godspeed, charlie gardiner: from his head to his heels, a champion hockey showman

Close Call: Charlie Gardiner poses for the camera in February of 1934, two months before he led his Chicago Black hawks to a Stanley Cup championship. Two months after that, he died, at 30, of a brain hemorrhage. (Image: SDN-075893, Chicago Sun-Times/Chicago Daily News collection, Chicago History Museum)

“The supreme showman of the sport,” the Montreal Star called him, “the grinning curly-head who was both a successful clown and the game’s greatest goaltender.” Charlie Gardiner was 30 in June of 1934, and the toast of the hockey world, having just won his second Vézina Trophy while captaining  the Chicago Black Hawks to the team’s first Stanley Cup. His health, sad to say, had been failing all the while and on a Wednesday of this date, Gardiner died in Winnipeg from a brain hemorrhage brought on by uraemic convulsions. “He was a sportsman from his head to his heels,” NHL President Frank Calder said, “as well as one of the greatest goaltenders the game ever produced. His loss is irreparable.”

One thought on “godspeed, charlie gardiner: from his head to his heels, a champion hockey showman

  1. A few years ago with a push from community members, a Winnipeg rink was renamed in his honour. On the day that the official renaming took place, someone noticed the exhibit of Gardiner that was to be placed outside depicted a goalie who caught then puck with the opposite hand than Gardiner. It was discovered that the person responsible had taken an image off the Internet, who had been identified as Gardiner, but actually was Chicago goalie Mike Karakas. It was quickly corrected.

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