Robert Gray is a Canadian retired ice hockey

goaltender In ice hockey, the goaltender (commonly referred to as the goalie) is the player responsible for preventing the hockey puck from entering their team's net, thus preventing the opposing team from scoring. The goaltender mostly plays in or near t ...

who was the Most Outstanding Player of the 1964 NCAA Tournament.

Career

Gray was a three-year starter for

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

, beginning his career in 1961. On a team led by

Red Berenson Gordon Arthur "Red, The Red Baron" Berenson (born December 8, 1939) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey centre and head coach of the Michigan Wolverines men's ice hockey team from 1984 to 2017. Berenson was inducted into Canada's Sports ...

, Gray split time with Dave Butts and helped Michigan to a second-place finish in the

WCHA The Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) is a college athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as a women's ice hockey-only conference. From 1951 to 1999, it operated a ...

, earning a spot on the All-WCHA Second Team. The Wolverines also finished as runner-up in the conference Tournament and received the second western seed for the NCAA Tournament. Michigan was stunned by a 4–5 loss to Clarkson in the semifinal and finished the tournament in third place. After Berenson's graduation the team declined sharply, ending up in last place the following year with a record of 7–14–3. During the year Gray again split time in goal, this time sharing the net with William Bieber. Because Gray's numbers had been far superior to Bieber's, the veteran was tasked with carrying the lion's share of starts during his senior season. Gray answered the bell and the Michigan offense had a miraculous recovery, scoring almost twice as many goals per game as they had the year before. Michigan finished atop the WCHA and, during the team's 12-game winning streak, Gray had a game for ages; in a 21–0 route of

Ohio State The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...

, who were in their first year of varsity play, Gray was playing as a

Forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

and recorded a

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wic ...

. In the conference tournament Michigan was nearly knocked out by

Michigan Tech Michigan Technological University (Michigan Tech, MTU, or simply Tech) is a public research university in Houghton, Michigan, founded in 1885 as the Michigan Mining School, the first post-secondary institution in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. ...

in the semifinal and were soundly beaten by

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

in the championship. The poor performances did not bode well for the Wolverines as they entered the 1964 NCAA Tournament. They faced ECAC Champion

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in the semifinals and were obviously the better team, despite winning by just a single goal. They faced Denver for the championship and got off to a great start, scoring the first three goals of the game while Gray stopped 15 shots in the first period alone. Denver came close to tying the game twice but a 3-goal third period from the Maize and Blue put the game out of reach and Michigan won the national championship. Gray was named the Tournament Most Outstanding Player. After graduating, Gray played two years of professional hockey, serving as the backup goalie for the

Fort Wayne Komets The Fort Wayne Komets are a minor league ice hockey team in the ECHL. They play their home games at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This team was previously a member of the Central Hockey League, the original Inte ...

when the team won the 1965 Turner Cup. His last recorded appearance was for the Reno Aces in 1972. He was inducted into the Michigan Dekers Hall of Fame in 1990.

Statistics

Regular season and playoffs

Awards and honors

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gray, bob 1940 births Living people Canadian ice hockey goaltenders Ice hockey people from Ontario Fort Wayne Komets players Michigan Wolverines men's ice hockey players NCAA men's ice hockey national champions San Francisco Seals (ice hockey) players Seattle Totems (WHL) players Sportspeople from Owen Sound