HOCKEY NOTES

Georges Vezina (The Chicoutimi Cucumber / The Silent Habitant)

Goal

5-6 185

b. 21 Jan 1887 Chicoutimi, Quebec
d. 27 Mar 1926 Chicoutimi, Quebec

At the end of the 1910 hockey season, the Montreal Canadiens went on a barnstorming tour throughout the province of Quebec. One of their dates was in the logging town of Chicoutimi, which had no top-level hockey team to speak of. The Habs, led by the dynamic Newsy Lalonde, skated rings around the Chicoutimi Sagueneens. For all of this, the big-city boys failed to score on the tall youngster in the Chicoutimi nets, Georges Vezina, who wore winter boots instead of skates. Joe Cattarinich, who was in goal for Montreal on this night, knew a goalkeeper when he saw one, and made a point of remembering the kid's name. When George Kennedy bought the Canadiens during the off-season, Cattarinich recommended that he sign Vezina.

The man who would become a Montreal hockey legend started tending goal long before he learned how to skate. Up to the age of 18, he actually wore boots on the ice and during practice had his mates throw rubber balls at him as a way of sharpening his reflexes.

Former Canadiens boss Leo Dandurand told the story of how, before one Canadiens-Maroons clash, Vezina told him: "It will be a close battle. I can hold them out at my end, Leo, but it will be tough to score against them. The best man is in the other goal, you know." Vezina's modesty was just one of the marks of his greatness. He was a superb sportsman, neither boastful in victory nor complaining in defeat. Although his spoken English was poor and conversational skills were modest, his presence commanded respect. He was the spiritual leader of the original Flying Frenchmen.

Vezina's coolness on the ice earned him the handle "The Chicoutimi Cucumber." He stood erect in the cage and was blessed with lightning-quick reflexes and a knack for stickhandling uncommon among the keepers of his day. When the pressure around Vezina's net intensified, he would often deflect the puck over the glass. And because he played on offensively oriented clubs, it was not uncommon to see him playing keep-away with an enemy checker until a teammate came to his aid.

Vezina backstopped the Canadiens to five National Hockey Association or National Hockey League titles, and Stanley Cup wins in 1916 and 1924. He played in every one of Montreal's games between 1910 and November 28, 1925 -- a string of 367 consecutive regular-season and playoff games! Chest pains sidelined the great goalie for the balance of the 1925-26 season, though, and he died of tuberculosis on March 27, 1926. The Canadiens donated a trophy, the Georges Vezina Memorial Trophy, which to this day is awarded annually to the NHL's best goaltender.

Vezina was one of the 12 charter members of the Hockey Hall of Fame, inducted in 1945.

Bios 1910-1919