |
Cent. African Rep. |
2014 |
Mi 6766 |
3600 francs |
SS/1 |
watching play; Sochi 2014 Winter Olym.; Linesman in selvage |
Chad |
2/24/2020 |
New |
3300 francs |
SS/1 |
face-off; Ref in SS selvage |
Czechoslovakia |
4/7/1972 |
1811 |
60 haleru |
2 |
face-off; Praha 1972, World and European Championships |
Czechoslovakia |
1972 |
1845 |
60 haleru |
2 |
face-off; Praha 1972; CSSR winner overprint in blue |
Djibouti |
2/12/1985 |
Mi BL92 |
130 francs |
SS/1 |
face-off; Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olym.; Linesman in selvage |
Djibouti |
7/28/2017 |
1225c |
240 francs |
SS/4 |
watching play; NHL Game |
Guinee, Rep. de |
2019 |
New |
12,500fg |
SS/4 |
face-off |
Guyana |
4/1/1998 |
3325ab |
$35 |
36 |
watching play; All Star Players: Teemu Seianne |
Kazakhstan |
12/7/1999 |
284 |
20 tenge |
2 |
face-off; Kazakhstan hockey team |
Laos |
1/16/1984 |
516 |
10 kip |
SS/1 |
face-off; Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics |
Maldives |
7/4/2016 |
3669b |
20mvr |
SS/4 |
face-off; SS also issued imperforate |
Maldives |
7/4/2016 |
3669c |
20mvr |
SS/4 |
face-off; SS also issued imperforate |
Maldives |
5/17/2017 |
3932 |
70mvr |
SS/1 |
watching goal; Ref in SS selvedge; Wayne Gretzky |
North Korea |
5/30/1987 |
2665 |
60 chon |
3 |
watching goal; Capex 87/Calgary 1988 Winter Olympics |
Romania |
1/20/1970 |
2148 |
20 bani |
4 |
face-off; World Championships, Bucharest |
Russia |
12/5/1996 |
6853c |
15 kopeks |
Str/3 |
watching play; 50th anniv. of the national team, 1946-1996 |
Sierra Leone |
2/26/2016 |
3640a |
6000 leone |
SS/4 |
face-off; Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics |
Solomon Islands |
8/16/2016 |
2049 |
$35 |
SS/1 |
face-off; Linesman in SS selvage |
Solomon Islands |
8/16/2016 |
2025a |
$12 |
SS/4 |
face-off; SS also issued imperforate |
Solomon Islands |
8/16/2016 |
2025d |
$12 |
SS/4 |
calling penalty; SS also issued imperforate |
Table 1a. Unlisted Ice Hockey Stamps with Officials (Three Stamps)
Ajman State |
1972 |
unlisted |
1 riyal |
16 |
watching goal; Air mail, Sapporo 1972 Winter Olympics |
Ukraine |
7/18/2019 |
unlisted |
N/L |
SS/9 |
face-off; Personalized stamps; Canada & Russia stars |
Ukraine |
7/18/2019 |
unlisted |
N/L |
SS/9 |
watching goal; Personalized stamps; Canada & Russia stars |
Table 2. Checklist of Ice Hockey Stamps with Officials by Year (23 Stamps)
Year
|
# of Ice Hockey Officials Depicted on Stamps
|
1970 |
1 |
1972 |
3 |
1984 |
2 |
1985 |
1 |
1987 |
1 |
1996 |
1 |
1997 |
1 |
1998 |
1 |
1999 |
1 |
2014 |
1 |
2016 |
6 |
2017 |
2 |
2019 |
1 |
2020 |
1 |
Ice Hockey History in Brief
The sport of ice hockey is derived from the Canadian sport of bandy played in the 17th century by the Huron Indians on the frozen surface of Lake Ontario.
Ice hockey, in its current form, originated at McGill University during the winter of 1879-1880. The game grew rapidly in Canada and the United States and, in 1890, ice hockey regulations were established by the Canadians, who have adopted it as a national sport.
The game was introduced to Europe in 1891 by the British and reached the European continent in 1906. The international federation was founded in 1920 at the Antwerp Congress and the game was accepted as an Olympic sport in 1924.
There is great interest in the sport in the United States and Canada with professional teams from both countries competing for the Stanley Cup. At the world championships, European teams also have had great success.
Ice Hockey Officials
At the top levels, ice hockey is played in three 20-minute periods. A group of on-ice and off-ice officials control the game. The on-ice officials are the referees and linesmen who enforce the rules and maintain order during game play. The off-ice officials have an administrative, rather than an enforcement, role.
Today, in professional ice hockey, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and most major senior leagues, a four-man system of two referees and two linesmen is used. Other leagues still use the old three-man system (which the NHL used until the 1990s) with one referee and two linemen. Junior, youth, and recreational leagues often use a two-man system with each official acting as both referee and linesman.
Since 1955, on-ice officials are clad in a black hockey helmet, black trousers, and a black-and-white vertically striped shirt. They wear standard ice hockey skates and carry a finger whistle to stop play. When the National Hockey League was formed in 1917, referees wore a vest and tie and carried a bell, not a whistle, to stop the game.
The referee is responsible for the general supervision of the game and is identified by red or orange armbands. Usually, the referee is the only official with the authority to assess penalties for rule violations. However, linesmen can report penalties to the referee, who may then assess the penalty. The referee also conducts the opening face-off in each period and face-offs that follow a goal being scored. These face-offs are done at center ice.
Linesmen are primarily responsible for watching for violations involving the centerline and the blue line. Infractions include icing and offside, after which the linesmen conduct face-offs.
In the four-official system, each referee works either the lead/front or the trail/back position. The lead position is normally in the corner of the end zone, while the trail position is the neutral zone, diagonally opposite each other. As the game transitions from one end of the ice to the other, the lead becomes the trail and vice versa.
The off-ice officials include the goal judge, the official scorer, the penalty timekeeper, the game timekeeper, and the statistician. With the exception of the goal judge, these officials normally go unnoticed and do not have any direct impact on the outcome of the game.
Goal judges were first used circa 1877 in Montreal, and were initially called umpires. Goal judges, who are positioned outside the rink directly behind, or above, each goal net, are responsible for signaling the referee when the puck had completely crossed the goal line. Today, goal judges are used mostly in nonprofessional leagues. The National Hockey League ceased using goal judges after the 2018–2019 season. They were replaced by a video goal judge who activates the goal lights from the video replay booth. Since the referee does not have access to television monitors, the video goal judge's decision in disputed goals is final.
Ice Hockey on Stamps
The first ice hockey stamp was issued by Switzerland in 1948. The 20+10c red, violet, and yellow semi postal stamp (Scott B172) features a goalkeeper in action. It was part of a set of four issued for the Fifth Winter Olympic Games at St. Moritz (Figure 1). The next two ice hockey stamps were issued by Russia in 1949 and Romania in 1951. Except for a 1956 Canada stamp and a 1959 St. Pierre and Miquelon issue, all 14 ice hockey stamps issued prior to 1960 were from European countries. By 1990, nearly 475 stamps featuring ice hockey had been issued, a total that today exceeds 1,125. That’s almost 25 per year for the 1960-2020 period.
In the 20th century, the USSR/Russia (43) and Czechoslovakia (23) issued the most ice hockey stamps, but Canada has led the way in 21st century issues with multiple series, many related to the National Hockey League. Canada even has a set featuring the NHL team Zamboni ice resurfacing machines. In addition, Canada produced a 1992 $10.50 booklet of 25 honoring 75 years of the National Hockey League that illustrated a linesman preparing for a face-off (Figure 2).
The United States has issued seven hockey stamps, beginning with the 15¢ stamp for the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics (Scott 1798) and including the 20¢ hockey stamp from the set of four for the 1984 Winter Olympic Games (Scott 2070), the 29¢ stamp for the 1992 Winter Olympics (Scott 2611), the 29¢ stamp for the 1994 Winter Olympics (Scott 2811), the 34¢ stamp for the 2002 Winter Olympics (Scott 3554) and the two Forever stamps jointly issued with Canada in 2017 for the history of hockey (Scott 5252-53). None have featured a sports official.
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Figure 1. This 1948 Swiss set of four, issued for the Fifth Winter Olympic Games at St. Moritz, was the first to include an ice hockey related stamp.
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Figure 2. Canada produced a 1992 $10.50 booklet of 25 honoring 75 years of the National Hockey League that illustrated a linesman preparing for a face-off.
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Figure 3. Romania’s January 20, 1970, issue for the World Championships in Bucharest features a linesman ready to drop the puck for a face-off.
Ice Hockey Officials on Stamps
As noted previously, Table 1 is a listing of ice hockey officials on stamps. Since an estimated 1,125 ice hockey stamps have been issued and only 23 are on the list, that means that two percent of ice hockey stamps include sport officials.
Stamp designers seem to have a prejudice against sports officials, as the images on many stamps are conspicuous for their absence. There are face-offs without a referee or linesman and action around the goal where a referee clearly should be operating.
The 23 stamps were issued by 17 countries, of which only seven have any tradition of ice hockey and only three, Canada, Czechoslovakia, and Russia, have a strong history with the sport.
That means the majority of the Table 1 countries produced stamps primarily for the collector market. These include island countries and some in Africa with no relation to hockey, the stamps of which were produced by philatelic agents. In cases like these, you frequently see high-value souvenir sheets produced with the sole purpose of taking money from collectors in order to make profits for the postal administration and its agent.
The first ice hockey stamp with a sports official was Romania’s January 20, 1970, issue for the World Championships in Bucharest (Scott 2148, Figure 3). It was part of a set of four and features a lineman ready to drop the puck for a face-off.
That stamp was followed by Czechoslovakia’s 1972 60-haleru issue for the World and European Championships in Prague (Scott 1811, Figure 4). It was part of a set of two that showed a linesman who had just dropped the puck after a face-off. When Czechoslovakia won the tournament, the set was overprinted, resulting in the 60-haleru Scott 1845 (Figure 5).
Two souvenir sheets of one for the 1984 Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, Olympics came next. Both the 1984 10-kip stamp from Laos (Scott 516) and the Michel-listed 1984 one-lev souvenir sheet from Bulgaria show linesmen dropping the puck for a face-off (Figure 6). In fact, 15 of the 23 stamps listed in Table 1 illustrate face-offs.
North Korea’s 1987 60-chon issue for Capex 87 and the 1988 Calgary, Canada, Winter Olympics (Scott 2665), was the first to show a referee, in this case looking down the goal line to check for a possible goal. The referee is identified by his orange armbands. A specimen pair for the stamp is shown in Figure 7.
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Figure 4. Czechoslovakia’s 1972 60-haleru issue for the World and European Championships in Prague shows a linesman who had just dropped the puck after a face-off.
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Figure 5. When Czechoslovakia won the tournament, the Figure 4 stamp was overprinted.
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Figure 6a. Both the 1984 10-kip stamp from Laos (above) and the 1984 one-lev souvenir sheet from Bulgaria (Figure 6b) show linesmen dropping the puck for a face-off. In fact, 15 of the 23 stamps on the list illustrate face-offs.
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Figure 6b. Both the 1984 10-kip stamp from Laos (Figure 6a) and the 1984 one-lev souvenir sheet from Bulgaria (shown above) show linesmen dropping the puck for a face-off. In fact, 15 of the 23 stamps on the list illustrate face-offs.
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Figure 7. A specimen pair of North Korea’s 1987 60-chon issue for Capex 87 and the 1988 Calgary, Canada, Winter Olympics. It was the first to show a referee, in this case looking down the goal line to check for a possible goal. The referee is identified by his orange armbands.
While Russia has issued a large number of ice hockey stamps for its many championship teams and events, the only one to include an official is from a strip of three December 5, 1996, stamps (Russia Scott 6853c, Figure 8) celebrating the 50th anniversary of the powerful national team. It shows a Russian player battling two Swedish players while a trailing linesman follows, prepared to blow his whistle.
Canada’s lone entry with an official is one from its September 20, 1997, set for the 25th anniversary of the “Series of the Century.” The Canada-USSR series was won by Canada on a Paul Henderson goal and it is that celebration that the 45-cent stamp (Canada Scott 1660) illustrates. A linesman (number 15) watches the players. A Canada Post publicity photo of the pair of stamps issued for the occasion is depicted at Figure 9.
The final 20th century ice hockey stamp with an official is one from Kazakhstan’s December 1999 set celebrating its national hockey team (Figure 10). It too shows a linesman preparing for a face-off.
Surprisingly, there is a 15-year gap before the next stamp with an ice hockey official was issued. All of the 21st century stamps in Table 1 are from countries with dubious ties to the sport and all are in formats and with values intended to maximize profits for the issuing postal administrations and their agents.
Two Maldives stamps from a set of four (Figure 11) showing referees were released in an imperforate and perforated format in 2016, along with three Solomon Islands stamps from two different high-value souvenir sheets showing linesmen (Figure 12).
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Figure 8. One of a strip of three December 5, 1996, stamps celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Russia national team. It shows a Russian player battling two Swedish players while a trailing linesman follows, prepared to blow his whistle.
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Figure 9. A Canada Post publicity photo of the September 20, 1997, pair of stamps issued to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the “Series of the Century.” The 45-cent stamp illustrates a linesman watching the players celebrate Paul Henderson’s winning goal.
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Figure 10. This ice hockey stamp is one of two of Kazakhstan’s December 1999 set celebrating its national hockey team. It too shows a linesman preparing for a face-off.
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Figure 11. Two Maldives stamps showing referees were released in an imperforate and perforated format in 2016.
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Figure 12a. Three Solomon Islands stamps from two different high-value souvenir sheets show linesmen.
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Figure 12b. Three Solomon Islands stamps from two different high-value souvenir sheets show linesmen.
Chad’s 2020 souvenir sheet of one (Figure 13) rounds out the issues. The referee in the Chad souvenir sheet is actually in the selvage and shows him dropping a puck that seems to have disappeared.
In addition to the stamps listed by the Scott or Michel catalogs, there is a separate list of three unlisted items. Ajman State’s 1972 one riyal airmail stamp (Figure 14) shows a linesman watching play near the goal. The official’s position indicates that he should actually be a referee, not a linesmen, but he is not wearing red or orange armbands. This Trucial State issue is unlisted, as Ajman joined the United Arab Emirates in December 1971. Ukraine’s two 2019 stamps from a souvenir sheet of nine (Figure 15) are actually personalized postage.
On-Cover Examples
These stamps can usually be located, although sometimes diligent searching is required. However, with the exception of first day covers, finding the stamps properly used on cover is extremely difficult. My sole example is the Figure 16 October 18, 1997, cover from Canadian dealer Robert A. Lee that bears a 45-cent (Canada Scott 1660) stamp to pay the bulk of the 52 cents in postage to the United States. The stamp was released September 20.
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Figure 13. This 2020 Chad souvenir sheet has a referee in the selvage dropping a puck that seems to have disappeared.
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Figure 14. Ajman State’s 1972 one riyal airmail stamp shows a linesman watching play near the goal. The positioning of this official indicates that he should actually be a referee, not a linesmen. Ajman joined the United Arab Emirates in December 1971.
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Figure 15. Two of Ukraine’s 2019 stamps from a souvenir sheet of nine show linesmen. The stamps are actually personalized postage and therefore have no catalog listing.
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Figure 16. An October 18, 1997, cover from Canadian dealer Robert A. Lee bearing a 45-cent stamp to pay the bulk of the 52 cents in postage to the United States.
Readers with additional examples of ice hockey officials on stamps are asked to contact the author at: POB 6074, Fredericksburg, VA 22403 or by e-mail at: [email protected]