Records usually come at a cost to someone's performance.
For the former Boston Bruins goalie, it marked his final NHL game and a lifetime of snickering memories. There'll be no humour, dark or otherwise, in another vein tonight as Sittler and his family attempt to put their best faces forward. Wendy Sittler, the former Wendy Bibbings when she met him when he played here for the London Knights, is gravely ill with colon cancer but is expected to take part in the pregame ceremony. Few fans would know that or much else surrounding the game. Sittler's big game, it turned out, was part of a big 1976 season.