Howie Meeker

Howie Meeker

Howard William Meeker CM was a Canadian professional hockey player in the National Hockey League. He won four Stanley Cups with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Meeker is one of the few professional players to score five goals in a game. He later ran hockey schools as summer camps in Canada and the United States.

About Howie Meeker in brief

Summary Howie MeekerHoward William Meeker CM was a Canadian professional hockey player in the National Hockey League. He won four Stanley Cups with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Meeker is one of the few professional players to score five goals in a game. He later ran hockey schools as summer camps in Canada and the United States. He also coached the Maple Leafs, replacing King Clancy on April 11, 1956, leading the Leafs to a 21–34–15 record. He was promoted to general manager in 1957, but was fired before the start of the 1957–58 season. He became best known to Canadians as an excitable and enthusiastic television colour commentator for Hockey Night in Canada, breaking down strategy in between periods of games with early use of the telestrator. In the 1970s and 1980s, Meeker became known to a new generation of hockey fans as the exciteable, squeaky-voiced analyst-colour commentator on Hockey night in Canada.

He is in the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame, and the HockeyHall of Fame as a broadcaster. He served as a Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament for Waterloo South from 1951 to 1953. He died of a heart attack on December 17, 2009. He had a son, Howard Meeker Jr., who played hockey for the Stratford Kist in the OHA in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and a daughter, Mary Meeker, who played for the Ottawa Senators in the NHL in the early 1960s. He retired from hockey in 1969, but continued to play hockey sporadically for 15 more years with different senior clubs.