Why Everything About the Boston Bruins' First NHL Draft was Memorable Except for the Players Selected
He’s the timely answer to pair of hockey trivia questions, Orest Romashyna, out of the New Hamburg Firebirds in the Central Jr. C league (now known as the Western Jr. C league) in Ontario.
Yeah, that’s a mouthful, but in Jeopardy-style here are the questions:
Who was the first player the Boston Bruins selected in the National Hockey League draft?
Who was the first European player to be drafted?
On this date, June 5, 1963, the six-team NHL held its first amateur draft at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in the heart Montreal. Music buffs also know it as where John Lennon recorded the song "Give Peace a Chance" and along with Yoko Ono held their North American anti-war “Bed-In” in 1969 (there was another in Amsterdam).
Located next to Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral, it’s now known as the Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth. If you’re wondering why I’m including so much information about the hotel, it’s because there was a lot more drama with the musicians than with the draft.
The draft was instituted by NHL president Clarence Campbell to give each team a fair chance at the most talented players, as the teams had developed a sponsorship system with amateur organizations that locked in players with teams years before they would be ready to play in the league.
At the time, the Montreal Canadiens had a huge farm system and especially had an edge with French-Canadian players from the hockey hotbed of Quebec. Because the franchise had so much to lose with the loss of sponsorships, the league gave Les Habitants the choice of either drafting in turn along with other teams or selecting the two French -Canadian players of their choice before any other team’s turn. For the first five years of this compromise Montreal opted for the former.
But the initial draft wasn’t anything like what we experience nowadays, and obviously there was no combine. First off, players already with a sponsored junior team weren’t eligible, which severely limited the talent poll. So did the age requirement of being 16 years old.
The especially tricky part was that teams were not allowed to talk to their drafted players about turning professional until they turned 18, and even then they had just 72 hours to get the prospect signed or placed on their negotiation list.
The draft order wasn’t solely based on the league standings, either. The last-place team the previous season, which was Boston, got to choose its draft slot, and then the order would change the following year with the team that went first the previous year moved down to last and every other team moves up a spot.
The Bruins opted to go third.
The draft consisted of four rounds, and teams could defer their picks, so only 21 players were selected. Only one player in the draft won a Stanley Cup, Peter Mahovlich, who was selected second by the Detroit Red Wings but played most of his career with the Montreal Canadiens, and none of the players are in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Meanwhile, it took most of the 1960s to phase out sponsorship.
With all that in mind, here's who the Bruins selected in the inaugural NHL draft:
Name | Overall | Round/Pick | Pos. | Ht/Wt. | Amateur Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Orest Romashyna | 3 | 1/3 | LW | 5-10, 170 | New Hamburg (Jr. C) |
Terrance Lane | 9 | 2/3 | RW | 6-0/165 | Georgetown Midgets (OHA) |
Roger Bamburak | 14 | 3/2 | RW | 5-9/167 | Issac Brock |
Jim Blair | 19 | 4/2 | C | NA | Georgetown Midgets (OHA) |
Romashyna was actually Ukrainian, who had immigrated to Canada from West Germany when he was 3. Because he had German nationality he was the first European both in nationality and where he was born, to be drafted.
However, Romashyna didn't pan out as an NHL prospect. He played one season in the Ontario Hockey Association, returned to play again at New Hamburg, and subsequently gave up hockey to become a teacher.
So many NHL goals did the draft class score for the Bruins? None.
It's one of just three Boston draft classes in which none of the players it selected played in the league.
This is the first story in a series looking back the Boston Bruins draft.
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Christopher Walsh is the publisher of Boston Bruins On SI. He's also the founder of Alabama Crimson Tide On SI, which first published as BamaCentral in 2018, and the publisher of Nashville Predators On SI, along with the Boston College Eagles, Miami Hurricanes, and Vanderbilt Commodores sites. The longstanding sports writer is the author of 26 books including “100 Things Crimson Tide Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die” and “Nick Saban vs. College Football.” He's an eight-time honoree of Football Writers Association of America awards and three-time winner of the Herby Kirby Memorial Award, the Alabama Sports Writers Association’s highest writing honor for story of the year. In 2022, he was named one of the 50 Legends of the ASWA. Previous beats include the Green Bay Packers, Arizona Cardinals and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, along with Major League Baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks. Originally from Minnesota and a graduate of the University of New Hampshire, he currently resides in Tuscaloosa.