Georges Vezina Biography
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- Born Jan. 21, 1887
The only goaltender to play for the Canadiens between 1910 and 1925, VΓ©zina helped the team win the Stanley Cup in 1916 and 1924, while reaching the Stanley Cup Finals three more times. Nicknamed the "Chicoutimi Cucumber" for his calm composure while in goal, VΓ©zina allowed the fewest goals in the league seven times in his career: four times in the NHA and three times in the NHL. In 1918, VΓ©zina became the first NHL goaltender to both record a shutout and earn an assist on a goal. At the start of the 1926β27 NHL season, the Canadiens donated the Vezina Trophy to the NHL as an award to the goaltender who allowed the fewest goals during the season. Since 1981, the award has been given to the most outstanding goaltender as determined by a vote of NHL general managers. In VΓ©zina\'s hometown of Chicoutimi, the sports arena is named the Centre Georges-VΓ©zina in his honour. When the Hockey Hall of Fame opened in 1945, VΓ©zina was one of the original nine inductees, and in 2017 the NHL included him on their list of the 100 greatest players in league history.\n', '
Georges, the youngest of eight children, was born on January 21, 1887, in Chicoutimi, Quebec, to Jacques VΓ©zina, a local baker and an immigrant from St. Nicolas de La Rochelle in France, and his wife Clara. Georges attended school at the Petit SΓ©minaire de Chicoutimi until the age of fourteen, when he left the school to help at his father\'s bakery. He played hockey from a young age, participating in informal street hockey matches with others his own age. VΓ©zina partook in these matches in his shoes, and used skates for the first time at age 16 when he joined the local team in Chicoutimi. As Chicoutimi was in a remote area of Quebec, more than 200 kilometres from Quebec City, the hockey club was not in any organised league. Rather the club, known as the SaguenΓ©ens ("People from the Saguenay", the region where Chicoutimi is located), toured the province, playing exhibition games against a variety of clubs.\n', '
VΓ©zina married Marie-AdΓ©laΓ―de-Stella Morin on June 3, 1908, in Chicoutimi. After VΓ©zina\'s death, it was reported that he had fathered 22 children. This rumour was started when the Canadiens\' manager, LΓ©o Dandurand, told reporters that VΓ©zina "speaks no English and has twenty-two children, including three sets of triplets, and they were all born in the space of nine years." In actuality the VΓ©zinas only had two children and Georges spoke broken English. In 1912 they had their first child, a son named Jean-Jules. A second son was born the night of the Montreal Canadiens\' first Stanley Cup win in 1916. To honour the event, Georges named the child Marcel Stanley. When not playing hockey, VΓ©zina operated a tannery in Chicoutimi, living a quiet life.\n', '
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