Despite not being a “pro” trophy, capturing the Memorial Cup is among the most difficult accomplishments in ice hockey. After a long and arduous season + postseason in the Canadian Hockey League, an additional tournament being held where only three qualifying champions plus a host get a shot at it entails a hefty task. Consider further that, at present, the field is gigantic given the presence of 60 teams in the CHL in a realm of sports where there are ebbs and flows in club fortunes just like in the pros and not all teams are constructed to the same degree of quality – The odds only become smaller. With that in mind, many of the sport’s greats who came from the Canadian major junior system never got their hands on it. However, what about some of the players that did? What were their developmental years like, and what did they do afterwards? Here, we will examine some of those stories.

Derek Sanderson

The first study dates prior to the CHL’s inception in 1975. At this time, the Memorial Cup was open to teams in what was known as the Junior “A” bracket in Canada. Sanderson was a member of what was then effectively a Boston Bruins farm team/affiliate in the Ontario Hockey Association, the Niagara Falls Flyers. Per his autobiography Crossing the Line: The Outrageous Story of a Hockey Original (written with Kevin Shea and published by Triumph Books), Sanderson’s negotiation rights were acquired by Bruins scout Harold “Baldy” Cotton by giving his father Harold Sanderson a check for $100 when Derek was 14-years-old. Sanderson recalls: “You had to be 18 years old to sign a C form, which formally assigned your pro rights to an NHL team, but clubs also had negotiation lists that included players much younger. They called them ‘negotiation lists,’ but it’s not like you had a chance to negotiate […] You remained the team’s property for two years. If they wanted to get rid of you or if you didn’t want to sign with them, you had to stay out of hockey for two years to get your amateur status back. It was like being suspended” (49). His status in the pipeline was volatile initially but that changed when Weston Adams, Sr. (Bruins club president, who was intensively involved in scouting and did it himself along with Cotton) voiced his approval of his competitive spirit. He was then invited to Niagara Falls Flyers training camp at 16.

While still a menace who racked up triple digit PIMs on several occasions, the main marker of Sanderson’s game in his junior career was his offensive prowess. In the 1964-65 campaign, he played a key role in Niagara Falls having the best record in the OHA, tallying 65 points, good for second best behind only Jean Pronovost’s 70. He was one of four players on the team with over 100 PIMs as an essential part of a tough, impossible to intimidate squad while they were anchored in net by Bernie Parent (who later played for the Bruins, but more famously won two Stanley Cups and earned many individual accolades with the Philadelphia Flyers en route to a spot in the Hockey Hall of Fame), with the lattermost earning his second straight Dave Pinkney Award for the OHA’s best goals against average.

In the postseason, Niagara Falls eliminated Bobby Orr and the Oshawa Generals in the first round, then defeated defending Memorial Cup champs the Toronto Marlies to earn the J. Ross Robertson Cup. Their series against the Garson-Falconbridge Native Sons, champions of the Northern Ontario Hockey Association, was a cakewalk, ending in a four game sweep with the Flyers outscoring Garson-Falconbridge 43-5. They subsequently defeated the Lachine Maroons of the Montreal Metro Junior League to earn the George Richardson Memorial Trophy as champions of Eastern Canada. Their opponents from the West in the Memorial Cup final would be the Edmonton Oil Kings, who earned their sixth consecutive appearance (per Sanderson, this had never been accomplished before), though they won just once in that span – In 1963, against Niagara Falls, in what Sanderson recalls as a physical series that left some hard feelings.

Sanderson further describes: “The West was not as dominant as the Ontario Hockey Association. Nobody was. But the West got to pick up a couple of players to supplement their team when they went to the Memorial Cup final. They chose Fran Huck from the Regina Pats and Jim Cardiff from the Weyburn Red Wings. Their goalie, Gary Simmons, got hurt, so they picked up Wayne Stephenson from [the] Winnipeg [Braves] (another future Philadelphia Flyer)” (63-64). Niagara Falls would take Games 1-2 by scores of 3-2 and 5-1, before the series had a three-day layover due to “some kind of evangelical meeting” occupying the Edmonton Gardens. Game 3 would be marked by intense violence and a brawl that got the Edmonton police involved and Niagara Falls would lose, 5-1. However, the next two games would proceed without incident, and Niagara Falls would win both by scores of 8-2 and 8-1 to captured the championship. Due to a two-game suspension for his part in the Game 3 fracas, Sanderson missed the conclusion to the series, but still finished the tournament with 7 goals, 6 assists, 70 PIMs, and a Memorial Cup ring (and, by his word, a cowboy hat). Overall, Sanderson’s Junior “A” career saw him tally 269 points in 192 regular season games, to go along with 49 points in 35 posteason games.

For the sake of simplicity, we’ll cut right into Sanderson’s first full professional season and ignore any prior cups of coffee and his return to juniors. While, as implied, Sanderson was renowned primarily for his defensive prowess, his offense was notable in his rookie NHL campaign in 1967-68. He tallied 24 goals (just two less than the then-Bruins rookie held by Roy Conacher, who tallied 26 as the team won their second-ever Stanley Cup in 1938-39) and 49 points. Per Sanderson: “As [Phil] Esposito predicted, I won [the Calder Memorial Trophy] by a large margin. I received 92 points to 41 for runner-up Jacques Lemaire of the [Montreal] Canadiens and 36 for third-place Doug Favell of the [Philadelphia] Flyers (a former teammate of Sanderson’s at Niagara Falls). When I arrived at training camp, I was just hoping to make the team. [General manager] Milt Schmidt had told me at the time that it would be good to see me score 12 to 15 goals. It was a real honour to follow my teammate Bobby Orr as winner of the Calder. But, almost as important as the award was the $1,500 bonus the league gave me, which the Bruins matched. I was only making $10,000, so the extra $3,000 was important. I wasn’t as thrilled when the league office called me and told me to be in Montreal on May 10 to receive the award. It meant I had to cut short a vacation in Daytona Beach” (97).

Further highlights in Sanderson’s NHL career include two Stanley Cup victories in 1970 and 1972 with the Bruins. The former is noteworthy for having featured Bobby Orr’s legendary flying goal in overtime against the St. Louis Blues in Game 4 to take the game 4-3 and the series 4-0. Sanderson ended up with the primary assist on this play on a backdoor pass. In The Goal (written by Andrew Podnieks and published by Triumph Books in 2003), Sanderson recalls his part in the play: “I shot the puck wife and went around to the back of the net because if Bobby had fired the puck around I was going to try a wraparound. But when Bobby gave it to me it wasn’t rocket science to realize he was going to the net. The key was getting it back to him because there was no one at the point. I had to make sure to get the puck over the one St. Louis stick and onto Bobby’s. I was behind the net; it was a three-foot pass, and I’d have killed him if I missed it! It was perfect. When I passed it to him, I saw it get by [Glenn] Hall. The puck hit the net and then just spun around. The first thing I did was look at the referee to make sure it was all right. I thought there was no point in getting excited until it was official. I saw him point, and it was all right, and I got to Bobby first” (11). According to Sanderson, he and Orr had done that quick give-and-go play many times in practice. This was the most noteworthy of the 30 points in 56 NHL postseason games that he tallied in his career. He additionally had 452 points in 598 regular season games with the Bruins, Rangers, Blues, Canucks, and Penguins. Sanderson’s career was destabilized by personal and health problems and his troubles with substance abuse (most notably alcohol). He has, per his statements in Crossing the Line, been clean from all drugs (including prescription drugs) since 1985 and not touched a cigarette since 2002 (315). I highly recommend reading his autobiography, for it is one of the most riveting tales of the highest of highs and some very low lows I’ve ever read in a work of sports non-fiction.

Dale Hawerchuk

Here, we have an instance of a two-time Memorial Cup champion. Hawerchuk’s career is curious. Though Toronto-born, he was a QMJHL product owing to his team, the Cornwall Royals, being located in Eastern Ontario at an intersection of Quebec, Ontario, and New York. Indeed, Cornwall’s transfer to the OHL would be a partial cause (along with poor on-ice results contrasted with their traditional winning ways) of their attendance suffering, due to hard feelings from loyal Quebec-based fans over the changes this entailed. This eventually led to the team’s relocation to Newmarket and later Sarnia, where they became known as the Sting. However, that is a story for another time. Yet, also, remember that source linked above, because it will come back into play later on.

Hawerchuk did take a stab at the OHL. However, his tryout at age with the Oshawa Generals did not yield a spot on the team. This is despite the fact that Hawerchuk was a clear talent throughout his whole life, on skates at the age of 2 before he could walk and having participated in the famed Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament, wherein he broke Guy Lafleur’s single game goal-scoring record by tallying all 8 of his team’s goals in an 8-1 victory in the finals (mind you, Lafleur’s accomplishment at this tournament in the three years he participated in it border upon fictitious in their appearance). The Generals would attempt to “hide” Hawerchuk in their Junior “B” team despite him missing out. This plan did not work out. Cornwall would instead take him sixth overall in the 1979 QMJHL draft and he would make an immediate splash, tallying 103 points and earning rookie of the year honors, as well as QMJHL Playoff MVP as he guided Cornwall to the President’s Cup. The Memorial Cup that year is still considered controversial, as it is alleged by some that the OHL’s Peterborough Petes deliberately threw their final round robin game against Cornwall to face them again in the finals, believing the Petes perceived them to be a weaker opponent. This link provides an interesting firsthand account from involved parties. Ultimately, whatever occurred eventually yielded a 3-2 overtime defeat for the Petes at Cornwall’s hand, with defenseman Robert Savard (to date, one of only four players in history with three Memorial Cup wins – alongside Tyson Nash, Darcy Rucker, and Ryan Huska of the Kamloops Blazers dynasty of the 1990’s – and the only one to win it three times in a row) tallying the OT winner. Hawerchuk was selected to the Memorial Cup’s First All-Star team. He tallied 45 points in 18 games that QMJHL postseason, along with 6 points in 5 Memorial Cup games.

The next season, Hawerchuk posted an otherworldly 183 points in 72 games, earning the following honors: QMJHL Scoring Champion, QMJHL First Team All-Star, QMJHL Player of the Year, and CHL Player of the Year. As the Memorial Cup champions, the Royals represented Canada (under the system at the time that sent clubs) at the 1981 World Junior Championships. They underwhelmed as a team, but Hawerchuk’s nine points were tied with West Germany’s Dieter Hegen for tournament-best. Cornwall would subsequently win both the QMJHL and Memorial Cup again, defeating next year’s champion, the Kitchener Rangers of the OHL, in the final by a score of 8-2. Hawerchuk was yet again selected to the Memorial Cup’s First All-Star team and named tournament MVP. His postseason stats that year included 35 points in the QMJHL playoffs and a whopping 12 in 5 Memorial Cup games.

The Winnipeg Jets, the NHL’s worst team the season prior, selected Hawerchuk first overall in the 1981 NHL Entry Draft. Hawerchuk tallied 103 points in his rookie campaign and led the Jets to a 48-point improvement. Naturally, he was that year’s Calder Memorial Trophy winner as rookie of the year. Hawerchuk had a very impressive individual NHL career, being selected to five All-Star games, earning a second All-Star Team nod (at C) once in 1985, and tallying 1,409 points in 1,188 regular season games with the Jets, Buffalo Sabres, Blues, and Flyers. He further had over a point-per-game in the postseason, tallying 99 points in 97 games. Additionally, he played a major role in the Team Canada’s successful 1987 and 1991 Canada Cup campaigns, which were then the world’s true best-on-best tournaments. However, he advanced past the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs only once in his career, when the Flyers made it to the Stanley Cup Final in 1997 (they were swept by the Detroit Red Wings in four games as their dynasty got underway). This would be Hawerchuk’s final season, as he retired due to a degenerative hip condition. He would be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2001. After his playing days ended, Hawerchuk was an administrator for the OJHL’s Orangeville Crushers, then became head coach of the OHL’s Barrie Colts. Serving in this latter post from 2010-2019, he led the Colts to five 40(+) win seasons and four Central Division titles, but never advanced to the OHL Championship round. Hawerchuk took a leave of absence from the Colts after the 2018-19 season, citing health reasons. This was related to his battle with stomach cancer, to which he would succumb on August 18th, 2020. Dale is still very much missed by the hockey community worldwide.

Doug Gilmour

A fellow member of the Cornwall Royals’ 1981 squad, Doug “Killer” Gilmour is included here due to the uniqueness of some of his accomplishments. He is in a very rare class – He has both a Memorial Cup winning goal and a Stanley Cup winning goal to his name.

The beginning of Gilmour’s CHL career and the path to it was arduous. He recalls: “After my first season in Belleville [in Junior A with the Bulls], I was drafted in the third round of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League draft by the Cornwall Royals, by a man named Gord Woods. Gord was the guy who made me switch from being a defenceman to a forward. I had played on the blue line my whole life until I got to Cornwall. I was about five foot nine back then, and when I jumped on the scale I came in at around 145 pounds. Gord said, ‘We’ve got to move this guy up’.” His rookie season was derailed, as he broke his collar bone, limiting him to 51 games in which he tallied 35 points and got his role figured out. He was plenty available and dialed in during the playoffs, however, tallying 21 points in 19 games. He had a further 7 points in 5 games at the Memorial Cup, including the game winner against Kitchener in the finals midway through the second period.

As Hawerchuk departed for the NHL, Gilmour was left to be the arguable focal point of the Royals as they transitioned from the QMJHL to the OHL and he went unselected in the 1981 NHL Entry Draft despite being eligible. The well effectively dried up for Cornwall the next two seasons as they would reach the OHL playoffs both years, but not go far either time. However, Gilmour would thrive, posting 296 points in 135 games. After the first of those two campaigns, the Blues would take him 134th overall in the 1982 NHL Entry Draft. Gilmour became less sour in his perspective on this matter, but in those days, it was hard for him to see the bright side: “I had led the Royals in scoring, but a couple of my teammates were selected well ahead of me. Our best defenceman, Jim Kyte, went 12th overall to the Winnipeg Jets. One of my good friends, Brent Loney, went 62nd to Edmonton. I was happy for both of them; they both deserved it. They were both incredibly tough. Loney was probably six-foot-two, 195 pounds. Tough as nails. And boy, could he fight. They both could. But it was frustrating for me because they were a lot bigger than I was, and in those days that was the kind of player NHL teams would pick. […] Today, I get that I was lucky; most guys never get to experience the honour of being drafted by an NHL team. But back then, I took my seventh-round selection as an insult. I didn’t understand why my teammates had been drafted higher than me. It wasn’t right, and I held a grudge. I felt that my own team hadn’t done enough to promote me to NHL scouts. Back then, everything was driven by word of mouth. Coaches would tell scouts what they thought of their players. That and maybe a couple of games they attended were the only ways scouts could get a sense of your ability. I had a huge chip on my shoulder when I went to the Royals’ training camp that September. I just wasn’t happy. The draft had bruised my ego and I didn’t take it well. As part of camp every season, we’d have an intra-squad game that was attended by about 2,000 fans who were given free admission as a promotion to generate interest in the team. During the game, I got into a fight with one of the rookies trying to make the team. I grabbed him by the face mask and ripped his helmet off his head. Then I started hitting him with it. Our own fans booed me as the ref escorted me off the ice. It was ugly. My brother, David, was at the game and he pulled me aside with some stern advice afterwards. ‘Settle down,’ he said. ‘Just listen — and get better.’ […] Things worked out pretty well. I recorded at least one point in 57 consecutive games, breaking the OHL record of 52, set by Jim Fox of Ottawa in 1979–80. I finished with 70 goals and 107 assists for 177 points. The second-highest scorer in the league had 148 points. I won the Eddie Powers Trophy as the OHL’s leading scorer and was awarded the Red Tilson Trophy as the league’s most outstanding player [in addition to being an OHL First Team All-Star].” Gilmour’s mission the season after his seventh round draft selection was to prove the doubters wrong and to earn a spot on the Blues next year. He accomplished both. He made the roster in 1983-84 and was a consistent 50+ point scorer his first few seasons, then exploded for 105 points in 80 games in 1986-87.

Gilmour’s time with the Blues was not without troubles (allegedly of his own doing), which rose to the surface at the end. After being accused of sexual assault by the parents of a 13-year-old girl and being the subject of a civil lawsuit pertaining to that accusation, Gilmour was included in a major trade between St. Louis and the Calgary Flames. The Blues organization (who were also named in the suit along with team president Jack Quinn and Gilmour’s wife Robyne, per the August 31st, 1988 edition of The Toronto Star) denied that this case had any pertinence to the trade, though Gilmour claimed otherwise. A grand jury opted not to indict Gilmour on charges related to the allegations and he and his wife Robyne would counter-sue the family for $4M, alleging slander and libel (warning: paywall). This would be dropped shortly thereafter (warning: registration required).

Gilmour would be tied for second in points on the Flames in 1988-89 with Håkan Loob, with 85 (both behind Joe Mullen’s 110). He made his presence known in the postseason, particularly second round against the Los Angeles Kings, delivering several key clutch goals/points and stymieing Wayne Gretzky. All told, Gilmour had 22 points in 22 games in the Stanley Cup playoffs, including two goals in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Montreal Canadiens, including the series-winner. The next season, Gilmour and teammate Paul Ranheim scored two shorthanded goals in four seconds, which at the time accounted for the two fastest goals by a single team in NHL history (it is now eighth, but remains the fastest two shorthanded goals) in the dying seconds of a game against the Quebec Nordiques, leading to an 8-8 tie. He has certainly made a mark on goal scoring history.

Despite tallying 1,414 points in 1,474 regular season games (with the Blues, Flames, Toronto Maple Leafs, New Jersey Devils, Chicago Blackhawks, Buffalo Sabres, and Canadiens) and 188 points in 182 postseason matches, Gilmour’s NHL career was not the most individually decorated. His only individual honors were two All-Star Game selections (1993, 1994) and one Frank J. Selke Trophy (1993). However, he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2011, and had his #93 retired by the Maple Leafs in 2016.

Eric Lindros

Like Hawerchuk, Lindros was a clear prodigy from an early age, and participated in the Quebec Pee-Wee tournament as a youngster. His 67 points in 37 games in what would now be known as the OJHL with the St. Michael’s Buzzers led him to be selected first overall in the OHL draft in 1989 by the Soo Greyhounds. With his father Carl not wanting him to report to the team, he was traded to the Oshawa Generals for three players, draft capital, and $80,000 CAD. As a rookie with Oshawa, Lindros would play just 25 regular season games, tallying 36 points, but would devour the competition in the playoffs, registering yet another 36 point total in 17 games as the Oshawa Generals defeated the Kitchener Rangers in 7 in the final round of the OHL postseason to capture the J. Ross Robertson Cup. The Gens would get the better of the Rangers yet again in the Memorial Cup final, defeating them 4-3 in 2OT. This was the Gens’ first Memorial Cup victory since 1944. Lindros tallied 9 assists in 4 games in the tournament.

The following year, Lindros would tally 149 points in 57 games, winning the Eddie Powers Memorial Trophy and Red Tilson Trophy, CHL Player of the Year, and the CHL Top Draft Prospect Award. The Generals would return to the OHL Championship but lose to the team that initially held his CHL rights, the Soo Greyhounds, in six games. Nevertheless, Lindros was selected first overall by the Quebec Nordiques in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft.

However, this is where the trouble started, as Lindros had made it clear he would not play for the Nordiques if they selected him, expressing discontent with owner Marcel Aubut. Lindros awaited a trade and effectively held out. He would return to the Gens for the 1991-92 season (registering 31 points in 13 games, bringing his career point total with the Gens to 216, a mark that along with his accomplishments would one day get his number retired by Oshawa) and also played with the Canadian national team, gathering a silver medal in the 1992 Winter Olympics as Canada fell 3-1 to the Unified Team in the gold medal game. He was selected to the Olympics’ All-Star team upon gathering 11 points in 8 games. Lindros’ NHL situation became a quagmire. Per Declan Schroeder of The Hockey Writers: “Lindros was eligible to re-enter the draft in 1993. The Nordiques, not wanting to lose such an impactful player for nothing and waste their first-overall pick, traded the power forward during the 1992 NHL Entry Draft to the Philadelphia Flyers for Peter Forsberg, Mike Ricci, Ron Hextall, Steve Duchesne, Kerry Huffman, future considerations —which eventually became Chris Simon — two first-round draft picks, and $15 million […] Not surprisingly, the Flyers weren’t the only suitor trying to dance with belle-of-the-ball Lindros, the Rangers attempted to cut in too. Marcel Aubut, the Nordiques’ president, courted both squads. Less than 90 minutes removed from agreeing to the above-mentioned trade with Flyers general manager Russ Farwell, Aubut got cold feet and negotiated a deal with the Rangers that would reportedly bring back Sergei Nemchinov, Tony Amonte, Alexei Kovalev, James Patrick, either John Vanbiesbrouck or Mike Richter, multiple first-round draft picks and $20 million, a gargantuan deal in its own right. […] The Flyers filed a grievance with the NHL, which led to a lengthy, high-profile arbitration process. On June 30, after a five-day hearing in which arbitrator Larry Bertuzzi reviewed more than 400 pages of notes and called 11 witnesses — including Lindros himself — he issued an eight-page decision that sided with the Flyers.”

It took a king’s ransom, but the Flyers had a key piece to getting them out of their nadir. While the team did not qualify for the playoffs for his first two seasons, Lindros was exceptional and revitalized the sport in Philadelphia. He tallied 172 points in 126 games combined over his first two seasons as a clear premier power forward in the NHL. For his efforts in his first season, Lindros was selected to the 1993 NHL All-Rookie Team. Early in the lockout shortened 1994-95 season, the Flyers would acquire LW John LeClair from the Montreal Canadiens. Lindros, LeClair, and RW Mikael Renberg would form the fearsome Legion of Doom line and herald in a new era of… nope, I’m not gonna say it. Nevertheless, they injected life back into the winged P crest. Lindros gathered up both the Hart Memorial Trophy and the Lester B. Pearson Award (now known as the Ted Lindsay Award) as both the press’ and his peers’ choice for MVP, in addition to an NHL First All-Star team nod, as he registered 70 points in 46 games that year. The Flyers would win the Atlantic Division and earn the second seed in the Eastern Conference for their first playoff appearance since 1989. However, they would fall to their rival New Jersey Devils in six games in the Eastern Conference Finals, as the neutral zone trap based squad would go on to win their first Stanley Cup by sweeping the favored Detroit Red Wings in four games.

Lindros would have another terrific season in 1995-96, gathering 115 points in 73 games played. He played at a PPG clip in the postseason, but the Flyers would lose in the second round to the eventual Eastern Conference champions the Florida Panthers in round two. The next year, Lindros (who was already facing injury trouble) played the fewest games he had to that point in his career in a full 82-game season, appearing in just 52 games. However, he was still instrumental in the team’s success, gathering 79 points and helping them to the third seed in the East. The Flyers would defeat the Penguins, Sabres, and Rangers in five games each before being swept in the Stanley Cup Final by Detroit, who out-skated their group of skilled but rugged players. Lindros ended up with 26 points in 19 playoff games, but tallied just 1 goal and 2 assists in the finals, as his team managed only 6 goals against the Wings.

Over time, Lindros’ relationship with GM Bobby Clarke (captain of both of the Flyers’ Cup wins in his playing days) deteriorated. The Sabres eliminated the Flyers in round one in 1998 and Clarke had had it with him during contract negotiations, stating “If you want to be the highest-paid player in the game or close to it, you’ve got to play that way,” and threatening to trade Lindros. Numerous issues followed pertaining to Lindros’ health, including a series of concussions and a collapsed lung that nearly ended his life. Lindros and his father believed these matters had been mishandled by the club. The final chapter of his story in Philadelphia had him coming back from a concussion for the end of 2000 Eastern Conference Finals against the New Jersey Devils, wherein the Flyers lost in seven games, with Lindros tallying the team’s sole goal in Game 6, a 2-1 loss, then being concussed by NJ Devils defenseman and captain Scott Stevens in Game 7, another 2-1 loss. The Flyers ultimately fell despite being up 3-1 in the series and having home ice advantage as the #1 seed. Lindros rejected a one-year, $8.5m contract offer and sat out the 2000-01 season, effectively holding out for a trade yet again. He wished to be dealt to Toronto, but after a year-long stalemate, he was dealt to the New York Rangers for a Kim Johnsson, Jan Hlavac, Pavel Brendl, and a 2003 third round selection.

Lindros would play only 274 more games (split between NYR, Toronto, and the Dallas Stars) in his NHL career before retiring on November 8th, 2007. His only further individual accolade after being traded from Philadelphia was an All-Star Game selection in 2002. One has to wonder how long and devastating his career would have been without the misfortunes with health that came along the way. Nevertheless, Clarke, having moved past what occurred between them (with the two most visibly having reconciled when they participated in an alumni game at the 2012 NHL Winter Classic, but Clarke was vocal about this before then), called for him to be elected into the Hockey Hall of Fame. He indeed would be in 2016. Lindros finished his NHL career with 865 points in 760 games, along with 57 points in 53 playoff games. Internationally, he won a gold medal in the Olympics with Canada in 2002. However, his career is still remembered as a tale of one of the best players to never win a Stanley Cup, and of what might have been.

Corey Perry

While the subject of jokes nowadays for having more recently lost in the Stanley Cup Final in three consecutive seasons with three different clubs, Corey Perry has a CV that involves him having won all kinds of different hardware. We will begin by examining his minor hockey career, specifically his U16 AAA season with the Peterborough Petes U16 AAA team in 2000-01. Per Elite Prospects, he tallied 115 points in 64 games that season, with a further 3 goals in 3 games in the postseason. That year, the U16 AAA Petes captured their first ever OHL Cup. He was taken fifth overall in the 2001 OHL Priority Draft by the London Knights. In his rookie season, he registered a respectable 59 points in 60 games. He took a step up in his sophomore CHL campaign (which was also his DY), tallying 78 points in 67 games along with 147 PIMs. His clear talents as a power forward on the right wing got him noticed by NHL scouts and the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim took him 28th overall in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft. He would return to the Knights for his D+1 year, registering 113 points in 66 games, marking the first time a Knight had hit the century mark since Jason Allison in 1993-94. The next year, he would crack 130 points, while teammate Dylan Hunter (son of Knights head coach/president/co-owner Dale Hunter and nephew of general manager/co-owner Mark) would tally 104. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg for how good the 2004-05 London Knights squad was. The team would go undefeated in 31 consecutive games, setting a CHL record, while their point total of 120 (via a record of 59-7-2-0 W-L-T-OTL) broke their OHL record of 110 from the prior season. The Knights subsequently swept the first two rounds against the Guelph Storm and Windsor Spitfires, before defeating their rivals the Kitchener Rangers and the Ottawa 67’s in the Western Conference Finals and OHL Championship in five games each to capture the Wayne Gretzky Trophy and J. Ross Robertson Cup in decisive fashion. The Knights would subsequently win the Memorial Cup, capping off their campaign by earning a 4-0 shutout over a Rimouski Oceanic team headlined by that year’s first overall NHL Entry Draft selection, Sidney Crosby. In 18 OHL postseason games, Perry tallied an absurd 38 points. He further registered 7 points in 4 games in the Memorial Cup and gathered the Stafford Smythe Memorial Trophy as tournament MVP. He was clearly the talisman of the greatest CHL team ever played (the 2004-05 Knights were selected the “Team of the Century” as part of celebrations of the 100th Memorial Cup in 2018). This team stands head and shoulders above the rest due to not only their dominance, but having accomplished what they did in a field that was more competitive than usual due to the 2004-05 NHL lockout, meaning the CHL was more stacked than in a typical season. All told, for his part individually, Perry totaled 380 points in 253 regular season games in his major junior career. His accolades included a 2002 OHL All-Rookie selection; an appearance in the 2003 CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game; 2004 and 2005 OHL First All-Star team selections; a 2004 CHL Second All-Star Team nod; a 2005 First All-Star Team nod; the 2005 Jim Mahon Memorial Trophy (for the ring wing who scores the most points in the OHL regular season); the 2005 Eddie Powers Memorial Trophy; the 2005 Red Tilson Trophy; the 2005 Wayne Gretzky 99 Award; and a spot on the 2005 Memorial Cup All-Star team.

Perry’s first taste of North American pro hockey came in a three-game cup of coffee in the AHL with the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks during their 2004 Calder Cup playoff run. However, his first true experience in the pros came in his rookie NHL season in 2005-06. He tallied 25 points in 56 games in his first year in the NHL. He also saw more meaningful time in the AHL that year with the new Anaheim affiliate, the Portland Pirates, with whom he tallied 34 points in 19 games. This would be good enough for him to get a callup during the 2006 Mighty Ducks postseason run, where he registered 3 assists in 11 games as Anaheim fell to the Oilers in the Western Conference Finals. He would further entrench himself by appearing in the full 82-game season in 2006-07 and registering 44 points as the Anaheim Ducks (who had been rebranded after their sale by Disney to businessman Henry Samueli and his wife Susan) had their best season ever, winning the Stanley Cup in five games against the Ottawa Senators. In the postseason, Perry registered 15 points in 21 games, as he made himself an essential part of the roster.

Over the next decade, Perry would become an offensive mainstay, often good for 30 goals a year, while also frequently racking up over 100 PIMs as an intimidating presence in the Ducks’ forward group. His best season came in 2010-11, when he tallied 50 goals and 48 assists, which netted him an All-Star Game nod, the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy for the league’s leading goal scorer, and the Hart Memorial Trophy. He also had an impressive 2013-14 campaign, tallying 43 goals and 39 assists. He appeared at the Olympics with Canada that year, earning his second Olympic gold medal. To my earlier point, Perry has an absurd amount of success to his name. He additionally has a World Championships gold from 2010 (completing the set for the Triple Gold Club – Olympic Gold, World Championships Gold, and the Stanley Cup), to go along with a World Junior Championships gold medal from that magical year of 2005. Perry also won the World Cup of Hockey with Canada in 2016. Perry was ultimately bought out by the Ducks after the 2018-19 season with two years left on his deal. He ended his tenure with them with 372 goals and 404 assists in 988 games to his name. He signed a one-year deal with the Dallas Stars that season and was a reliable piece for them as they made it to the Stanley Cup Finals (ultimately falling in six games to the Tampa Bay Lightning), but they opted not to re-sign him. The next year, he fulfilled a similar role with the Montreal Canadiens and was reflective upon making it to yet another final. His message to the younger players on the Habs was: “Don’t take it for granted. I was sitting in the dressing room the other night, sitting beside Eric Staal, and he was just telling me that he hasn’t been back to the Final since ’06 when he won. We both looked at each other. I said the first time I was back was last year, and that was since ’07, so I know the feeling. You come into this League at a young age, and you have success early. I went to the Conference Final my first year, and then we ended up winning my second year. You think it’s going to happen over and over and over again. You just keep the same team together and just ride the wave, but that’s not the case. With the cap and everything going on, teams change quickly, and you never know when that chance is going to happen. As a group, we’ve talked about that. Just live the moment and enjoy it, take on this wild ride and have fun with it because you never know when that next chance is really going to happen ever again.” Perry ultimately lost in the finals to Tampa Bay yet again (due to the temporary realignment of the league brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic) in five games. Once more, he was not offered a contract by his team, so he left for Tampa Bay. In his first season on a stacked Lightning squad, he tallied 40 points in 82 games played. He registered a further 11 points in 23 playoff games and became the first ever player to score a goal in the Stanley Cup Finals with four different clubs (as he replicated Marian Hossa’s feat of playing in the finals in three consecutive seasons with three different teams), but the Lightning were defeated in six games by the Colorado Avalanche, giving Perry a unique, ignominious marker in NHL history. Perry would have a quieter 2022-23 campaign and Tampa Bay would trade his negotiating rights to the Chicago Blackhawks on June 29th, 2023, just two days prior to the beginning of a new league season. Perry would be waived for contract termination purposes in late November due to a breach of Chicago’s internal policies promoting “professional and safe work environments”, as well as his own contract. It was reported that this incident may have involved a Blackhawks employee. Perry would apologize and announce his seeking of treatment for substance abuse problems. He has since signed with the Edmonton Oilers and is on their roster for the postseason, but has seen his ice-time decrease and was a healthy scratch for Game 6 against the Canucks in their second round matchup.

Sean Day

“Huh?”

Okay, hold on. I’m going somewhere with this:

Sean Day, to date, is the only exceptional status player in CHL history to win the Memorial Cup.

“What?! Really?”

Yes. Now, let us discuss his path to that distinction, and what happened afterwards.

Born in Belgium, holding dual Canadian-American citizenship, and having first skated on a rink inside a shopping mall in Singapore due to his family’s frequent travels, Day certainly has a very worldly background. Having been raised in Rochester, MI, the young blueliner first cracked AAA at the 13U level with Little Caesars. He then moved on to Honeybaked, tallying 19 points in 15 games in 2011-12 HPHL season. His breakout season, however, was with Compuware U16 AAA, where he served as the captain. He served as the captain and tallied 35 points in 63 games and a +47. Hockey Canada accepted his status for exceptional player status upon the conclusion of that season, allowing him to enter the OHL Priority Selection a year early, making him the fourth player to receive this exemption (after John Tavares in 2005, Aaron Ekblad in 2011, and Connor McDavid in 2012). The Mississauga Steelheads took him fourth overall, making him the first exceptional status recipient to be drafted lower than first. Day would tally 74 points over the course of 178 games over the next three seasons. The New York Rangers would take him 81st overall in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft. Early into the 2016-17 season, the Steelheads would trade him to the Windsor Spitfires for draft selections. He would tally 32 points in 58 games in the regular season for Windsor that year. They did not have an impressive OHL playoff run, losing to the London Knights in round one in seven games. However, as fortune would have it, the Spitfires were the Memorial Cup hosts. After going undefeated in the round robin, Windsor would defeat OHL champions the Erie Otters 4-3 in the final.

The following season, Day would be traded yet again, this time to the Kingston Frontenacs. Between the two teams, he would post a combined 47 points in 50 games in the 2017-18 regular season. In the playoffs, Day would tally 14 points in 16 games as the Frontenacs advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they ultimately were defeated by the Hamilton Bulldogs in five games. With that, Day’s CHL career came to a close. All told, the defenseman tallied 158 points in 291 career regular season games, to go along with a +/- of -74. In 2018-19, he began his professional career with the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack. He would effectively split the next two seasons between them and the ECHL’s Maine Mariners. In 2020-21 and 2021-22, he remained pat in the AHL, but was now a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning organization as he had been waived for contract termination purposes in late May of 2020 by the New York Rangers and went unclaimed. His time with the Syracuse Crunch was enough to earn him a two-game cup of coffee with the Lightning in the 2021-22 season. To date, these remain his only appearances in the NHL. He tallied no points and a -2 in that stint. To date, Day has a -16 and 110 points to his name in 277 AHL regular season games. He further has a +16 and 35 points in 55 regular season appearances in the ECHL. He has played in just 8 professional playoff games, all played in the Calder Cup playoffs with Syracuse over the last two seasons, with 1g-1a and an even +/- to his name.