He just took a chance (to come to Montreal), and it happened.' He had no right to imagine that anything like that was going to happen. 'The magic of it was the fact that our father was there watching the game. You might have to go in.'ĭave Dryden in a posed 1965-66 Chicago Black Hawks portrait. I don't know if it was Al or one of the players who said to me, 'You'd better start loosening up. 'Even at a moment like that I didn't take it very seriously. 'You know when goalies get hit they go down, then they always get up and play again,' Ken Dryden told Irvin Jr. That time came at 13:07 of the second period when Toronto's Eddie Shack dropped Vachon with a shot below the belt, leaving him unable to continue.

'But MacNeil didn't want to give the fans a run for their money until he had to.' 'I thought starting the brothers right off the bat would be a of a deal for the crowd,' Imlach said after the game.

Imlach, a high-decibel, flamboyant showman, yanked Dave at the first face-off in place of Joe Daley, Buffalo's second goalie. Indeed, the Drydens had never played against each other at any level of hockey.īut MacNeil didn't blink, starting Vachon. The game began with Sabres coach Punch Imlach starting Dave, hoping MacNeil would seize the moment, two brothers never before having faced each other in the NHL. Imperial Oil - Turofsky/Hockey Hall of Fame At left is Rangers defenseman Harry Howell, Toronto Maple Leafs forward Frank Mahovlich at right. 3, 1962, his first NHL game as an emergency backup for injured Gump Worsley. New York Rangers goalie Dave Dryden clears the puck away from his net on Feb. 'I was talking to my father on the phone and he said, 'I think I'm going to come up (to Montreal from Toronto).' I said he could come if he liked but I wasn't playing and suggested he not come up because he would be disappointed.'

'I've been told that Rogie is playing,' Dryden recalled, Canadiens coach Al MacNeil having decided to go with his veteran to avoid a late-season head-to-head media circus. So I was allowed to be in the periphery of the action.'ĭave had 77 NHL games to his name for the New York Rangers, Chicago Black Hawks and Sabres, Ken just two for the Canadiens, when the Sabres arrived in Montreal for their game on that March night in 1971. … While I wasn't as good as my brother, I could cope. … I became a bit of a novelty to him and he an idol to me. 'When there's a difference of six years between kids in a family, you're not rivals. for the latter's 1995 book 'In The Crease: Goaltenders Look At Life in the NHL.' 'If I had to guess why I became a goalie, I'd say it was because of and my emulation of him,' Ken told author Dick Irvin Jr.

Growing up in Toronto, Dave was always a goalie, and it seemed natural that Ken would follow him into a net. Ken Dryden idolized Dave, six years his senior. He also devoted enormous energy to the Sleeping Children Around The World charity founded by his parents, Murray and Margaret, providing bed kits to needy children in developing countries around the world.īut in hockey, Dryden is probably best known for a single NHL game and the handshake that followed it, played at the Montreal Forum on Mabetween his visiting Buffalo Sabres and brother Ken's Montreal Canadiens.ĭave Dryden with the major junior Toronto Marlboros and in a team portrait in 1959-60. During his career, it was his pioneering that married a helmet shell and birdcage front, the combination replacing the fiberglass mask to become the standard in goaltending at every level.ĭryden's loss is being felt far beyond hockey, too, his influential work as an elementary school principal and teacher, especially in special education, having touched countless young lives. Hockey is mourning the loss of Dave Dryden, who died Tuesday at age 81 of complications from chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension surgery.ĭryden played 17 seasons in the NHL and WHA, from 1962-79, later working with the NHL on refinements to equipment to better protect players.

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