In Memoriam, 2021

Prominent Chicago sports figures who passed away in 2021 include Tony Esposito, the Blackhawks’ Hall of Fame goalie from 1969 through 1984; Jerry Harkness, captain of the Loyola Ramblers’ 1963 NCAA champion basketball team; LaMarr Hoyt, who won the American League Cy Young Award for the 1983 White Sox; and Roland Hemond, the beloved baseball executive who (along with Bill Veeck Jr.) saved the Sox for Chicago when it seemed inevitable that they would be gone.

     

TONY ESPOSITO

The people listed below each played a part in making Chicago the greatest sports town in the world. They will be missed.  

STAN ALBECK

Stan Albeck, 89, Bulls head coach 1985-1986; Bradley University men’s basketball head coach 1986-1991 (March 25).

Joe Altobelli, 88, Cubs manager 1991 (March 3).

LOU ANGOTTI

Lou Angotti, 83, Blackhawks center/right wing 1965-1967, 1969-1973; Chicago Cougars (WHA) center 1974-1975 (September 16).

LIONEL ANTOINE

Lionel Antoine, 71, Bears tackle 1972-1978, selected third overall in 1972 NFL draft (December 14).

Jon Arnett, 85, Bears halfback/end 1964-1966 (January 16).

Art Anderson, 84, Bears offensive tackle 1961-1962 (February 25).

RALPH BACKSTROM

Ralph Backstrom, 83, Blackhawks center 1972-1973; Chicago Cougars (WHA) center 1973-1975, co-owner 1974-1975 (February 7).

Hal Breeden, 76, Cubs first baseman 1971 (May 3).

Hy Cohen, 90, Cubs pitcher 1955 (February 4).

JOE CUNNINGHAM

Joe Cunningham, 89, White Sox first baseman/outfielder 1962-1964 (March 25).

Ralph Davis, 82, Chicago Packers (NBA) guard 1961-1962 (May 30).

Jeff Dickerson, 43, Bears reporter for ESPN Radio 2001-2021 and ESPN.com 2009-2021 (December 28).

Solly Drake, 90, Cubs outfielder 1956 (August 18).

TONY ESPOSITO

Tony Esposito, 78, Blackhawks goalie 1969-1984, five-time All-Star, three-time Vezina Trophy winner as outstanding goalie in NHL, Calder Trophy winner as NHL rookie of the year 1970, elected to Hockey Hall of Fame in 1988, sweater number 35 retired by Blackhawks in 1988, named among 100 greatest hockey players of all time in 2017, ranked by hockey-reference.com as the greatest player in Blackhawks history (August 10).

Adrian Garrett, 78, Cubs catcher/first baseman/outfielder 1970, 1973-1975 (April 22).

Howie Glover, 86, Blackhawks right wing 1958-1959 (June 15).

Johnny Groth, 95, White Sox outfielder 1954-1955 (August 7).

Shaler Halimon, 76, Bulls guard 1969-1971 (April 19).

Joe Hardy, 75, Chicago Cougars (WHA) center 1973-1975 (February 19).

JERRY HARKNESS

Jerry Harkness, 81, Loyola University men’s basketball point guard, 1960-1963, captain of 1963 NCAA championship team, first-team All-American 1963, uniform number 15 retired in 1991, inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame with his Loyola teammates in 2013 (August 24).

Chuck Hartenstein, 79, Cubs pitcher 1966-1968 (October 2).

Geno Hayes, 33, Bears linebacker 2012 (April 26).

Jimmy Hayes, 31, Blackhawks right wing 2011-2013 (August 23).

ROLAND HEMOND

Roland Hemond, 92, White Sox general manager 1970-1985, senior vice president 2001-2007, The Sporting News Major League Executive of the Year 1972; founded Arizona Fall League 1992; recipient of Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award from National Baseball Hall of Fame 2011 (December 12).

LaMARR HOYT

LaMarr Hoyt, 66, White Sox pitcher 1979-1984, American League Cy Young Award 1983, led American League in wins 1982 and 1983 (November 29).

Doug Jones, 64, Cubs pitcher 1996 (November 22).

Don Kojis, 82, Bulls forward 1966-67, started first game in franchise history on October 15, 1966 (November 19).

ROGER LeCLERC

Roger LeClerc, 84, Bears placekicker and linebacker 1960-1966, member of 1963 world championship team (January 21).

Cyril Pinder, 74, Bears running back 1971-1972 (January 23).

JUAN PIZARRO

Juan Pizarro, 84, White Sox pitcher 1961-1966, All-Star 1963-1964; Cubs pitcher 1970-1973 (February 18).

Ken Reitz, 69, Cubs third baseman 1981 (March 31).

John Roach, 87, Chicago Cardinals quarterback/defensive back 1956, 1959 (February 18).

EDDIE ROBINSON

Eddie Robinson, 100, White Sox first baseman 1950-1952, All-Star 1951-1952 (October 4).

Bobby Schmautz, Blackhawks right wing 1967-1969 (March 28).

Tom Simpson, 93, Cubs pitcher 1953 (February 7).

Fred Stanfield, 77, Blackhawks center/wing 1964-1967 (September 13).

Wayne Terwilliger, 95, Cubs second baseman 1949-1951 (February 3).

DICK TIDROW

Dick Tidrow, 74, Cubs pitcher 1979-1982; White Sox pitcher 1983 (July 10).

Vito Valentinetti, 92, White Sox pitcher 1954; Cubs pitcher 1956-1957 (August 5).

Granville Waiters, 60, Bulls center 1986-1988 (March 23).

Check out our book Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports on Amazon. 

Shining Between the Pipes

The Blackhawks are well represented on the list of winningest goalies in National Hockey League history. Among the most prominent Hawks netminders of the past six or seven decades, only Corey Crawford does not rank among the all-time leaders in career regular-season victories. Glenn Hall, Tony Esposito, Ed Belfour, and Dominik Hasek do.

     

MARC-ANDRE FLEURY

     And so does Marc-Andre Fleury, who is only the third goalie of all time to log 500 victories. He reached that milestone last Thursday night with a 2-0 shutout of the Montreal Canadiens, the team he idolized while growing up just an hour from their rink. Canadiens fans chanted Fleury’s name as the clock ticked down and gave him a standing ovation after the horn sounded. 

     “I don’t know why,” Fleury said, “but in this building I’ve always had a tough time winning games. It meant a lot to have so many people from Quebec being proud of me being from here and achieving this goal.”

     In the dressing room, the humble Fleury grabbed the WWE-style belt that goes to the Hawks’ most valuable player of each winning game and presented it to Jonathan Toews, in honor of the captain’s first goal this season. Reasoning that Fleury’s 500th victory (a shutout, no less) was the greater achievement, Toews gave the belt right back to Fleury. 

     

     Fleury already has his name engraved on the Stanley Cup three times from his days with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and the Vezina Trophy as the league’s outstanding goalie of 2020-21 belongs to him thanks to his performances for the Vegas Golden Knights. 

     He has won 375 games for the Penguins, 117 for the Knights, and eight (so far) for the Hawks.

     Below is the current list of the NHL’s all-time leaders in regular-season wins by goalies. (Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of victories achieved in a Blackhawks sweater.)

        Goalie                                    Years                     Wins         

          1. Martin Brodeur                 1991 - 2015            691       

          2. Patrick Roy                      1984 - 2003            551

          3. Marc-Andre Fleury           2003 -                     500  (8) 

          4. Roberto Luongo               1999 - 2019            489

          5. Ed Belfour                        1988 - 2007            484  (201)

          6. Henrik Lundqvist              2005 - 2020            459

          7. Curtis Joseph                   1989 - 2009            454

          8. Terry Sawchuk                  1949 - 1970            445

          9. Jacques Plante                 1952 - 1973            437 

        10. Tony Esposito                   1968 - 1984            423  (418)

        11. Glenn Hall                         1952 - 1971            407  (276)

        12. Grant Fuhr                        1981 - 2000            403

        13. Chris Osgood                    1993 - 2011            401

        14. Ryan Miller                        2002 -                     391

        15. Dominik Hasek                  1990 - 2008            389  (13)

  

Check out our book Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports on Amazon.  

Tony Esposito, 1943 - 2021

Tony Esposito was one of the greatest of the greats in hockey history. A pioneer of the “butterfly” style of goaltending, he played 873 regular-season games and 99 playoff games for the Blackhawks. He ranks as the franchise’s all-time leader in wins (418) and shutouts (74). It was his propensity for shutouts, of course, that earned him the unforgettable nickname “Tony O.”

Esposito won the Calder Trophy as NHL rookie of the year in 1969-70 and the Vezina Trophy as outstanding goalie three times. He was a five-time All-Star and was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1988, his first year of eligibility. Hockey-Reference.com ranks him as the greatest player (not just the greatest goalie) in the Blackhawks’ illustrious history.

The Hawks acquired Esposito from Montreal after the 1968-69 season in the greatest waiver deal in NHL history. The Canadiens stuck with the two goalies who had just carried them to the Stanley Cup championship, future Hall of Famers Gump Worsley and Rogie Vachon, while letting another future Hall of Famer get away.

 

The passage below is a look back at Tony O’s sensational 1969-70 season.    

 

TONY ESPOSITO

 

When the Blackhawks visited Montreal’s Forum to play the Canadiens on October 25, 1969, they were winless in six games for the young season and seemed destined for a second straight last-place finish, while the Canadiens were heavy favorites to win their third consecutive Stanley Cup.

 The Hawks had gone one game over .500 in 1968-69, but had nonetheless finished sixth and last in the NHL’s powerful Eastern Division, missing the playoffs for the first time since 1958. They entered the next season with more questions than answers. First, Ken Wharram, the plucky winger who was one of the club’s veteran leaders, suffered a heart attack that left him in critical condition for a time (he recovered, but his playing career was over). Then superstar Bobby Hull walked out of training camp, charging that the Hawks had reneged on certain promises made during his contract negotiations the year before. The goalie position was unsettled, with coach Billy Reay torn between Denis DeJordy, who had disappointed since replacing the great Glenn Hall two years earlier, and Tony Esposito, whose entire NHL experience consisted of 13 games with Montreal the season before.   

     With seven rookies (including Esposito and future mainstays Keith Magnuson and Cliff Koroll) in the lineup, the Hawks were bombed 7-2 in the season opener at St. Louis. Then they lost four more games before managing a tie at New York. “It may take 30 or 35 games before we play the kind of hockey I believe we are capable of playing,” Reay said, “but I am not discouraged.”

 The game in Montreal was the first portent of better things to come. Esposito, who had looked so bad in the opening-night debacle, was brilliant as the Hawks won 5-0. It was the Canadiens’ first loss of the season and their first on home ice in 25 games dating back to the previous January. “I decided to go with Tony,” said Reay, “in the hopes that he’d be fired up against the team that let him go, and it worked. I can’t remember winning that decisively too often in Montreal.”

     

The Hawks were a different team after Esposito’s shutout of the Canadiens. They lost their next game, then reeled off a 10-game unbeaten streak of eight wins and two ties. Esposito played every minute of the streak and allowed a total of 10 goals. Two of the games were shutouts, one of them a 1-0 decision over Montreal at the Stadium.

     Beginning with the game in Montreal on October 25, the Hawks went 45-17-8 for the rest of the season. For the last 12 weeks, they were 30-7-4.  

     Although their record of 38-22-16 would have easily won the Western Division (home of the six three-year-old expansion teams), the Canadiens were out of the playoffs for the first time since 1948. For the first time ever, the postseason would not include either Montreal or Toronto. 

     “Tony’s the guy who made the difference,” center Pit Martin said after the Hawks thrashed the Canadiens 10-2 in the regular-season finale. “He has made stops nobody could believe in game after game. He is the guy we’ve rallied around. I don’t think there ever has been a goaltender with a season like the one he’s had.”   

     Esposito’s season for the ages carried the Hawks from last place to first and earned him the Vezina Trophy as outstanding goalie and the Calder as rookie of the year (he finished second to Boston’s Bobby Orr in the MVP balloting). He played 63 games, allowing just one goal in 15 of them and setting a record with 15 shutouts. 

     As quick to refuse credit as he was to accept blame, Esposito was matter-of-fact about his feats. “All the guys worked so hard for me,” he said. “They have all year. I kept thinking, ‘Don’t ease up; you don’t want to let them down.’”

 

 

Check out our book Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports on Amazon. 

 

Blackhawks By the Numbers

The Blackhawks are one of the the NHL's legendary "Original Six" franchises, are in their 95th season of play, and have enjoyed a recent run in which they won the Stanley Cup three times in six years--equaling the number of times they captured the Cup in the previous 83 seasons. 

     For no particular reason, we thought it would be fun to name the greatest Blackhawks by sweater number, so here goes. (Asterisks indicate retired numbers.)

     No player ever wore No. 35 for the Blackhawks before Tony Esposito, and no one has ever worn it after him. Likewise, Patrick Kane is the first and last Hawk player who will ever wear No. 88. It also seems likely that numbers 2, 19, 50, and 81 have each been worn by the last player who will ever do so.

     Please note that there are many numbers beyond 45 that have never been worn by a Blackhawk or have been worn by very few players, none of whom made much of an impact. Those numbers are not represented below.

 

 

THE FIRST NUMBER RETIRED BY THE BLACKHAWKS.

 

  1. * Glenn Hall, G, 1958 - 1967

  2. Duncan Keith, D, 2005 - present

  3. * Pierre Pilote, D, 1955 - 1968

  4. Keith Brown, D, 1979 - 1993

  5. Phil Russell, D, 1972 - 1979

  6. Bob Murray, D, 1975 - 1990

  7. Brent Seabrook, D, 2005 - 2020

  8. Bill Mosienko, RW, 1941 - 1951

  9. * Bobby Hull, LW, 1957 - 1972

10. Patrick Sharp, LW, 2005 - 2018

11. Doug Mohns, LW/D, 1964 - 1971

12. Pat "Whitey" Stapleton, D, 1965 - 1973

13. Alex Zhamnov, C, 1996 - 2004

14. Doug Bentley, LW, 1939 - 1952

15. Eric Nesterenko, RW, 1956 - 1972

16. Chico Maki, RW, 1961 - 1976

17. Ken Wharram, RW/C, 1951 - 1969

18. * Denis Savard, C, 1980 - 1990, 1994 - 1997

19. Jonathan Toews, C, 2007 - present

20. Doug Jarrett, D, 1964 - 1975

21. * Stan Mikita, C, 1958 - 1980

22. Grant Mulvey, RW, 1974 - 1983

23. Behn Wilson, D, 1983 - 1988

24. Doug Wilson, D, 1977 - 1991

25. Cam Barker, D, 2005 - 2010

26. Steve Sullivan, RW, 1999 - 2004

27. Jeremy Roenick, C, 1989 - 1996

28. Steve Larmer, RW, 1981 - 1993

29. Bryan Bickell, LW, 2007 - 2016

30. Ed Belfour, G, 1988 - 1997

31. Antti Niemi, G, 2009 - 2010

32. Kris Versteeg, RW, 2007 - 2010, 2013 - 2015

33. Dirk Graham, RW, 1987 - 1995

34. Tony Horacek, LW, 1992 - 1995

35. * Tony Esposito, G, 1969 - 1984

36. Dave Bolland, C, 2007 - 2013

37. Adam Burish, RW, 2006 - 2010

38. Cristobal Huet, G, 2008 - 2010

39. Nikolai Khabibulin, G, 2005 - 2009, 2013

40. Darren Pang, G, 1985, 1987 - 1989

41. Jocelyn Thibault, G, 1998 - 2004

42. Jon Klemm, D, 2001 - 2003

43. James Wisniewski, D, 2005 - 2009

44. Patrick Poulin, C, 1993 - 1996

46. Colin Fraser, C, 2008 - 2010

50. Corey Crawford, G, 2006 - 2020

51. Brian Campbell, D, 2008 - 2011, 2016 - 2017

52. Dustin Byfuglien, D, 2005 - 2010

55. Eric Daze, RW, 1995 - 2005

56. Erik Gustafsson, D, 2015 - 2020

57. Trevor van Riemsdyk, D, 2014 - 2017

60. Collin Delia, G, 2018 - present

65. Andrew Shaw, C, 2011 - 2016, 2019 - present

72. Artemi Panarin, LW, 2015 - 2017

77. Kirby Dach, C, 2019 - present

81. Marian Hossa, RW, 2009 - 2017

82. Tomas Kopecky, C, 2009 - 2011

86. Tuevo Teravainen, C, 2014 - 2016

88. Patrick Kane, RW, 2007 - present

92. Bernie Nichols, C, 1994 - 1996

93. Doug Gilmour, C, 1998 - 2000

 

Check out our book Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports on Amazon.