Goaltender Curtis Joseph was the son of Wendy Munro, who gave him up for adoption to the Jeanne and Harold Joseph family when he was only five days old (although he would not officially change his name until adulthood). His first major success in ice hockey came as a member of the team at Athol Murray College of Notre Dame in Saskatchewan who won the Canadian Junior A Championships in 1988. He joined the University of Wisconsin for the 1988-1989 season, but signed on to the National Hockey League’s St. Louis Blues immediately after and split the following year between the Blues and the Peoria Rivermen of the International Hockey League. He stuck with the Blues until 1995, at which point he was traded to the league’s Edmonton Oilers, with whom he stayed until 1998, aside from a fifteen-game stint with the IHL’s Las Vegas Thunder. Along the way he won team MVP honors twice prior to signing with the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs and earned silver (1996) and gold (1997) medals at successive World Championships, as well as appearing, but not playing, at the 1998 Winter Olympics for Canada as an alternate. With the Maple Leafs he won the King Clancy Memorial Trophy, which honors leadership and community service, prior to joining the league’s Detroit Red Wings in 2002. He also competed at the 2002 Winter Olympics, where he minded the net for one match and brought home one of Canada’s first gold medals in Olympic ice hockey since 1952. Since joining the Red Wings (2002-2004) he has skated with the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes (2005-2007), Calgary Flames (2007-2008), and Toronto Maple Leafs (2008-2009), as well as the Grand Rapids Griffins of the American Hockey League (2003-2004).
Canada