NHL’ers who played another Pro Sport

[Albatros]

Joonas Donskoi currently plays floorball in the semi-pro NAFL.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

Sven Tumba played for the Swedish National Team in both hockey and football. He was also a professional golfer.

It’s funny to me that he seems to have been a very similar player in both sports, at least based on his Allsvenskan scoring: 46 goals in 87 games makes me imagine him hogging the ball and trying to score every goal himself, which I’ve gathered applied to how he played hockey as well. Seemed forever a kid at heart, Tumba.

With Swedish players, I’d imagine historically there are several who historically had played bandy pretty high up as well. I mean, the first national hockey team at the 1922 Olympics was basically a repurposed bandy team. I also know I’ve read interviews and notes about players who played both sports, some attributing their skating prowess to having played bandy as well.

 

[MeHateHe]

Newsy Lalonde! Arguably the best ever!

Indeed. I've spent a quarter century in B.C. and have never seen lacrosse equipment even! Heck, i once saw a rugby match. I once saw a cricket pitch. (I say match and pitch uncomfortably because i want to say game and field but i have seen those sports ON TV / ON LINE in New Zealand & India!

Lacrosse in Canada? I feel more likely to see Big Foot than it in my province.

If you live in Vancouver Island and have been in any sports store you will have seen lacrosse equipment. It’s usually right next to the hockey gear. But no, you’re not likely to stumble across a lacrosse game any more than you will stumble across a hockey game, given that it’s almost all box lacrosse and played indoors.

I don’t know why lacrosse is catching strays here. It’s hockey, played above the waist. Same physicality. Most of the same rules. It’s a lot of fun to watch and is drop-dead simple to understand.

 

[Barnum]

Kari Eloranta played football (the one which Americans call soccer) in the top Finnish league in 1980s.

also, Canadians, South Africans, New Zealanders, Australians and in fact, the only English first speaking country is the UK that call it football. The UK only started calling that since 1980, before that, they also called it soccer, you know because the Brits invented the word.

Something to ponder next time you try to use as an insult.

 

[ES]

Did he play football and hockey at different times?

Finnish football season is on the summer season (unlike many European top-level leagues) so yes. Although in many places, especially Southern Europe there isn't any snow on winter.

 

[VanIslander]

If you live in Vancouver Island and have been in any sports store you will have seen lacrosse equipment.

I lived on Van Isle from kindy to mid-Grade 5.
Our town had under 8,000 people and i don't recall a sports store. We had a pharmacy where we bought shampoo, comic books and hockey equipment.

I know for over a decade since then i hadn't seen a lick of anything lacrosse-related in Kamloops, B.C. (add 27 years to that number to reflect the times i've visited family there). There were a few sports stores. I played soccer for nine years and hockey for years (three and a half - ugh - i was a dman who hit, skated fast up ice but easily knocked down when trying to backskate on a rush against - i spent months in uni skating backwards trying to improve it for no good reason: if you haven't mastered the crossover, you can't backskate with stop-ability. As I've said before: in uni i visited the '88 Winter Olympic speedskating rink in Calgary and gave it a go: i crashed into the corners on the turn (well padded) 'cuz i tripped on the extra long speed-skating skates (i can ice skate and roller skate well but speed skating is different - fast but requiring more inner-thigh stretches than i was used to). I inline skating in a Seoul, South Korea league over a decade ago - i posted a video of myself then... only @seventieslord responded to it (that i recall). I hope he remembers 'cuz he shocked me with an invite to Regina via PM, ... I and he often of different opinions; i then used to guys piling on, he standing out. ... Since that year he and i have still disagreed on much. So be it. I still think his ATD championship win that was suddenly followed by his absence for mostly thereafter stings almost as much as @MXD bailing the board because his awesome team didn't win in a division with eventual ATD winner @Sturminator, one of the greatest all-time draft team builders ever!

 

[jigglysquishy]

Lacrosse is decently popular here. Hockey and football are in a category of their own for participation, but for teenagers lacrosse is close to basketball for third.

I played rec lacrosse and it's way too chippy for my liking. Usually got bleeding shins once a game.

Lot of crossover between hockey kids and lacrosse kids.

Very few kids play it before 10 and adults league is small. And no one follows pro lacrosse

 

[Section 104]

Besides Glavine, 1970s-80s baseball player Richie Hebner was considered an outstanding high school hockey player from Norwood MA…one article describes experts as feeling he was the second best hockey prospect from Massachusetts ever. Mike Schmidt who running the Bruins said he should sign with the Pittsburgh Pirates and if he didn’t like baseball, he could try hockey. I think the money was better in baseball too plus the Bruins were finishing up some 20 years of ineptitude when he was drafted in the 1966 first round by the Pirates.

 

[MeHateHe]

I know for over a decade since then i hadn't seen a lick of anything lacrosse-related in Kamloops, B.C.

Where I grew up we'd heard of lacrosse and that's about it. But there are healthy pockets of lacrosse all over the place, largely dependent on a few passionate people who keep the game running. The Thompson-Okanagan Junior Lacrosse League (including the Kamloops Venom) has been running for a quarter century, and yes, there's a minor lacrosse system in the loops.

For a long time, there was little to no lacrosse in Alberta or Saskatchewan, but the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League is doing okay-ish, with Senior B, Senior C and Junior A and B leagues. So there are kids playing the sport, at least.

On the Island, lacrosse is mostly concentrated in Victoria (Nanaimo isn't as strong) but even then, I'm surprised that someone from here wouldn't have come across it, even a little.

 

[Albatros]

The UK only started calling that since 1980, before that, they also called it soccer

Which is why most English clubs older than that are called SC, or Soccer Club.

 

[VanIslander]

Where I grew up we'd heard of lacrosse and that's about it. ...

Ah, ... so like we were saying...

On the Island, lacrosse is mostly concentrated in Victoria (Nanaimo isn't as strong) but even then, I'm surprised that someone from here wouldn't have come across it, even a little.

My elementary school years was in one of the small port towns in the North Island region, hours up from Campbell River.

Vancouver Island is almost as long as South Korea.

From the provincial capital of Victoria, B.C. - where i visited only once, and only when i was living in Alberta in uni (lol) ....to where i spent most of my formative fond elementary school years on Van Isle.... is FARTHER than the distance from New York to Vermount (to the North) or Virgina (if you inverse the direction)!!!

Heck, Toronto to Detroit is shorter than the town on the north part of Vancouver Island and Victoria on the southern bit of the island.

Canada is ****n big and diverse!

Lacrosse may be a national sport.

 

[Barnum]

Which is why most English clubs older than that are called SC, or Soccer Club.

Yup true but not the entire story

The word soccer was created to different between Rugby and Soccer. Both used the same shorten abbreviation of the word Association Football (late/early 1800s/1900s) which became confusing so one became Ruggers and the other Soccer. You’d drive or train into town and see a sign that said “Assoc. FC” but didn’t know which football it was.

Almost ‘Tross but wrong as usual.

 

[DJ Man]

I seem to recall that Dennis Ribant, a pitcher for the New York Mets and several other major league teams also played some minor league hockey. but didn't seek out any proof..

 

[Albatros]

Yup true but not the entire story

The word soccer was created to different between Rugby and Soccer. Both used the same shorten abbreviation of the word Association Football (late/early 1800s/1900s) which became confusing so one became Ruggers and the other Soccer. You’d drive or train into town and see a sign that said “Assoc. FC” but didn’t know which football it was.

Almost ‘Tross but wrong as usual.

False. There never was a rugby association. That always referred solely and unmistakably to the Football Association, the governing body in soccer. The Rugby Football Union was created only several years later by clubs that explicitly rejected the association football rules but nevertheless wanted unified rules of their own.

 

[Jocke1]

NHL'ers off the top of my head:

Donald Brashear is in the Sherdog database with his undercard TKO win over
Mathieu Bergeron at 0:21 of the first round at "Ringside MMA 11 - Cote vs. Brown - Le Colisee, Quebec City - Jun / 04 / 2011.

Tie Domi played soccer in Windsor and later in the Canadian national soccer team and was offered to go to Europe at 17. "Soccer was my number one sport, but I stuck with hockey."
He also played AA and AAA baseball as well as football.
*From his documentary 'What it Takes'.

Craig Berube was a boxer, he won a SYTYT event (So You Think You're Tough) and I think
he won a Golden Gloves too, but I'm not 100% sure.

Sandy McCarthy was an accomplished lacrosse player from what I can recall.
I think I read that in an old Tuff Guys magazine.

A personal favorite of NHL'ers venturing into other sports is Patrice Brisebois. He played over a thousand games, his name is on the Stanley Cup and
he took part in 14 races in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series. He finished 12 of them, and 7 finishes on the lead lap. His two DNFs were due to an oil leak and an engine failure.

His best qualifying position was 14/27 at Circuit ICAR, Mirabel, Quebec.
His best finish was two 12th places at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal, Quebec (34 cars)
and Circuit de Trois-Rivieres, Trois-Rivieres, Quebec (30 cars).

He finished in the top 20 eight times. Among his opponents were famous racers like Andrew Ranger (CART), Alex Tagliani (CART, Indycar), Jacques Villeneuve (F1) and Austin Dillon (NASCAR Cup).

 

[Albatros]

Among racing drivers Teemu Selänne finished respectable 24th in the 1998 FIA World Rally Championship race in Finland, up from 33rd the year before.

In 1999 he crashed into IIHF vice-president Kummola (of all people) during a practice session and subsequently abandoned his motorsports career.

 

[MarkusKetterer]

Clark Gillies was signed by the Houston Astros and played double A ball for them until he quit the sport to pursue hockey full time. He was a catcher/first baseman and platooned with some other Islanders guy named Bob Bourne (also fun fact, their children are married).

 

[Barnum]

False. There never was a rugby association. That always referred solely and unmistakably to the Football Association, the governing body in soccer. The Rugby Football Union was created only several years later by clubs that explicitly rejected the association football rules but nevertheless wanted unified rules of their own.

Ahhh kid, it's one thing to be wrong but to be smug and wrong takes it to another level. Does your country have google? Eh A'Trosser?

False. There never was a rugby association. That always referred solely and unmistakably to the Football Association, the governing body in soccer. The Rugby Football Union was created only several years later by clubs that explicitly rejected the association football rules but nevertheless wanted unified rules of their own.

The word "soccer" originated in England in the late 19th century as a shortened version of the term "association football". The term was used by students at Oxford University in the 1880s to differentiate between "rugger" (rugby football) and "assoccer" (association football). The term was popularized by British players who adapted the word "association" into slang terms like "assoc" and "assoccer". The first syllable of "association" was often skipped, leaving "soc", to which the "-er" ending was added, creating "soccer". The term was widely used in England through the first half of the 20th century, but most British people stopped using it around 40 years ago, possibly in response to its increased use in the United States

 

[Barnum]

False. There never was a rugby association. That always referred solely and unmistakably to the Football Association, the governing body in soccer. The Rugby Football Union was created only several years later by clubs that explicitly rejected the association football rules but nevertheless wanted unified rules of their own.

ohhhh google still works in my country

Today, "soccer" is commonly used in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, and South Africa to refer to association football.

 

[carjackmalone]

Where are the socceroos based out of

 

[Albatros]

Ahhh kid, it's one thing to be wrong but to be smug and wrong takes it to another level. Does your country have google? Eh A'Trosser?


The word "soccer" originated in England in the late 19th century as a shortened version of the term "association football". The term was used by students at Oxford University in the 1880s to differentiate between "rugger" (rugby football) and "assoccer" (association football). The term was popularized by British players who adapted the word "association" into slang terms like "assoc" and "assoccer". The first syllable of "association" was often skipped, leaving "soc", to which the "-er" ending was added, creating "soccer". The term was widely used in England through the first half of the 20th century, but most British people stopped using it around 40 years ago, possibly in response to its increased use in the United States

You're entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. Rugby was never a part of association football but the rejection thereof. As such, association football was always separate of rugby.

 

[reckoning]

Dale Tallon won the 1969 Canadian Junior Golf Championship.

 

[JackSlater]

Not professional (but high level) however Syl Apps made the Olympics in pole vault.

 

[Hockeyville USA]

Not an NHLer, but another pro athlete who I didn't know until recently was an elite HS hockey player is Darin Erstad, the Anaheim Angels 1st overall pick in 1995, 2002 World Series Champion. Grew up in Jamestown North Dakota and was a stud for Jamestown HS with 36 goals in 26 games one season. USHS-ND isn't incredible quality, but it's still pretty good. Erstad was also a really good football player in HS.

 

[VanIslander]

Lionel Conacher.

He owned more than half a dozen major sports. That's why he was named Best Athlete of the Quarter Century.

His mom said he walked before he talked.