An ignominious end
Terry Sawchuk is a Hall-of-Fame goalie whose career ended with him holding the NHL record for victories and shutouts. But it’s the manner of his death that is incomprehensible.
After a two-decade career spent playing for Detroit, Toronto, Boston, and Los Angeles, picking up four Stanley Cup as well as Calder and Vezina trophies, Sawchuk played eight games in his final season (1969-1970) for the New York Rangers.
In the off-season, Sawchuk and teammate Ron Stewart, both of whom had been drinking, got in a fight over expenses at the Long Island house they were renting, though he would later describe it as “horseplay”. Sawchuk’s gall bladder was removed as a result, and he underwent a separate surgery for a liver which was bleeding.
He never recovered and died from a pulmonary embolism on May 31, only 40 years old.
Terry Sawchuk was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame immediately after his final season, the waiting period waived, one of only ten players for which this was ever done.