Chicago Stadium had perfect nickname, Fischler says

Legendary hockey reporter and analyst Stan Fischler writes a weekly scrapbook for NHL.com. Fischler, known as "The Hockey Maven," shares his knowledge, brand of humor and insights with readers each Wednesday.
This week, Stan continues a series of reminiscences about his first visits to arenas from the Original Six era in the NHL with a look at his initial trip to Chicago Stadium during the 1968 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Any hockey fan worth his weight in pucks wanted to make at least one pilgrimage to Chicago Stadium. The "Madhouse on Madison" was the biggest arena in the NHL at the time. It was built in 1929 at a cost of $9.5 million and seated 17,317, but there were plenty of nights that saw more than 20,000 rabid fans fill the arena.
I made my first visit during the 1968 Stanley Cup Playoffs, when I covered
Game 6 of the quarterfinal series
between the New York Rangers and the hometown Chicago Black Hawks (as they were known then).
As I walked along West Madison Street, I was overwhelmed by the Stadium's sheer size. When the arena opened, it was the largest of its kind in the world and maintained that distinction well after the Original Six era. Another unique feature was the media entrance, which was unlike any I'd ever encountered. It was called "Gate 3 1/2" -- conveniently located between Gates 3 and 4 -- and was guarded by a security person and a German shepherd the size of a polar bear.

Once granted entrance by the contentious canine, I took a gander at the Stadium's immense innards. Designed along the lines of Detroit's Olympia, the Stadium's seating arrangement included a pair of balconies that dwarfed those found in Madison Square Garden and Boston Garden. Another fascinating feature was that the dressing rooms were located below ice level, which meant that the players had to climb up a set of stairs to reach the rink.
High above the arena, the Stadium housed a mammoth Barton organ that contained 3,663 pipes, 800 stops and six keyboards, earning its recognition as the world's largest theater organ console. Organist Al Melgard became a celebrity in his own right, although he once was reprimanded by NHL President Clarence Campbell for humorously playing "Three Blind Mice" when the referee and two linesmen skated out at the start of games.
After checking out the Stadium's assorted fixtures, I couldn't help but notice the scoreboard, which featured actual clocks instead of the conventional digital numbers. They occasionally confused visiting broadcasters, including Bill Mazer, who in those days handled the CBS Network telecasts. During one Sunday afternoon telecast, Mazer ridiculed the Stadium's "confusing" clocks. A team official heard the critique and decided to punish Mazer.
At game's end, Mazer walked on to the ice to interview the afternoon's star, Chicago's Stan Mikita. Unknown to Mazer, the Black Hawks public relations department refused to allow Mikita on the ice. When Mazer got wind of the team's reprisal, he did what few, if any, hockey announcers ever did.
"I pretended to be Mikita," Mazer said. "I'd ask the question and then I'd move to where he would have been standing and I would answer it as if I was Mikita. It was a once in a lifetime interview."

I had no such issues in my Stadium visit. Chicago won 4-1 to eliminate New York. The end of the game was accompanied by a cacophony unique to that oversized barn. A few years later, after the Black Hawks eliminated the Rangers by winning Game 7 of the 1971 Semifinals, broadcaster Dan Kelly had the same reaction as I did and told his TV audience, "I can feel our broadcast booth shaking. That's the kind of place Chicago Stadium is now!"
That's why I loved my first encounter with the aptly named "Madhouse on Madison."