Goldie Goldthorpe
| Goldie Goldthorpe | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Born |
June 20, 1953 Hornepayne, ON, CAN | ||
| Height | 5 ft 11 in (180 cm) | ||
| Weight | 185 lb (84 kg; 13 st 3 lb) | ||
| Position | Left Wing | ||
| Shot | Left | ||
| Played for |
Syracuse Blazers Minnesota Fighting Saints Michigan Stags/Baltimore Blades Denver Spurs/Ottawa Civics San Diego Mariners | ||
| WHA Draft | Undrafted | ||
| Playing career | 1973–1984 | ||
Bill "Goldie, Harpo" Goldthorpe (born June 20, 1953[1] in Hornepayne, Ontario) is a retired professional ice hockey player who served as the inspiration for Ogie Ogilthorpe in the 1977 film Slap Shot. His father was an engineer for the Canadian National Railway and his mother was a nurse's aide. At their wedding, Leo Boivin (NHL defenceman, future captain of the Boston Bruins and Hockey Hall of Fame inductee) was the best man.
Goldthorpe, a left winger who grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario, was a notorious hockey enforcer, a man once dubbed the "wildest, meanest, most unpredictable player in hockey."[2] In his chequered eleven-year career (1973–84), Goldthorpe played for ten minor league teams and four World Hockey Association squads; he also suited up for exhibition games with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Pittsburgh Penguins, but never played in a regular-season NHL game. Along the way, Goldthorpe racked up 1,132 penalty minutes in just 194 professional games.
On January 1, 2008 during the first intermission of the NHL's Winter Classic outdoor game in Buffalo, NBC showed a short piece on the movie Slap Shot and Goldthorpe's connection to Bob Costas: Costas once did radio play-by-play for the 1973-74 Syracuse Blazers, Goldie's team at the time.
Goldthorpe worked for several years as a foreman at a construction company in San Diego. As of 2017, he was living in Vancouver.[3]
References
- ↑ http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=167902
- ↑ Big, Bad Goldie, Globe and Mail, accessed October 2, 2007
- ↑ The man behind Slap Shot’s Ogie had his share of battles off-screen, Globe and Mail, accessed February 8, 2017