Despite all the on-ice acclaim that Sawchuk earned, he died a pitiful and tragic death that is rarely spoken about, even after Roy won his 448th career game. Terry Sawchuk suffered a daunting life full of angst and injury-related tribulations. This is his abridged story.
Following the completion of his first year playing in the pros with the Detroit Red Wings, Sawchuk was awarded the 1951 Calder Trophy as rookie-of-the-year. After playing all 70 games in the season for the Wings, winning 44, earning 11 shutouts and threading his goals-against average to 1.99, a star was born. Just reaching the honors he’d reached as a rookie could have constituted the pinnacle of an inspiring life.
Born in 1929, Terry Sawchuk grew up in Winnipeg, destitute from the Depression era. The first time ten-year-old Terry donned goalie equipment was after he inherited the gear from his older brother Mike, who died from a heart attack at the ripe age of 17 years. Not long after, Terry lost his infant brother to pneumonia. Despite the dual tragedies of his brothers and the working class hardships faced by his family, he still found the time to play and excel at the sport of hockey. Junior hockey caught the attention of the Red Wings, and his NHL career began.
Could it be known at all if Sawchuk ever fully embraced the future Vezinas and Stanley Cups that would follow through the years? For 20 NHL seasons, he was an enigmatic player who was compelled to strive and achieve against himself. His game was sound, yet his person was volatile. Published accounts indicated that he would lapse into mood swings. Friends and former teammates described him simply as a miserable person, and his style on the ice reflected these aspects quite aptly.
His crouching "gorilla" stance kept him low to the ice positionally, which led to a host of face-to-face encounters with the puck. Playing his first 12 seasons without a mask, Sawchuk accumulated a patchwork of more than 400 stitches on his face and head (including three on his right eyeball). Other debilitating injuries included broken bones, concussions, a spinal condition called lordosis – which is an abnormal forward curvature in the lumbar region – and a shoulder injury that prevented him from lifting his right arm above chest-level. Any of those injuries singularly could force an average player into early retirement, but Sawchuk played on.
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