Doug Brennan
Brennan was good size, tough defenseman. In 123 games with the Blue Shirts he scored 9 goals, 7 assists and 16 points. He also earned 152 penalty minutes. Read more...
Sunday
Brennan was good size, tough defenseman. In 123 games with the Blue Shirts he scored 9 goals, 7 assists and 16 points. He also earned 152 penalty minutes. Read more...
Friday
Danny Lewicki
"A hockey player who didn't reach his potential. I always felt I could have done better and should have done better."
An excellent skater who stickhandled and shot well, Lewicki played with Toronto, NY Rangers and Chicago.
"Possibly I was a little ahead of my time," he says. Could he play defensively? "Never!" he joked. "Oh, I did a bit, but at 170lbs I wasn't able to hurt anybody."
Lewicki scored 105 goals and 135 assists in 461 regular season games. He is one of the few players to win the Memorial Cup (Port Arthur Bruins, 1948), Allan Cup (Toronto Seniors, 1949) and Stanley Cup (Toronto Maple Leafs, 1950).
After leaving the NHL in 1959 Lewicki rounded out his career with 4 years in the minors before calling it quits. He regretfully looks back and realized maybe he quit to soon as the NHL expanded just a couple of years after he retired.
Lewicki became a sales representative with CHUM radio for 13 years before joining Acklands as an automotive supplier. Read more...
Rene "Trudy" Trudell
Trudell, who actually played a season in Harringay, England, enrolled with the Canadian military. Stationed in Winnipeg he continued to star at hockey with the RCAF Bombers. He served there for four years before finally getting a chance at the NHL.
Not a lot hockey playing World War II veterans cracked NHL lineups after their service was done. The NHL had found a new wave of younger talent, and welcomed back many of the old familiar names, making it tough for a player like Trudell to crack a line up. But crack a line up he did, playing with the New York Rangers for two and a half seasons.
Trudell, a cousin of Chicago Black Hawks forward Lou Trudel, died on March 19th, 1972. He had moved to San Francisco and opened a restaurant. Read more...
Sunday
Jean Paul Lamirande
The Montreal Gazette lamented the loss of "Montreal's great amateur star" to the American city. The paper championed Lamirande's blocking and rushing ability.
Unfortunately "JP" never fulfilled his promise. He would go on to play high level professional and senior hockey until 1961, but only get into 49 NHL contests. In that time he scored 5 goals and 10 points.
While he started with the Rangers in 1946, an injury sidelined him and upon his recovery he was demoted to the minor leagues. He rarely returned.
His finest moment came on November 30, 1949 when Jean Lamirande, just called up, scored two goals as the Rangers beat Montreal, 5-2.
Late in his career he returned to amateur status and played with several senior teams in Quebec and Ontario. In 1958 he was a star defenseman with the Quebec Aces, but was a last minute addition that season to Whitby Dunlops. The Dunnies won the Allan Cup as Canada's amateur champions and were about to head overseas to participate in the World Hockey Championships, but not before adding the talented Lamirande. Lamirande starred in Oslo that spring, picking up six assists including setting up Bob Attersley's gold medal winning goal!
Lamirande so enjoyed his European vacation that he did it again the following year. Now a member of the Belleville McFarlands, this time he, too, tasted Allan Cup champagne before heading to Prague. Lamirande was named as the tournament's top defenseman while leading the Canadians to another world title. Read more...
Monday
Brian Leetch
Though he was born in the least likeliest of hockey hotbeds, Brian Leetch went on to become perhaps the best National Hockey League defenseman of his era.
Brian was born in Corpus Christie, Texas, but he did not live there long. His father was a Navy pilot, flying C-130 transports to Vietnam. In 1973, when Brian was about 5 years old, the navy decommissioned Leetch's squadron, and the family moved to San Francisco where Jack flew Boeing 707s for Pan Am. Later he was hired by Shell Oil, who stationed him first in Oregon then Connecticut, back close to the Leetch family.
Despite all the travel to unlikely hockey places, Brian had already fell in love with the game of hockey. His father passed that on to him. You see, Jack Leetch was quite the hockey player in his day, too. He was a walk on at Boston College and became an All American by 1963. Playing on the American national team, he was one of the last cuts for Team USA's entry to the 1964 Olympics.
Brian was destined to follow in his father's glorious footsteps, and then some. He was a high school superstar, and NHL scouts flocked to Avon Old Farms prep school to see him. The New York Rangers were so impressed, they took a chance on the high school kid with the 9th overall draft pick in 1986. It turned out to be a chance well taken, as Leetch may be the best player out of that draft class.
The Rangers would have to wait to get Leetch in a Blueshirts jersey though. He had his mind and heart set on following his father to Boston College. He would play just one year there, joining future NHL star Craig Janney under the guidance of legendary coach Len Ceglarski. Leetch was named rookie and player of the year in Hockey East, and became the first freshman to be named as a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award as US college's top hockey player.
Leetch dropped out of college the following year, but not to chase the big bucks of the NHL, but Olympic gold. He was named US team captain, and was the clear star of the team. Unfortunately a knee injury left him on crutches heading into the 1988 Calgary Olympics. He would still play in all 6 games, but the Americans would not medal.
Leetch would embark upon his NHL career immediately following the Olympics, finishing the 1987-88 NHL season with 2 goals and 14 points in 17 games, serving notice of what was to come. In his rookie season the year later, he wowed everyone around the league with a 23 goal, 71 point campaign.
One of the keys to Leetch's early NHL success was coach Michel Bergeron. Bergeron was a fiery coach who insisted on passion, and was not known for tactics and Xs and Os. Leetch was free to play his game, which is so rare for any player nowadays. He was allowed to show what he could do.
That was great for the beginning of Leetch's career, but he truly became the NHL's top defender upon the arrival of coach Mike Keenan and former Oiler Mark Messier. Leetch would develop special bonds with both, especially Messier. Those bonds would teach him how to become one of the NHL's all time great players.
In 1991-92, Leetch became only the 4th defenseman in league history to record 100 points in a season. His 80 assists were a team record. His dominance earned him his first Norris Trophy as the league's best rearguard.
However it was the 1993-94 season that ranks highest on Leetch's incredible list of accomplishments. After another impressive regular season of 79points, Leetch led the New York Rangers in the playoffs, scoring 11 goals and a league high 23 assists and 34 points on route to the first Stanley Cup championship on Broadway in 54 years. Leetch was named the Conn Smythe Trophy winner as the playoff's most valuable performer, the first non-Canadian born player to do so. The finals against Vancouver are considered to be one of hockey's greatest clashes, and Leetch stood tallest among many giants in that series.
The Rangers fortunes dramatically declined following the Cup win, but Leetch was constantly the brightest star on Broadway. He was named to 5 NHL all star teams, and won another Norris Trophy in 1997. He also returned to the Olympics in both 1998 and 2002, finally winning a silver medal in his last Olympiad.
The key to Leetch's game was always his mobility and vision. He was a terrific skater and stickhandler. Everyone marveled at how he could sidestep the league's best forecheckers and make a great breakout pass, often creating something out of nothing. He was a good rusher too, and manned a power play point as good as anyone. Defensively he overcame relatively small size with impeccable timing and positioning. He was never adverse to the physical game either. He truly was one of the all time great defensemen.
Leetch bled Rangers blue and he was greatly disheartened when the Rangers moved him at the trading deadline in 2004 to the Toronto Maple Leafs. He finished the year there, and then sat out the lost lockout season of 2004-05. He was again heartbroken when the Rangers showed no interest in his return post-lockout. Prompting him to return for a final and uneventful season with the Boston Bruins.
In 1205 NHL games, Brian Leetch scored 247 goals, 781 assists for 1028 points. He also added 97 points in 95 post season contests. One day his jersey #2 will hang high in the rafters of Madison Square Gardens.
Adam Graves
In an era when the NHL was being dominated by hockey's version of globalization, Adam Graves was very much the traditional Canadian hockey player.
"He's very physical, he will do anything to get his team geared up," said one NHL coach. "He plays the game every inch of that ice. He wants to command, and he commands a lot of respect out there. He's a total player. He's a spark. He's an inspiration. There's an MVP guy, let me tell you. He's just an outstanding player and an outstanding person."
"Adam was always the type of kid you wanted to make it," Colin Campbell, his former coach said. "He is conscientious, nice, hard-working, respectful. And usually those guys don't make it. Adam is the milk-drinker who goes through hell for you."
He played a rugged, aggressive game of hockey, with a mean streak that enhanced his talent and inspired his teammates. He parked his often bruised body in front of the net, especially when playing on the power play. Graves was a willing fighter, often known as Mark Messier's bodyguard, both in Edmonton and later New York. Kevin Lowe, teammate of both in both cities, called Graves "the sheriff" for his willingness to defend fellow Rangers.
Graves was drafted by the Detroit Red Wings out of the Windsor Spitfires of the OHL. He finished the 1988 season with the Wings after leading the Spitfires to the OHL championship. He split the 1988-89 season with the Wings and their AHL affiliate. He was quickly traded in the beginning of the 1989-90 season in a huge trade. Graves, Petr Klima, Joe Murphy and Jeff Sharples were all moved to Edmonton in exchange for Michigan-born Jimmy Carson and long time Oiler tough guy Kevin McClelland.
Graves filled a similar role to McClelland while in Edmonton, but possessed much more promise which never really was tapped in the City of Champions. He played 2 seasons with the Oilers, scoring 15 goals in 139 games. He teamed with Martin Gelinas and Joe Murphy to form the Oilers version of the "Kid Line." The trio combined speed and youthful enthusiasm in a supporting role in the Oilers 1990 Stanley Cup Championship.
The New York Rangers plucked Graves away from Edmonton in 1991 via the free agency market. It was in New York that Graves blossomed into a star. He erupted in 1991-92 to score 26 goals, doubling his career total. The next year he improved to 36 goals and by 1993-94 he joined Vic Hadfield as only the second New York Ranger in history to score 50 goals. In fact Graves' 52 goals better Hadfield's then-team record by 2. Graves would add 10 goals and 17 points in 23 playoff games to help bring Lord Stanley's Cup back to Broadway for the first time since 1940.
Graves would have trouble reaching the same plateau again. Playing in pain but rarely missing a game, he became a consistent 20 goal scorer in the years following. His body was banged up, later in his career he went through a tough time, losing his infant son and his father to deaths within months.
Through it all, Graves played with the highest dignity and class, and truly bled Rangers blue. The 1994 King Clancy Memorial winner and 2000 Bill Masterton Trophy winner, Graves participates in many activities involving under privileged kids in New York.
He now serves as the Rangers' director of community relations.
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