SO THERE’S SOME DELICIOUS irony in this particular cover, which features a gangster Joe Thornton as one of the NHL’s ‘Untouchables.’ That was, of course, until the Boston Bruins wound up trading ‘Jumbo’ to the San Jose Sharks just two years later. But you know who wasn’t surprised? Thornton himself, in this very issue. When he was asked about the term ‘untouchable,’ the big center was prescient: “The word doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything anymore.”
Thornton cited his idol, Wayne Gretzky, getting traded from Edmonton to Los Angeles, something that shocked the nine-year-old fan at the time. “I was devastated,” Thornton recalled. “My world kind of revolved around the Oilers.”
Thornton’s move may not have been as earth-shattering as Gretzky’s, but it was still massive. The fact that…
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The Hockey News (Digital) - 1 Issue, 100 Classic Covers