Eddie Shack

Eddie "The Entertainer", "The Nose", "Clear The Track, Here Comes" Shack (born February 11, 1937 in Sudbury, Ontario) is a retired Canadian hockey player. Eddie's parents were Ukrainian immigrants.

Shack played junior hockey for the Guelph Biltmores of the OHA for five seasons starting at the age of 15. His best season was 1956–57, where he led the league in assists and starred in the Memorial Cup playoffs.

Signed by the New York Rangers and playing half a season for their AHL Providence Reds farm team, he made the NHL with in the 1959 season and played two undistinguished seasons for the Blueshirts.

In November of the 1961 season, Shack was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs, where he played five seasons on the left wing as a colourful, third-line agitator who was popular with the fans despite a lack of scoring prowess (Canadian hockey writer Stephen Cole likened Shack's playing to 'a big puppy let loose in a wide field'). During the 1966 season Shack broke out, scoring his career high 26 goals on a line with Ron Ellis and Bob Pulford, and his popularity was such that a novelty song called "Clear The Track, Here Comes Shack" written in his honor and played by "Douglas Rankine with the Secrets". It reached #1 on the Canadian pop charts and charted for nearly three months.

Shack was a part of the Maple Leafs last Stanley Cup-winning team in 1967, even though his production fell significantly and he was traded in the fall of 1967 to the Boston Bruins. Playing on the right wing on a line with Derek Sanderson and Wayne Cashman, Shack revived and scored 23 goals for the powerhouse Bruins team.

Injuries marred the following season, and he spent the next four seasons moving between the Los Angeles Kings, the Buffalo Sabres and the Pittsburgh Penguins. Pittsburgh sold him back to Toronto for the 1974 season, but his skills eroded by age and injuries, Shack's skills had largely deserted him and he retired after the 1975 season.

After retirement, Shack was a popular advertising spokesman in Canada, most notably for the Pop Shoppe soft drink brand and a Schick razor promotion (for which Shack shaved his mustache), and a welcome presence in many alumni all-star games.

Trivia

* Played for Stanley Cup winning teams in 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1967. He scored the Cup-winning goal in 1963, claiming famously that he had scored the goal off of his backside and was only trying to get out of the way.
* Played in the All-Star Game in 1962, 1963 and 1964.
* Only the second player to score twenty or more goals in a season for five or more NHL teams.
* Revealed in recent years that he had been illiterate most of his life and became an advocate for literary programs in his native Ontario.