Keith McCreary

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
CanadaCanada  Keith McCreary Ice hockey player
Keith McCreary
Date of birth June 19, 1940
place of birth Sundridge , Ontario , Canada
date of death December 9, 2003
Place of death Etobicoke , Ontario , Canada
size 178 cm
Weight 82 kg
position Left wing
Shot hand Left
Career stations
1956-1957 Peterborough Petes
1957-1958 Sundridge Beavers
1958-1963 Hull-Ottawa Canadiens
1963-1965 Hershey Bears
1965-1967 Cleveland Barons
1967-1972 Pittsburgh Penguins
1972-1975 Atlanta Flames

Vernon Keith McCreary (born June 19, 1940 in Sundridge , Ontario ; † December 9, 2003 in Etobicoke , Ontario) was a Canadian ice hockey player who played 548 games for the Canadiens de Montréal , Pittsburgh, between 1956 and 1975 Penguins and Atlanta Flames in the National Hockey League (NHL) on the position of left winger . McCreary, who in the service of the Hull-Ottawa Canadiens from the Eastern Professional Hockey League (EPHL) twice Tom Foley Memorial Trophy won, was from 1972 to 1975, the first captain of the franchise credit history of the Atlanta Flames.

Career

McCreary spent a volatile junior period in the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA) between 1956 and 1959 . Initially, the winger spent a season with 22 appearances with the Peterborough Petes . Then he was active in the season 1957/58 for the Sundridge Beavers from his hometown in the second division of the league system of the OHA. He then played for the Hull-Ottawa Canadiens , which, after belonging to the Canadian junior league system, took part in the Eastern Professional Hockey League (EPHL) game operations at the beginning of the 1959/60 season . He also represented the team in 1959 in the prestigious Memorial Cup , while he competed with the Brockville Junior Canadiens the following year .

McCreary in the jersey of the Atlanta Flames

In the EPHL, the attacker experienced three successful seasons between 1960 and 1963. In his rookie year , McCreary won the Tom Foley Memorial Trophy , the league's championship trophy , with the team . The Canadiens defended the title the following year, the influence of the offensive player with the increase from 46 to 79 points scorer was significantly greater. As a result, he was appointed to the First All-Star Team of the EPHL and also celebrated his debut in the Stanley Cup playoffs in 1962 in the National Hockey League for the Canadiens de Montréal , who used him once. After another year in the EPHL, at the end of which he was this time in the Second All-Star Team, the Canadiens de Montréal ordered him to the higher-class Minor League American Hockey League (AHL) at the beginning of the 1963/64 season . There the Canadian was in the Hershey Bears squad for two years , then he played two seasons between autumn 1965 and spring 1967 in the jersey of league rivals Cleveland Barons . For the Habs himself, he only completed nine NHL games during the 1964/65 season , as he had no chance of asserting himself there in the long term due to the great competitive situation.

However, this changed with the expansion of the NHL in the summer of 1967. The striker was left unprotected in the 1967 NHL Expansion Draft by the Canadiens and thus selected by the newly formed Pittsburgh Penguins . There he managed to be in the regular squad at the beginning of the 1967/68 season . The now 27-year-old played 70 games in his first full NHL season and scored 26 times. In the next season he set a career record in as many games with 48 points. In the third year of their existence, the Penguins reached the playoffs for the first time and made it to the semifinals of the Stanley Cup playoffs in 1970 . McCreary had now developed into one of the best defensive winger in the league. Ultimately, he spent two more seasons in Pittsburgh, before they left him unprotected before the 1972 NHL Expansion Draft - as in Montréal five years earlier. In the previous year he had only played 33 times and only had eight goals. The Atlanta Flames thus secured the rights to the 32-year-old, who was named the first team captain in franchise history at the start of the 1972/73 season . With his experience McCreary contributed to the establishment of the team in the league as a leader in the following three years. He was able to significantly increase his offensive yield in the first two seasons in Atlanta compared to last year in Pittsburgh.

After his contract had expired after the 1974/75 season , the striker tried to continue his career in the World Hockey Association (WHA), which was competing with the NHL at the time . There McCreary took part in the Calgary Cowboys training camp . In his opinion, the franchise did not have a sufficiently professional structure and so he decided against a commitment to the Cowboys before the start of the 1975/76 season and ended his active career at the age of 35. After retiring, he joined the NHL Alumni Association and was its chairman for many years. He also started his own business with an agency for insurance and financial services.

McCreary died in December 2003 at the age of 63 from complications from longstanding cancer in Etobicoke Hospital near Toronto . After his funeral in Bolton , where he settled after the end of his career, his two friends Keith Magnuson and Rob Ramage - both of whom were also former NHL players - were involved in a serious traffic accident in Vaughan, 20 kilometers away , which resulted in Magnuson's injuries he laid. Ramage was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for causing the accident.

Achievements and Awards

Career statistics

Regular season Playoffs
season team league Sp T V Pt SM Sp T V Pt SM
1956/57 Peterborough Petes OHA 22nd 0 1 1 0 - - - - -
1957/58 Sundridge Beavers OHA-B Statistics not available
1958/59 Hull-Ottawa Canadiens EOHL 3 1 0 1 0 - - - - -
1959 Hull-Ottawa Canadiens Memorial Cup 7th 1 4th 5 2
1959/60 Hull-Ottawa Canadiens EPHL 5 0 0 0 0 - - - - -
1960 Brockville Junior Canadiens Memorial Cup 13 5 9 14th 23
1960/61 Hull-Ottawa Canadiens EPHL 61 19th 21st 40 35 14th 4th 2 6th 15th
1961/62 Hull-Ottawa Canadiens EPHL 64 30th 36 66 48 12 5 8th 13 2
1961/62 Canadiens de Montréal NHL - - - - - 1 0 0 0 0
1962/63 Hull-Ottawa Canadiens EPHL 69 27 34 61 44 3 1 1 2 0
1963/64 Hershey Bears AHL 66 25th 19th 44 21st 6th 2 4th 6th 2
1964/65 Hershey Bears AHL 46 16 18th 34 36 14th 0 7th 7th 24
1964/65 Canadiens de Montréal NHL 9 0 3 3 4th - - - - -
1965/66 Cleveland Barons AHL 66 18th 24 42 42 2 5 4th 9 8th
1966/67 Cleveland Barons AHL 70 28 29 57 50 5 1 2 3 0
1967/68 Pittsburgh Penguins NHL 70 14th 12 26th 44 - - - - -
1968/69 Pittsburgh Penguins NHL 70 25th 23 48 42 - - - - -
1969/70 Pittsburgh Penguins NHL 60 18th 8th 26th 67 10 0 4th 4th 4th
1970/71 Pittsburgh Penguins NHL 59 21st 12 33 24 - - - - -
1971/72 Pittsburgh Penguins NHL 33 4th 4th 8th 22nd 1 0 0 0 2
1972/73 Atlanta Flames NHL 77 20th 21st 41 21st - - - - -
1973/74 Atlanta Flames NHL 76 18th 19th 37 62 4th 0 0 0 0
1974/75 Atlanta Flames NHL 78 11 10 21st 8th - - - - -
EPHL overall 199 76 91 167 127 29 10 11 21st 17th
AHL total 248 87 90 177 149 37 8th 17th 25th 34
NHL overall 532 131 112 243 294 16 0 4th 4th 6th

( Legend for player statistics: Sp or GP = games played; T or G = goals scored; V or A = assists scored ; Pkt or Pts = scorer points scored ; SM or PIM = penalty minutes received ; +/− = plus / minus balance; PP = overpaid goals scored ; SH = underpaid goals scored ; GW = winning goals scored; 1  play-downs / relegation )

family

McCreary came from a hockey family. His six-year older brother Bill was also active in the National Hockey League (NHL) and played over 350 games for a total of four franchises between 1954 and 1971 . Most of it for the St. Louis Blues , which he later took on as head coach. He filled the same position with the Vancouver Canucks and California Golden Seals . Bill's son, Bill junior , also completed twelve NHL missions for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the early 1980s , but was otherwise active in the minor leagues .

His cousins Ron and Bob Atwell were also professional ice hockey players and can each look back on 22 appearances in the NHL.

Web links

Commons : Keith McCreary  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
personal data
SURNAME McCreary, Keith
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McCreary, Vernon Keith (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian ice hockey player
DATE OF BIRTH June 19, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Sundridge , Ontario , Canada
DATE OF DEATH December 9, 2003
Place of death Etobicoke , Ontario , Canada