"The Chicoutimi Cucumber", renowned for
his coolness under fire, was one of the game's greatest goaltenders. Yet
he didn't learn to skate until he was 18. Instead, he played goal in his
boots, an accepted practice at the turn of the century.
"The Chicoutimi Cucumber", renowned for
his coolness under fire, was one of the game's greatest goaltenders. Yet
he didn't learn to skate until he was 18. Instead, he played goal in his
boots, an accepted practice at the turn of the century.
Vezina was discovered in 1910 during a barnstorming match between Chicoutimi and the Montreal Canadiens. Vezina and his team of amateurs shut out the Habs, so impressing Montreal goalie Joseph Cattarinich that he persuaded Canadiens' owner George Kennedy to sign up Vezina, even though it would mean the end of Cattarinich's job. The Cucumber would go on to play 328 league games and 39 more in the play-offs...all for the Habs.
On November 28, 1925, after never missing a game in his 15 year pro career, Vezina pulled himself out of the net in a game against Pittsburgh, suffering from chest pains and dizziness. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis and left without saying good-bye, hoping one day to return to the game he loved.
As Canadiens' owner Leo Dandurand recalled in the Montreal Star, Vezina
did return in late March of 1926, scrawny and wheezing, his lungs ravaged.
Vezina, a man familiar with sorrow having seen 22 of his 24 children die
in infancy, turned up in the Canadiens' dressing room at his customary game-day
time and settled in his usual corner. Dandurand "glanced at him as he sat
there, and saw tears rolling down his cheeks. He was looking at his old pads
and skates that [trainer] Eddie Dufour had arranged in Georges' corner, thinking
he would don them that night. Then he asked one little favor--the sweater
he had worn in the last world series. Then he
went."
Vezina died on March 24, 1926, and the next year Canadiens' owner Leo Dandurand, Leo Letourneau and Joseph Cattarinich--the man who had discovered Vezina 15 years earlier--immortalized their great goalie by establishing the Vezina Trophy, the highest award an NHL goalie can win.
from Hockey Hall of Fame Legends by Michael McKinley, 1993
