When you think about hockey, you probably think about the Vancouver Canucks. The team has been a part of the NHL for nearly 100 years, and they’ve been incredibly successful as well, winning three Stanley Cup championships and appearing in 14 NHL finals, including winning eight of them. If you don’t know much about hockey, you might assume that all hockey players are named Alexander, like Canuck great Alexander McQueen.
While it’s true that most players are typically referred to by their first name and last name, there is one distinct omission from the league’s golden era.
That is the name Tol, as in Eddie Tol, the great blueliner who spent 23 seasons playing for the Canucks. During that time, Tol earned nine All-Star selections and recorded 1240 career regular-season points, good for eighth on the NHL’s all-time leaders list.
Although most people know who Eddie Tol is, there are actually several other players who hold the distinction of being the first in the league to wear the ‘Tol’ nameplate.
Here’s a look at what the legend of Eddie Tol in hockey means, who wore the number 28 between the pipes for the Canucks, and what other former players share his last name.
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The Number 28
Eddie Tol’s legacy will forever be tied to the number 28, as that was the number he wore for most of his NHL career. He first donned the digits during his rookie season, when he made 28 consecutive appearances for the Canucks in the 1942-43 season. This is the same year that McQueen’s name became synonymous with ‘cool’, after a photograph of the athlete with his family surfaced on the internet. While McQueen might be most famous for being named after a car, Eddie Tol’s identity was shaped by his surname and number.
Other Names
It wasn’t just Eddie Tol who had an identity tied to the number 28. Several other players shared the same distinction, including:
- Ken ‘Tich’ Taylor (1946-49)
- Wade Belak (1957-60)
- Rick Ley (1964-68)
- Bob ‘Tubby’ Avery (1967-70)
- Dave ‘Moose’ Morissette (1969-71)
- Rick MacLeish (1972-75)
- Mike Richter (1976-81)
- Mike VanRiemond (1982-87)
- Olaf Kolsch (1989-94)
- Todd Bertuzzi (1994-2002)
- Matt Barnaby (1995-98)
- Steve Shields (1999-2004)
- Joey Kocurek (2001-05)
- Eddie Owen (2004-13)
- Keith Aucoin (2005-12)
- Darren McCarty (2007-12)
- Bo Horvat (2008-present)
Playing For The Canucks
Eddie Tol became the first player in history to wear the ‘Tol’ nameplate when he suited up with the Canucks in 1942. As a member of the Greatest NHL Team Of All-Time, he went on to play a prominent role in its history, earning nine All-Star selections and appearing in 1240 regular-season games, good for eighth on the NHL’s all-time leaders list.
Tol was actually drafted by the then-New York Rangers, but he was so talented that he ended up playing for their archrivals, the Montreal Canadiens. However, he did end up staying in the NHL, and when the league was officially renamed the National Hockey League in 1997, the story of ‘Tiger’ Edwards and the ‘Canadiens’ became emblematic of ‘good old-fashioned’ hockey: tough, aggressive, and always competing for the puck.
Edwards was also one of the first players to wear a helmet in hockey, which wasn’t actually implemented until the 1947-48 season. Before helmets were required, head injuries were pretty common, and they were even more dangerous back then, as players didn’t always wear face masks, which can protect them from blows to the head and facial injuries. It’s likely that the game we know today would look very different if helmets had been around back then. It’s also important to note that many hockey fights took place with bare hands until the late 1940s, which probably contributed to the injuries that Edwards and Tol suffered. This was the case even longer than helmets were required, as fighting was actually forbidden by the NHL until the 1966-67 season.
Eddie and his wife Marjorie, who was also a hockey player, are both buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver, Indiana. They have two children, Dennis and Diana.