As NHL training camps move today from the medical room to the ice, a throwback to 1935, when Detroit trainer Honey Walker, right, inoculated left winger Herbie Lewis against — well, who knows. The Leafs, maybe? Calgary-born, Lewis won two Stanley Cups with the Red Wings and was elevated to the Hall of Fame in 1989. He noted then that the most he ever made in his 11 seasons in the NHL was $8,000. His citation at the Hall notes that he was the NHL’s fastest skater in his day, “with his trademark short, mincing steps.” His speed got him up on the big screen as he started his professional career. “At Detroit recently he posed for a motion picture concern, in a series of hockey flashes, and these films are to be shown in 104 theatres in Detroit.” That’s from The Lethbridge Herald, reporting in 1929.

In his first picture Lewis is shown circling the net, and skating down the ice stick-handling through his opposition for a goal. As he shoots, he is sprawling on the ice. The second picture shows a close-up. The third picture is styled perfect team work, in which George Hay and [Carson] Cooper make a rush down the ice, passing the puck and beating the defence.

Jack Adams prized him as a penalty-killer and all-round other-sport-shaming athletic exemplar. “He is a sportsman of the highest type,” the feisty Detroit manager once testified. “I defy baseball or football or boxing or any other sport to produce an individual who can eclipse Herbie Lewis as a perfect model of what any athlete should stand for.”