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Walter Edward (Turk) Broda

NHL, the National Hockey League is a premier professional North American Sports League played in indoor stadiums. It’s divided into two conferences, each comprising of three divisions of ice hockey teams. The league was established in 1917 in Montreal, Quebec and it is composed of 30 teams out of which 24 teams based in U.S. and 6 in Canada.

Walter Edward Broda was born on 15th May, 1914 in Brandon, Manitoba and died on 17th October, 1972. He played in 14 NHL seasons from 1936 to 1952. He was inducted in the hall of fame in 1967. For days afterward, newspaper articles displayed the smiling goalie sitting on a scale eating steak or drinking juice for dinner in an effort to lose his weight. Broda was raised in Manitoba and became a player in the Detroit minor system, playing with the Olympics in 1935 and 1936. He joined the Leafs team in the fall during that year and stayed as the crease guardian in Toronto for the majority of the subsequent 15 years where he had a knee injury in his last game.

When Walter was healed in 1945, he went to the Gardens and started again to practice with the team. He came back in the nets and stayed for four more Stanley Cup finals, three in a row from 1947 to 1949 and one more in 1951 in which all the five games went to overtime in opposition to Montreal. He played the complete season in goal in eight of his 11 seasons, and part of two others, leading the league in shutouts for two times. When the players had to skate laps around the ice, Coach Day skated behind Broda, who was in full equipment, hollering at him to keep up and join the race.

Walter retired after playing only a single game in the 1951 season. He was accorded an exceptional night at the Gardens by Conn Smythe who one of the rarest honors presented to the Leaf team. That moment took place on December 22, 1951, and players and executives from Toronto, the opposing Bruins and every other NHL team got together to give good wishes to one of the greatest goalies of all time.

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