For 60 minutes he had been impenetrable.
Only one puck by the Montreal Canadiens had made it past him.
He had stopped 40 others. It was an incredible feat for a man many believed was a decade past his prime.
He was middle-aged and no one expected him, or his team, to be in this position.
They said he was too old, and that he was a has-been that the team was too slow for their high-flying opponents.
. That they didn’t stand a chance against the youth of the Canadiens.
As the buzzer sounded, the crowd at Maple Leaf Gardens erupted.
The goalie had proved them all wrong.
I’m Craig Baird and this is Canadian History Ehx!
This month I am looking at the hockey greats of the NHL’s Original Six Era. Today, I bring you a goalie who lit the league on fire until the game took everything from him.
This is…the story of…. Terry Sawchuk!
If you search his name you’ll find two distinct photographs of Terry Sawchuk, one in which he looks impossibly young with a round face, dark hair and serious eyes.
The face of a boy who has not yet learned what the NHL will cost him.
The other looks less like an athlete and more like an experiment by Dr. Frankenstein.
His journey began on Dec. 28, 1929.
Terrance Gordon Sawchuk was the third of four sons born to Louis and Anne Sawchuk.
They were Ukrainian immigrants and lived in a modest home on Bowman Avenue in East Kildonan.
Terry, who was known for his bright personality, grew up in a Ukrainian neighbourhood in Winnipeg.
He was always laughing, but much like in his adult life, darkness lingered over him.
When Terry was still in diapers, his brother Roger died of pneumonia. His parents later had another son, and then an adopted daughter.
By doing so, Terry went from second youngest to the middle child.
Through it all, Terry adored his older brother Mike.
He was an extremely gifted hockey player and seemed destined for stardom as a goalie.
Every Saturday night, Mike and Terry sat around the radio, listening to Foster Hewitt call games on Hockey Night in Canada.
He looked up to Mike and the two Sawchuk brothers wanted to play in the NHL.
Those nights by the radio are where Terry found his first professional hockey idol. Mike was already his first.
George Hainsworth.
The great goalie played for the Montreal Canadiens, and whenever Terry hit the ice, he would put on Mike’s pads and pretend to be Hainsworth, making saves in the family’s living room.
The unbridled joy Terry had around his brother came tragically to an end when he was10 years old.
As I said, darkness always seemed to loom over him.
But this time, it claimed his brother.
Mike, who was 17 at the time, died suddenly of a heart attack.
No one knew that he had health issues until he collapsed.
Losing his brother was really tough, Terry worshiped Mike.
But he funneled his grief into hockey and that same year he began to play organized hockey.
His sadness fueled his obsession to make it to the NHL.
Some could even say he wanted to live the life Mike was destined to have.
It seemed more like destiny was calling because in his first year Terry played centre and won the league scoring championship.
The next year, his new coach was looking for a goalie.
Terry had Mike’s pads sitting at home collecting dust, so he volunteered.
Terry quickly excelled there as well, and he never played centre again.
He was head and shoulders above every other goalie in Winnipeg.
One opposing player, Don Rope, said that sometimes Terry was so confident in his abilities that he would take his pads off, and skate out to play defence just for fun.
Rope went on to say.
“I never even saw the bloody net. There was nothing I could do. He had absolutely every angle covered.”
Terry’s coach, Bob Kinnear, also happened to be a scout with the Detroit Red Wings.
He wrote so many letters and glowing reports to Jack Adams, the coach and GM of the Red Wings, that he eventually asked Kinnear to bring Terry to Detroit for assessment.
Terry was only 14 when he worked out with the Red Wings and NHL All-Star defenceman Jack Stewart who later told Adams that Terry was going to be a great goalie.
Adams offered Terry a C-form contract, which would make him the property of the Red Wings for life.
Terry’s father Louis would have none of it. He wanted his son to keep his options open.
Remember Terry was still barely a teenager.
But by then he was already nursing a chronic injury which he got two years earlier.
At 12 years old he severely injured his right elbow while playing rugby.
Out of fear for how his parents would react, he hid the injury which seemed to heal eventually until he woke up and couldn’t lift his arm.
Terry said,
“I guess I would have been better off had I told my parents and suffered the consequences. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to a thrashing, although it would have been a lot less painful than what followed.”
That’s because for Terry, pain would be a constant companion.
He was a goalie in an era when masks weren’t part of the uniform.
But that wasn’t about to slow him down.
At 15 years old he was playing Junior Hockey against opponents who were 18 to 20.
During the 1945/46 season, the Chicago Black Hawks caught wind of Terry’s abilities and offered him a contract.
His dad said that Chicago was a team with no future… so… Once again, Terry did not sign.
Detroit circled back and offered him another contract.
His father thought it best he sign with them rather than end up with a cellar-dwelling team in the NHL.
At the time, the Red Wings were on the rise.
You might remember from my last episode that by then they had just signed a new rookie by the name of Gordie Howe.
Much like him, once he signed, Terry was sent to the Galt Red Wings for the 1947-48 season.
Over the next few years, he moved around and played with various teams associated with the Red Wings including the Windsor Spitfires and the Indianapolis Capitals.
Then…. Terry got the call.
Harry Lumley, the Detroit starter, had twisted his ankle and was out of action.
On Jan. 8, 1950, Terry made his NHL debut.
He skated out onto the ice wearing a Red Wings sweater to face the Boston Bruins.
But that high was short-lived. Detroit lost the game 4-3 and Terry blamed himself.
Lumley had watched from the stands and limped into the dressing room after the game to tell Terry that the Red Wings would have lost the game regardless of who was in net.
Terry needed to dust himself off because he would be playing in the NHL six more times that season in which Terry only allowed 12 goals in total.
Detroit won four of those games and Terry, he had his first shutout.
By the time the season ended, Harry Lumley was traded to Chicago and Terry became the official goalie for the Detroit Red Wings.
The 1950/51 season was nothing short of incredible.
Terry played in all 70 games and the Detroit Red Wings won 44 of them.
They had the best record in the league by far and Terry had the most shutouts.
11 of them in fact.
No other goalie in the NHL that season had more than six.
In what came as a shock to no one, Terry won the Calder Memorial Trophy for Rookie of the Year.
But although the Red Wings finished first in the NHL, they failed to win the Stanley Cup.
A shorter post season came as a relief for Terry who had been playing under extreme pain.
His nagging elbow injury had flared, and the sudden exit in the playoffs, allowed Terry went to finally have the problem dealt with at a Detroit hospital.
Three operations removed 60 bone chips from his elbow.
Yes. you heard that right… 60 bone chips were taken out and, in the process, made his right arm two inches shorter than his left.
By the time he showed up to training camp in September 1951, everyone was surprised to see that the young goalie had also put on significant weight during the off-season.
He was 5 feet 11 inches and weighed 219 pounds.
If you’re wondering… That gave him a Body Mass Index (BMI) of approximately 30.5 which placed him into the Class 1 obesity category on standard CDC adult BMI charts.
While Terry thought the entire situation was funny, Red Wing’s GM Jack Adams was livid.
The pressures of being a goalie meant that in the off-season, goalies had a tendency to overindulge.
Maple Leafs goalie Turk Broda was known for doing this.
During his Hall of Fame career from 1936 to 1952, he won five Stanley Cups but was also part of the o The Battle of the Bulge when Leafs owner Conn Smythe ordered him to lose 10 pounds in a week.
If he didn’t, he was off the team. Broda only succeeded by rigging the scales in his favour.
The same thing happened to Terry Sawchuk.
When Adams saw him at training camp, he ordered Terry be placed on a crash diet of no bread, potatoes, pizza or pastries.
If it had starch, it was out.
Ten weeks later, Terry was 193 pounds.
Let’s be clear. Losing 26 pounds in 10 weeks is generally considered to be dangerous. It can lead to gallstones, digestive problems and nutrient deficiencies.
To help with the hunger and the stress Terry began to smoke.
His mood was also impacted.
Terry had always been happy and outgoing. Milt Dunnell of the Toronto Star said,
“The sunshine seemed to go out of him.”
Terry’s personality may have changed, but his skills were still the best in the NHL.
The season he lost all that weight; he led the league again with 44 wins and won his first Vezina Trophy and his first Stanley Cup with the Red Wings.
His next three seasons were just as good.
From 1952-53 to 1954-55, he led the league in wins, won two more Vezinas and two Stanley Cups.
He also got married.
He had met Patricia Ann Morey at a golf course clubhouse where she worked in the spring of 1953.
By July, they were engaged, and by Aug. 6 married.
Two years later Terry was the undisputed best goaltender in the National Hockey League. Everyone thought his place on the Red Wings was secure.
From 1949-50 to 1954-55, the Red Wings had won four Stanley Cups and became a hockey dynasty and finished first in the league every single season in that stretch.
But General Manager Jack Adams was always looking to wheel and deal, not wanting to ever be complacent.
After their 1955 Stanley Cup win, Adams orchestrated several trades that spelled disaster and led to a forty-year championship drought.
And Terry would be involved.
On June 2, 1955, Terry heard the news that he had been traded to the Boston Bruins.
quote
“I first heard the rumour over the radio Thursday. Then Boston phoned me to tell me they were my new owners.”
Adams believed that Terry was expendable because he had Glenn Hall ready to take his place.
Glenn Hall went on to have a Hall of Fame career of his own and became known as Mr. Goalie, but no one can be compared to Terry Sawchuk in his prime.
The trade was devastating.
Not only was Terry leaving the team he adored, but he was also wondering if he was washed up.
With his confidence in hell, he reported to the Bruins for training camp.
As you can imagine, the first season was brutal.
He won only 22 games and led the league in losses.
For the first time in his career, he missed the playoffs.
He may have been struggling but he had star power and people loved to watch him play.
Even though he had 33 losses, the Bruins had their highest attendance since 1950.
Bruins General Manager Lynn Patrick said,
“He kept us in contention for most of the games.”
Even though he had been voted the most outstanding Bruin that season Terry’s confidence was still shattered.
The GM went on to say.
“Terry always needed reassurance about his work. He got down on himself a lot when the team was doing bad. Milt and I always used to pat him on the back and tell him what a fine job he was doing.”
The work by Patrick and Bruins coach Milt Schmidt helped Terry get off to a great start in1956.
The Bruins came roaring out of the gate and sat in first place through the first third of the season.
Terry was doing so well there was talk that he could win the Hart Trophy as League MVP.
But something felt off.
As the season progressed, Terry complained of being tired.
His teammates had long since labelled him a hypochondriac and didn’t pay much attention to his complaints.
That changed when he didn’t report for practice.
When the team doctor visited him, he was diagnosed with infectious mononucleosis, or mono as it is commonly known.
The condition impacts the glands and causes severe weakness, extreme fatigue, high fever, and a sore throat.
The only treatment is prolonged rest.
On Dec. 12, 1956, Terry was so weak he had to be taken to hospital in a wheelchair where he remained for two weeks. He finally returned to the team on Dec. 27, 1956, for a game against the Red Wings, but he should have taken two months off, not two weeks.
Because he did well for the first two periods before he fell apart and let in three goals in as many shots.
He was definitely not in top form, in his first five games back, the Bruins won two and let in 17 goals.
His mood soured, and he fell into a depression, and he blamed the coach for letting him play.
He was still weak.
In fact, after one game, he sat in the car for 15 mins to summon the strength to walk up his driveway and into his home.
As his mental health dipped, he believed his career was over and by mid January he had stated he was going to retire.
Terry said,
“The pressure is getting to me. I’m not doing a good job. I’m letting the team down, and I want to quit.”
When he talked to Milt Schmidt, the Bruins general manager said that he was not sick, his nerves were not shot, and that he was just a quitter.
He then told Terry that if he did not report to practice the next day, he would be suspended.
Terry didn’t show up and Schmidt said he would be suspended for life.
At the time, there was little sympathy, unless the injury was visible, players were called weak. A player suffering from depression was told to just suck it up and get on the ice.
If only someone listened to Terry, his future may have been different.
Terry’s suspension didn’t last though.
Before long, Bruins management realized they needed him in net. Milt Schmidt was on damage control and denied calling him a quitter and said that it was the press who misquoted him.
Schmidt called Terry at home, but Terry refused to answer.
Their feud eventually thawed but, in the meantime, Terry sought medical advice from a trusted doctor in Detroit who diagnosed with exhaustion.
Terry was also on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The diagnoses finally helped his mood; he was being believed by someone other than his wife.
Under medical advice, Terry took a month off.
He felt better than he had in years.
While he was off the ice, and gaining weight, his replacement in Boston was playing well.
The relationship with the Bruins had been rocky so the team took the opportunity and offered Terry in a trade.
Although Chicago tried really hard, Terry wound up in a familiar place.
He would be heading back to The Detroit Red Wings.
Detroit had a great goalie in Glenn Hall, who had just recently won the Calder Trophy as Rookie of the Year.
He had been a runner-up for the Vezina Trophy behind Montreal’s Jacques Plante.
But during the first round of the 1957 playoffs, Hall took a puck to the face that required 23 stitches. Despite the injury, he continued to play goal, but Detroit lost the series. Adams blamed Hall for the loss and even questioned his courage in net by calling him “puck shy”.
It didn’t help Ted Lindsay had already formed the first players union in NHL history.
Adams told every Detroit player to have nothing to do with it.
When he approached Hall, he responded with a firm F-U.
After the playoffs, Adams traded Ted Lindsay and Glenn Hall to Chicago as punishment.
By June 1957, Detroit was in need of a goalie.
Lynn Patrick and Jack Adams worked out a trade that sent Terry Sawchuk back to Detroit.
When he heard the news Terry said
“When I heard I’d been traded back to Detroit I won’t deny I was glad to be playing at home, but I still would have gone back to the Bruins if they hadn’t traded me.”
Terry was still an incredible goalie but in hindsight many have viewed it as a terrible trade.
To get him, Detroit had to give up Johnny Bucyk who went on to play for 20 seasons in Boston, in which they won two Stanley Cups, as he eventually made it into the Hall of Fame.
Meanwhile, Terry was finally rested, but out of shape. He also discovered that the Detroit Red Wings he was joining were a far cry from the dominant team he had left.
Adams had gutted the team, but Terry played all 70 games while leading the NHL in minutes with 4,198.
That first season was abysmal, and not only with the Red Wings.
At home, his wife was fed up with him.
Terry’s moods were constantly changing and he had frequent affairs.
By February 1958, she filed for divorce.
When asked about it by reporters, he lashed out at them but privately in the Red Wings dressing room, teammates said he frequently broke down in tears.
After weeks of attempted divorce proceedings, the couple eventually reconciled.
There may have been a respite in his personal life, but things didn’t get better on the ice.
Despite his best efforts, the team struggled during the 1958-59 season with 36 losses, the most in Terry’s entire career.
The Red Wings finished in last place and missed the playoffs for the first time since 1937-38.
After bottoming out, the team rebounded the following season but although they made the playoffs they failed to win the Cup.
All the while Terry dealt with several health problems.
By the early-1960s, he began to suffer from shooting pains from his ankles to his legs.
He was diagnosed with neuritis, which is the inflammation of one or more peripheral nerves.
In his case they were probably caused by trauma and doctors warned there could be a chance, albeit a small one, that he could be confined to a wheelchair by the end of the decade.
The neuritis could’ve been caused by the consistent back pain from herniated discs, pucks to the face, and the assault on his nerves.
Worried by Terry’s mounting injuries, Red Wings coach Sid Abel had Hank Bassen to share goaltending duties for the 1960-61 season.
This immediately damaged Terry’s confidence.
Which led to an ultimatum during a TV interview where Terry said that he needed to play goal regularly to keep his skills sharp, and if he wasn’t going to play full-time, he wanted to be traded.
His comment was said in anger, but it ended up working and as the season went on Terry played more.
The team ended up in the playoffs in which Terry played all eight games.
His efforts helped the Red Wings reach the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in five seasons.
While they eventually lost to the Chicago Black Hawks, it was clear that Terry kept the Red Wings in many games during that playoff run.
It would be a highlight because the following season proved to be one of the worst of his career.
In 61-62 he had only 14 wins and the Red Wings slid to the bottom of the standings, which led Detroit fans to frequently blame Terry and boo him relentlessly.
As the next season began, coach Sid Abel announced that the team would be keeping only one goalie on the roster.
Terry now found himself in competition with Hank Bassen and Dennis Riggin.
But he had a trick up his sleeve.
As you might remember from my episode on Jacques Plante, he introduced wearing a mask in 1959 which helped The Canadiens go on an 18-game winning streak and win their fifth-straight Stanley Cup that season.
Over the years Terry had tested out a mask but felt it restricted his vision and he abandoned them.
But now, with his place on the team on the line, he decided to give a mask another shot.
It was about time. Since his debut in the NHL over a decade earlier, he had received over 350 stitches to his face.
With the mask on and without fear of being hit in the face, he improved and said “I think the mask keeps you more alert. That may sound funny, but I think the fact that you know you’re losing a little keeps you that way.”
The mask worked wonders for Terry, and Detroit were unbeaten in their first ten games of the 1962-63 season.
By Dec. 2, the team was in first place and there was talk of Terry winning not just the Vezina, but the Hart.
But he wasn’t out of the woods.
He continued to have health issues, including a blocked intestine, an injured shoulder and a bruised instep.
Things got worse on Jan. 12, 1963, when Bob Pulford of the Maple Leafs stepped on the back of Terry’s glove hand during a scuffle for the puck at the goal line.
The tendons of his hands were slashed, and he was rushed to the hospital where he endured a two-hour surgery.
Terry tried to keep count of the stitches but after 50 just gave up.
He would be out for six weeks.
He finally returned without missing a beat and helped the Red Wings finish the season in fourth place.
They went on to the Stanley Cup Final against the Toronto Maple Leafs but once again, were defeated four-games-to-one.
The team would regroup and come back and when they did Terry cemented his legacy as one of the greatest goalies to play the game.
During the 1963-64 season, Terry played his 805th game and set a new career record for an NHL goalie.
Most significantly, on Jan. 18, 1964, he had his 95th career shutout and set a new NHL record.
That season, Terry had 25 wins, the most since 1957-58 and played in 13 games during the Red Wings playoffs run.
Sadly, they lost in the Cup Final for the second time in a row.
By then Terry had played seven seasons with Detroit, along with his previous six.
He was also in his mid-30s, so it’s likely that Terry believed that he would retire a Red Wing. T
After all, he had helped the team climb back to relevance, even if they had failed to win the Stanley Cup.
But fate had other plans.
On June 10, 1964, Terry Sawchuk was working in his garden when he received a phone call from a reporter.
That is how he found out he would be joining the Toronto Maple Leafs, who had just won their third Stanley Cup in a row that year.
Each June, teams submitted a list of protected players to the league, if someone wasn’t on the list they would be part of the intra-league draft which had been created to level the playing field.
Typically, the players available were average and did little to change the fortunes of teams.
Age wasn’t a factor either, by 1964, some of the top players were in their early-to-mid-30s. Johnny Bower, the goalie that Terry would share the net within Toronto, was 40.
Some joked that the Maple Leafs were the only team in sports that could have a Stanley Cup run threatened by prostate problems.
Coach Punch Imlach said,
“I tell my players to tear up their birth certificates, and I’ll tell Terry Sawchuk to do the same.”
The 34-year-old began his first season with the Leafs, where he played in 36 games and won 16.
During the 1964-65 season, he and Bower jointly won the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goalies.
They continued to do well over the next two seasons and by March 4, 1967, Terry recorded his 100th shutout.
During the 1967 playoffs, Terry and the “Over the Hill Gang” as the media had dubbed the Maple Leafs, defeated the first-place Black Hawks in the semi-final to face off against their arch-rival Montreal Canadiens for the cup.
The Canadiens had won the previous two Stanley Cups and were ready to make it three against the much older team.
There was even a rumour that the Canadiens were so sure of their victory, they had already planned the parade.
In the first game, Terry gave up five goals and was replaced by Johnny Bower as the young Canadiens cruised to a 6-2 victory.
The Leafs responded with ferocious intensity the following game as Bower got shut out and the team won 3-0.
Montreal answered by winning the next two games 3-2 and 6-2, as Bower and Terry split goaltending duties for Toronto.
But the Leafs were up against the ropes, and Terry would be in net for Game Five.
Terry showed why he was one of the league’s best goalies when he stopped 38 shots on net as the Leafs won 4-1.
It would all come down to Game 6
On May 2, 1967, at Maple Leaf Gardens in front of a home crowd, Terry was in net once again.
Toronto was up 2-0 by the end of the second period and Terry was feeling the pressure. He said,
“I was scared witless. Scared every time they got near me.”
As Montreal peppered him with shots, Terry stood tall in arguably the greatest game of his life.
41 shots had come his way. And for the most part he had been unflappable as the Leafs won 3-1 and became the last Stanley Cup champion of the Original Six era.
And as of August 2026, the Maple Leafs have yet to sip from the Stanley Cup.
On June 6, 1967, the NHL expansion draft was held at the ballroom of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal.
The Original Six era of the NHL had come to an end as the league doubled to 12 teams for the upcoming 67-68 season.
Even though Terry had helped the Leafs win the Stanley Cup a month earlier, he was unprotected and he was first overall in the draft.
Jack Kent Cooke, the owner of the Los Angeles Kings, wasted no time in selecting him.
Originally, Terry contemplated retirement rather than moving to the West Coast, but the three-year $117,000 contract enticed him.
He hated playing in California,
Felt the fans, and sports writers lacked knowledge of the game.
And although he enjoyed mentoring the team’s younger goalie Wayne Rutledge, he only registered 10 wins during that 36-game season.
Terry was left unprotected, once again for the intra-league draft in the off-season, but no team picked him up.
In September 1968, Los Angeles traded him to Detroit and for the third time in his career, Terry was with the Red Wings.
Although he was happy to be back his personal life was a disaster.
His wife filed for divorce once more in January 1969.
Terry’s drinking, which had been getting worse in recent years, went off the rails and he played only 13 games and won four of them that season.
The following summer he was traded for the final time to the New York Rangers.
He was firmly a backup goalie and over eight games in 69-70 he only won three.
But he did manage to make one more record.
On Feb. 1, 1970, he had his 103rd and final shutout.
It was the highest in NHL history until 2009 when Martin Brodeau surpassed him.
That night he also had his 447th and final win which remained in the league’s record books until Patrick Roy broke it in 2000.
After those highs it seemed like the writing was on the wall and Terry began to think about life after hockey.
But again… destiny had other plans.
By the time Terry Sawchuk neared the end, the trophies were already behind him.
As he entered the off season he had four Stanley Cups, four Vezina Trophies. Hundreds of victories and a place among the greatest goaltenders hockey had ever produced.
But the man behind those stats was falling apart as his life had become increasingly troubled.
His marriage had collapsed. His relationship with his family had become strained. His father had been in a near fatal car accident…. And alcohol was increasingly part of the picture.
This is where the story becomes uncomfortable.
By 1970 Terry was 40 years old and sharing a small house in Long Island with his teammate Ron Stewart.
The two had been friends for years, but both drank too much and were volatile.
On April 29, 1970, Terry and Stewart were at the E&J Pub.
Somewhere between the drinks, and the tension of closing up the nearby house for the summer, an argument broke out between the two.
Things escalated as Stewart accused Terry of owing him money for household expenses.
As the two shoved each other, the bartender threw them out into the street.
That wouldn’t stop two men whose life had been violence for decades.
They knew how to hurt people on the ice, and as the rage boiled over, they drove, while heavily intoxicated, in their respective cars to their shared house.
When they arrived, they continued to fight. Benjamin Weiner was nearby with his girlfriend Rosemarry Sasso and attempted to separate them.
In the scuffle, Benjamin and Terry fell on top of Stewart.
As they did, either part of the barbecue they had previously knocked over, or Stewart’s knee hit Terry in the stomach and he was seriously injured.
The fight stopped immediately and a doctor was called Dr. Denis Nicholson arrived and assessed Terry who was transported to a Long Beach hospital and underwent two operations, the first to remove his gall bladder and the second to stop bleeding in his liver.
Terry, said of the evening… “They kicked us out of the bar and I hit him again. I just kept knocking him down. At the house, I tagged him again and knocked him down again. I jumped him, and I fell on his knee. I started it and I finished it.”
He was in hospital for three weeks and during that time Terry’s condition did not improve….
Then on May 31, 1970, Terry Sawchuk died of a pulmonary embolism.
Arguably the greatest goalie to ever play the game died at 40 years old.
His untimely death was tragic.
A once stellar career gone in an instant.
Terry Sawchuk was the first goalie to win 400 games with100 shutouts so it was no surprise that just one year after his passing he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame By 1994, his #1 was retired by the Detroit Red Wings and seven years later he was honoured with a stamp from Canada Post.
In Winnipeg, there’s an arena named after him and he’s also been inducted into the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame and Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.
He was also named one of the 100 greatest NHL players in 2017 to mark the league’s 100th anniversary.
Two years later, Goalie, a Canadian biographical sports film about the hockey great, premiered on limited release.
The film was directed and co-written by Adriana Maggs. Sawchuk is played by Mark O’Brien, a Canadian actor and director best known for his roles as Des Courtney in Republic of Doyle
The film earned five Canadian Screen Award nominations, including one for O’Brien who won for Best Actor.
But Terry Sawchuk’s story is not about statistics, the Stanley Cups, or his induction into Halls of Fame.
He was a man who carried extraordinary pain, both physical and emotional, for much of his life.
He gave hockey everything he had, becoming one of the greatest goaltenders the sport has ever known, but part of what made him so formidable also made him weak.
Terry’s legacy is both glorious and tragic.
He’s a reminder of what his era demanded from athletes who were taught to absorb pain rather than speak about it.
In the end, Terry Sawchuk was more than the scars on his face or the records beside his name.
He was a deeply complicated man who stood in front of danger for twenty-one years and whose story reminds us that even the toughest people can be wounded in places no statistic can measure.
*sources*
- Shutout: The Legend of Terry Sawchuk by Brian Kendall
- NHL: https://www.nhl.com/player/terry-sawchuk-8450111/stats
- Canadian Encyclopedia: https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/terry-sawchuk
- NHL: https://www.nhl.com/news/terry-sawchuk-100-greatest-nhl-hockey-players-284174960
- ESPN: https://www.espn.com/nhl/preview00/s/day7main.html
- Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame: https://halloffamers.sportshall.ca/?terry_sawchuk&language=EN
