Dave Dryden

dave dryden

Any old-school, hockey-loving Canuck worth his Tackaberries knows Ken Dryden, the storied Canadian / Canadien hero goalie with more Connie Smythe hardware and Stanley Cup rings than “Carter has pills” as my father-in-law would say.  (Not sure who Carter was but he’s quoted often at the in-laws; however I digress).   A lesser known fact is that Ken had an older brother who was a pretty fair goalie himself.  More of a journeyman in that he played on several NHL teams and didn’t end up with as much hardware as his sibling protege but a good man to be sure.

And I know this first hand because his son Greg and I ended up at Uni together and lived as roommates in a student ghetto house in Kingston for a couple of years in the early 80’s.   As scary-smart as anyone I’ve ever met, Greg is / was a great guy.   He didn’t play hockey, which unfortunately we Peterborough guys razzed him unfairly about but it was serendipitous to learn when I got to know Greg that after his Dad had hung up his NHL / WHL skates, he landed in Peterborough for a stint as the Pete’s coach.

Earlier, Dave Dryden played pro for 18 years in both the NHL and the WHA and won the WHA award as the league’s top goalie and the Gordie Howe award as League MVP in 1979.  Not bad at all.   On the slightly more negative side of the trivia equation, he also was the goalie who gave up Gretzky’s first professional goal in 1979.

Alas, every man has a dark side and this picture proves in the case of Dave Dryden, his may have been the barber he visited.

10,000 games of hockey…well, maybe not quite that many

While driving home from my game one night last week, I got to thinking about how many games of hockey I’ve actually played, organized or pickup.   Here’s what I came up with:

• 11 years of church house league at approximately 20 games per year = 220 games
• 4 years of high school hockey at approximately 30 games per year = 120 games
• 4 years of rec hockey at university at approximately 10 games per year = 40 games
• 9 years of Thursday night pickup in Waterloo for 25 weeks = 225 games
• 8 years of the Grand River Industrial league in Kitchener at approximately 20 games per year = 160 games
• 15 years of the Woolwhich Oldtimers league at approximately 50 games per year = 750 games
• 7 summers of pickup once a week for 15 weeks = 105 games
• 3 summers of pickupu twice a week for 15 weeks = 90 games
• 3 years of the Waterloo Hi Tech League at approximately 15 games per year = 45 games
• tournaments during the last 15 years at approximately 10 games per year = 150 games
• Grand Total = 1905 games

I wonder what my my team’s won-loss record was in this grand mass of games?  Next up, calculating how many hours I’ve spent on neighbourhood rinks, backyard rinks and the odd flooded field or frozen canal.

This Cannot Have Helped Olympic Advertisers

Here’s a beautiful blog post about how the folks in the city of Edmonton, presumably a pretty good proxy for the rest of Canada, timed their pee breaks during the men’s gold medal hockey game in Vancouver.