Ken Dryden
One of the great images of recent Canadian sports history could best be described as “an athlete in repose” with goalie Ken Dryden, a giant compared to the size of some his contemporaries, casually leaning on his stick, arms crossed, almost pensive, watching the game unfold.
And it’s true that he was a more cerebral athlete than some — lawyer, businessman, eventually a best-selling author — and one of the best to ever play the position.
Consider: With only six regular season games of experience, he won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the NHL’s best playoff performer in 1971, a year before he won the Calder Trophy as the league’s rookie of year.
He later spent seven years as an MP, serving from 2004 to 2011; his book, The Game, was a critical success and a commercial best-seller, short-listed for the 1983 Governor General’s Award.