Ken Dryden, Canadiens great, author, and politician, dies of cancer
Ken Dryden, the Hall of Fame goaltender whose long resume in and out of hockey included six Stanley Cup victories and helping backstop Canada’s generation-defining victory at the 1972 Summit Series, died Friday at the age of 78 after a battle with cancer.
A key member of the Montreal Canadiens’ 1970s dynasty, Dryden’s career in the spotlight was only just getting started when he retired from the game — and while at the top of his own game — in his early 30s.
A lawyer, author, politician and NHL executive with the Toronto Maple Leafs, he would go on to leave an indelible mark across large swaths of wider Canadian society.
Born Aug. 8, 1947, in Hamilton, Ont., Dryden grew up in a Toronto suburb with his parents, brother and sister.
Selected by the Boston Bruins with the 14th pick in the 1964 NHL draft before a trade to Montreal, Dryden played U.S. college hockey at Cornell University and eventually made his Canadiens debut in March 1971.
He snatched the crease from veteran Rogie Vachon that spring and led the Original Six franchise to the Cup along with securing the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
Dryden then won the Calder Trophy as NHL rookie of the year in 1971-72, but Montreal lost in the first round that post-season.
He split the crease with Tony Esposito five months later in the 1972 Summit Series — a slugfest between Canada and the Soviet Union that became a metaphor for the West’s struggle against communism at the height of the Cold War.
Dryden detailed his version of events in “The Series: What I Remember, What it Felt Like, What it Feels Like Now” published in 2022.
“I don’t remember flying to Montreal. I don’t remember the day of the game. I don’t remember the dressing room,” he wrote of Game 1. “All I remember is a feeling that kept building and building, growing and growing. It’s what happens before a Stanley Cup series, before a Stanley Cup final, but not like this.
“It built to where it couldn’t build anymore, grew to where it had no place left to grow, then it built and grew some more.”
After losing the opener at the Montreal Forum and Game 4 in Vancouver, Dryden rebounded to pick up a 3-2 decision in a must-win Game 6 in Moscow.
Canada went on to defeat the Soviets 4-3 in Game 7 with Esposito. Dryden was back in net for Game 8 when Paul Henderson scored in the final minute to clinch a memorable 6-5 victory — and set off wild celebrations an ocean away.
“I feel the history of that tournament, the legacy of that team just as strongly as all Canadian fans do,” Dryden told The Canadian Press in a 2022 interview. “It never goes away. It’s kind of like a good wine, I guess.
“Actually, the legacy of it grows.”
Dryden hoisted the Cup with the Canadiens in 1973 and four straight times between 1976 and 1979 as part of Montreal juggernauts that included fellow greats Guy Lafleur, Serge Savard and Larry Robinson.
The five-time Vezina Trophy winner as the NHL’s top goaltender described a single week at the end of the 1978-79 season in his book “The Game” published in 1983.
“When a game gets close to me, or threatens to get close, my conscious mind goes blank,” Dryden wrote. “I feel nothing, I hear nothing, my eyes watch the puck, my body moves — like a goalie moves, like I move; I don’t tell it to move or how to move or where, I don’t know it’s moving, I don’t feel it move — yet it moves.
“And when my eyes watch the puck, I see things I don’t know I’m seeing.”
Known for resting his blocker and glove hands on top of his stick in a relaxed manner that became one of hockey’s most recognizable poses, the six-foot-four goaltender retired at just 31 in 1979.
Dryden went on to pursue a career in law — he articled at a Toronto firm while sitting out the 1973-74 NHL season — after previously earning a degree at Montreal’s McGill University.
Inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983, he amassed a record of 258-57-74 with a .922 save percentage, 2.24 goals-against average and 46 shutouts in just over seven NHL campaigns, and went an eye-popping 80-32 in the playoffs.
Dryden’s first foray into writing after he hung up his skates and placed his stick down for a final time was “The Game.”
He would go on to pen a number of other books, including a biography of his Canadiens coach, Scotty Bowman.
Dryden served as president of the Toronto Maple Leafs from 1997 through 2004 — a stretch accented by trips to the Eastern Conference final in both 1999 and 2002 — before resigning to enter politics.
He ran for the federal Liberals in 2004 and was named minister of social development in Prime Minister Paul Martin’s cabinet.
Dryden, who also taught at various universities across Canada, held onto his seat in Toronto’s York Centre riding in 2006 when the Liberals were ousted, and again in 2008, but lost in 2011.
He would continue to write, with “The Series” his final work — a book that aimed to bring Canadians inside the players’ world in 1972 as they faced the Soviets.
“The only way to do it would be as if to put them there, to literally put them there in that moment,” Dryden said some 50 years later. “And the moment, of course, isn’t just the moment, it’s the lead-in moments up to that.
“And so what would have been inside us as players? What would have been inside us as 22 million Canadians at that particular moment that made us react the way we did? And to generate the kind of vehement and vivid memories that have come from it.”
“Ken Dryden was an exceptional athlete, but he was also an exceptional man. Behind the mask he was larger than life. We mourn today not only the loss of the cornerstone of one of hockey’s greatest dynasties, but also a family man, a thoughtful citizen, and a gentleman who deeply impacted our lives and communities across generations. He was one of the true legends that helped shape this Club into what it is today”, said Geoff Molson, owner and president of the Montreal Canadiens.
“Ken embodied the best of everything the Montreal Canadiens are about, and his legacy within our society transcends our sport. On behalf of the Molson family and our entire organization, I would like to extend my most heartfelt condolences to his family, his friends, and all who had the privilege to cross his path and know him on a personal level.”
Dryden is survived by his wife Lynda and their two children.
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