Last night Brett Hull, Luc Robitaille, Brian Leetch, and Steve Yzerman were inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Chris Chelios, currently playing for the AHL’s Chicago Wolves, is older than all of them. In 1986-87, Luc Robitaille scored a remarkable 45 goals as a rookie. He would go on to score an incredible 668 goals over a nineteen-season career. In 1986-87, Chris Chelios was already playing in his fourth NHL season. In Chris Chelios’ rookie year, he played on a Canadiens team that still featured Guy Lafleur, Steve Shutt, Serge Savard, Bob Gainey, and Larry Robinson. In Guy Lafleur’s rookie season, he played with Henri Richard. Chris Chelios was teammates with guys who played with Henri Richard.
Chelios turns up ice to pursue Cyclone Taylor
Chris Chelios was drafted 40th overall, in 1981, behind players like Tony Tanti, Claude Loiselle, Ron Francis, Garth Butcher, and Joe Cirella. Chelios is older than all of those guys. The year he was drafted, the third overall pick was Bob Carpenter, who may have not reached the heights expected of a top-3 pick, but who nonetheless managed to play eighteen seasons in the NHL, once scoring 5o goals. In the decade since his retirement, Carpenter has been an AHL head coach and an NHL assistant. Chris Chelios is older than Bob Carpenter.
While playing for the Red Wings, Chelios has had some playoff battles with another future Hall of Famer, the Ducks’ Scott Niedermayer. Of course Chelios is older than Niedermayer – more than eleven years older, even though Niedermayer has been around forever. Niedermayer could have been a Leaf, as we are forever reminded, but was selected with a draft pick the Devils acquired from the Leafs for Tom Kurvers in that disastrous 1990 deal. Chris Chelios is older than Tom Kurvers.
The other disastrous Leafs trade of that era was Russ Courtnall being shipped to Montreal for enforcer John Kordic. Kordic died fighting the Quebec City police in 1992. Courtnall went on to a long and successful career as a decent second line burner who could score some goals, almost 300 in fact. Courtnall left the NHL ten years ago, after a fifteen season career. His best season was 92-93, when he scored 36 goals for a Minnesota North Stars team backstopped by Jon Casey. Jon Casey would later end up a St. Louis Blue. His last season was 1996-97, on a Blues team that featured Brett Hull, Pierre Turgeon, Jim Campbell, Geoff Courtnall, and Al McInnis as their top five scorers. Also on that Blues team, making his last appearance in the league, was a 32-year-old Gary Leeman. Leeman, a key figure in the best Leafs trade of the era, played just two games that season, notching a lonely assist. He would then play two seasons with the Hannover Scorpions in the German League before retiring, his last recorded action 10 games in 1998-99. Chris Chelios is older than every person in this paragraph.
Chris Chelios played in Switzerland during the 1994-95 lockout that erased half a season. He was an 11-year veteran at the time. Chris Chelios is older than Ken Wregget, Roberto Romano, Tom Barrasso, and Bill Ranford. He’s older than Cam Neely. He’s older than Tom Fergus, Miro Inachak, Bob Errey, and Bernie Nicholls. He’s older than Greg Gilbert, Jim Paek (the first Korean player), Jim Kyte, (the hearing-impaired player), and Jim Johnson. He’s older than Dave Ellett and Dale Hawerchuk, Pat LaFontaine and Pat Flatley. He’s older than Dave Reid, older than Scott Arniel, older than Lyndon Byers, older than Pokey AND the Bandit. Remember Zarley Zalapski? Chris Chelios is six years older than him.
How old is Chris Chelios, children? Well, he’s old enough to remember the last time we posted something here.
8 Comments
Interesting read. He’s also older than Vincent Damphousse. He’s old. How old is he? He’s so old, the trainers put prune juice in his water bottle. I mean old!
For some reason, I always thought Courtnall won the cup with the Habs in 93. You learn something new every day, I guess.
I always thought he was on that team too, but the Habs used him to acquire Brian Bellows.
Chris Chelios is older than Brian Bellows.
Jim Paek!!!!1
Kim Gordon is older than Chris Chelios.
But Chris Chelios IS older than J Mascis.
Chris Chelios has played hockey longer than Good Till has been in school.
Oops, not anonymous.
i went to Concordia University in Montreal, from 1987 to 1989. My first semester there some friends and I would attend these lame McGill weekly on-campus parties that were held in their cafeteria, mostly because of the super cheap beer and hordes of drunk girls. i probably went to four or five of these things and at each one, around midnight, Chelios and his entourage would arrive to much fanfare and corral a bunch of “lucky” girls who would leave with him to whatever orgy he had planned. McGill finally banned him from attending, so i heard.
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