Curt Alexander Bennett (born March 27, 1948) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

-born American former professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

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 ...

, who played in the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

as well as for the United States national ice hockey team in the 1970s.

Biography

Early life

Bennett came from a family of hockey players. His father Harvey Bennett, Sr. and two of his brothers ( Harvey Bennett Jr. and

Bill Bennett William Richards Bennett, (April 14, 1932 – December 3, 2015) was the 27th premier of British Columbia from 1975 to 1986. He was a son of Annie Elizabeth May (Richards) and former Premier, W. A. C. Bennett. He was a 3rd cousin, twice removed, ...

) also played in the NHL. His nephew Mac Bennett was selected in the

2009 NHL Entry Draft The 2009 NHL Entry Draft was the 47th Entry Draft. It was held on June 26–27, 2009, at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec. The Draft was part of the Montreal Canadiens' centennial celebrations. National Hockey League teams took turns select ...

(79th overall by the

Montreal Canadiens The Montreal CanadiensEven in English, the French spelling is always used instead of ''Canadians''. The French spelling of ''Montréal'' is also sometimes used in the English media. (french: link=no, Les Canadiens de Montréal), officially ...

). Bennett played in the 1961

Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament The Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament (french: Tournoi international de hockey pee-wee de Québec) is an annual minor ice hockey event in Quebec City. The tournament was founded in 1960 to coincide with the Quebec Winter Carnival, ...

with the Cranston team. He was drafted by the

St. Louis Blues The St. Louis Blues are a professional ice hockey team based in St. Louis. The Blues compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference. The franchise was founded in 1967 as one of the s ...

with the 16th pick in the

1968 NHL Entry Draft The 1968 NHL Amateur Draft was the sixth NHL Entry Draft. It was held at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Quebec. Selections by round Below are listed the selections in the 1968 NHL amateur draft. Round one ;Notes # The Oakland Seals ...

and joined the Blues in 1971 after three very successful seasons with the

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

men's hockey team as a

defenseman Defence or defense (in American English) in ice hockey is a player position that is primarily responsible for preventing the opposing team from Goal (ice hockey), scoring. They are often referred to as defencemen, D, D-men or blueliners (the la ...

. Bennett is a member of the Brown University Athletic Hall of Fame, holding the school records for goals by a defenseman in a game (7), season and career. He graduated with a degree in Russian Studies from Brown, where he was also a captain of the men's

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

team and nominated for a

Rhodes scholarship The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

. At one point, Bennett was married to

Susan Bennett Susan Alice Bennett (née Cameron, born July 31, 1949) is an American voice actress and a former backup singer for Roy Orbison and Burt Bacharach. She is best known as the female American voice of Apple's Siri personal assistant, since the s ...

who later provided the voice of the Apple assistant "

Siri Siri ( ) is a virtual assistant that is part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, and audioOS operating systems. It uses voice queries, gesture based control, focus-tracking and a natural-language user interface to answer questio ...

Playing career

Bennett appeared in four NHL games in his rookie season before becoming a regular player for the Blues in the 1972

Stanley Cup playoffs The Stanley Cup playoffs (french: Les séries éliminatoires de la Coupe Stanley) is an elimination tournament in the National Hockey League (NHL) consisting of four rounds of best-of-seven series to determine the league champion and the winner ...

. He was traded to the

New York Rangers The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home ...

during the off-season. After 16 games with the Rangers he was dealt to the expansion

Atlanta Flames The Atlanta Flames were a professional ice hockey team based in Atlanta from 1972 until 1980. They played home games in the Omni Coliseum and were members of the West and later Patrick divisions of the National Hockey League (NHL). Along with t ...

where he became one of their premier forwards. Bennett provided leadership, defensive skills (he frequently guarded the opposing team's star player) and toughness that a young team needed and represented the Flames in the 1975 and 1976

NHL All Star game The National Hockey League All-Star Game (french: Match des Étoiles de la Ligue Nationale de Hockey, links=no) is an exhibition ice hockey game that is traditionally held during the regular season of the National Hockey League (NHL), with many ...

after scoring a career-high 65 points in the 1975–1976 NHL season. He served as one of the assistant captains on the United States team in the inaugural

1976 Canada Cup The 1976 Canada Cup was an international ice hockey tournament held September 2 to 15, 1976, in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg and Quebec City in Canada as well as in Philadelphia, in the United States. It was the first of five Canada Cup to ...

tournament. He struggled in the following two NHL seasons and was dealt back to the St.Louis Blues in a six player trade in late 1977. Bennett spent the next two seasons with the Blues and during those years played for the US national team at the 1978 and 1979

Ice Hockey World Championship The Ice Hockey World Championships are an annual international men's ice hockey tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). First officially held at the 1920 Summer Olympics, it is the sport's highest profile annua ...

tournaments. In the summer of 1979, he was traded back to the Flames where he played a final 21 games in 1979/80, scoring just one goal. Bennett ended his NHL career with 334 points in 580 games. He was the first American to reach the 30 goal plateau in a season.

Post career

Bennett chose not go with the Flames when the team relocated to Calgary in 1980. Instead, he emigrated to Nikko,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

to be a player/coach (along with his brother Harvey) for the Furukawa Denko club. While in Japan, Bennett filed television reports and wrote a number of articles for ''Goal'' magazine about his experience living in Japan and the local ice hockey culture. He had previous journalistic experience from working as a part-time Atlanta sportscaster during his career with the Flames and had also served as a national television color commentator during the 1977 Stanley Cup playoffs. He and Harvey both retired from hockey in 1982 after two years with Furukawa. After moving back to Atlanta, he became involved in

commercial real estate Commercial property, also called commercial real estate, investment property or income property, is real estate (buildings or land) intended to generate a profit, either from capital gains or rental income. Commercial property includes office bu ...

and continued his work with the

NHL Players' Association NHLPA (french: AJLNH) is the labour union for the group of professional hockey players who are under Standard Player Contracts to the 32 member clubs in the National Hockey League (NHL) located in the United States and Canada. The association r ...

to help players transition to life after hockey. In 1992-93, he was an assistant coach for the International Hockey League

Atlanta Knights The Atlanta Knights were a minor league professional ice hockey team in the International Hockey League (1945–2001), International Hockey League from 1992 to 1996. The Knights were based in Atlanta, and played at the Omni Coliseum. In 1994 the ...

and led a group of local businessmen working to bring NHL hockey back to Atlanta. In 2000, he moved to

Maui The island of Maui (; Hawaiian: ) is the second-largest of the islands of the state of Hawaii at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2) and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is the largest of Maui County's four islands, which ...

where he owns a company that designs and builds

water features In landscape architecture and garden design, a water feature is one or more items from a range of fountains, jeux d'eau, pools, ponds, rills, artificial waterfalls, and streams. Before the 18th century they were usually powered by gravity, ...

both in the

Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kur ...

and on the

U.S. mainland The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...

Awards and honors

* Played in NHL All-Star game (1975,1976)

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

International

References

*
Curt Bennett's homepage

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bennett, Curt 1948 births Living people American men's ice hockey centers Atlanta Flames players Brown Bears men's ice hockey players Canadian emigrants to the United States Canadian ice hockey centres Ice hockey players from Rhode Island Sportspeople from Cranston, Rhode Island Sportspeople from Regina, Saskatchewan National Hockey League All-Stars New York Rangers players St. Louis Blues draft picks St. Louis Blues players Ice hockey people from Saskatchewan AHCA Division I men's ice hockey All-Americans