From 1989 through 1992 ice hockey defenseman Scott Niedermayer skated with the Kamloops Blazers of the Western Hockey League, although he played four games with the National Hockey League’s New Jersey Devils after being drafted in 1991. He won the Memorial Cup, given annually to the Canadian men’s junior ice hockey champions, during his final year with the Blazers. He would skate exclusively with the Devils until 2004, with the exception of a five game stint with the International Hockey League’s Utah Grizzlies during the 1998-1999 season, and won the Stanley Cup three times with the team in 1995, 2000, and 2003. He captured the James Norris Memorial Trophy as the league’s top defenseman during his final season with the Devils and resurfaced with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 2005, with whom he continued to skate until his 2010 retirement. He won a fourth Stanley Cup, this time with the Ducks, in 2007 as team captain.
Internationally, Niedermayer is the only Canadian, as of 2010, to have won the Stanley Cup, the Memorial Cup, the World Junior Championships (1991), the World Championships (2004), the World Cup of Hockey (2004), and the Winter Olympics (2002 and 2010). He also played in the 1992 World Junior Championships, but did not earn a medal. In December 2009 he was named captain of Canada’s ice hockey delegation to the 2010 Winter Olympics. His brother Rob won the Stanley Cup alongside him with the Ducks, but as of 2010 skates with the Buffalo Sabres.
Canada