Gary Alan Sargent (born February 18, 1954) is an 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 h ...

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

who played 402 games 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 ...

between 1975–1983. A first team all-star and league MVP at Bemidji State University, his professional hockey career was cut short by injuries.

Early life

A member of the Ojibwa ( Chippewa) nation, he was born on a reservation. Sargent was also a highly promising high school

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

and gridiron football player, receiving an offer to sign a professional contract with the

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

Minnesota Twins as well as several college football scholarship offers. However, Sargent decided to pursue a career in hockey instead; his distant cousin

Henry Boucha Henry Charles Boucha ( ; born June 1, 1951) is an American former professional ice hockey center. Boucha played in both the National Hockey League (NHL) and World Hockey Association (WHA) between 1971 and 1977. In the NHL he played for the Detro ...

and later his first cousin

T. J. Oshie Timothy Leif "T. J." Oshie (born December 23, 1986) is an American professional ice hockey right winger for the Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League (NHL). He was selected by the St. Louis Blues in the first round of the 2005 NHL ...

also played in the NHL, while his younger brother Earl Sargent is a former NHL draft choice who played minor league hockey.

Pro career

Sargent was drafted by the

Los Angeles Kings The Los Angeles Kings are a professional ice hockey team based in Los Angeles. The team competes in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference and was founded on June 5, 1967, after Jack Kent ...

with the 48th pick in the 1974 NHL Entry Draft and joined the Kings in 1975 after excelling for the United States national hockey team in the 1973

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 annual ...

and

1974 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships The 1974 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships were held in Leningrad, Soviet Union between December 27, 1973, and January 6, 1974. The host Soviet team won the tournament with a perfect 5–0 record. This was the first edition of the Ice Hockey ...

tournament, where he was voted most valuable defenseman. He was named the Kings outstanding newcomer after his rookie year. He was also a member of the US team at 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 and was voted the Kings defenseman of the year in 1976-77. In the 1977–78 season, Sargent tallied 54 points, had a plus/minus of plus 18 on a team that was minus 2 for the season. However, the Kings failed to re-sign Sargent and he became a free agent. In the summer of 1978, Sargent signed with his native

Minnesota North Stars The Minnesota North Stars were a professional ice hockey team in the National Hockey League (NHL) for 26 seasons, from 1967 to 1993. The North Stars played their home games at the Met Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, and the team's colors for ...

as a restricted free agent when his contract with the Kings ended. Minnesota had to give up three players to Los Angeles (

Rick Hampton Richard Charles Hampton (born June 14, 1956) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey defenceman. He was born in Toronto, Ontario, but grew up in King, Ontario, and attended King City Secondary School. Hampton started his National Hockey Leag ...

, Steve Jensen and Dave Gardner) as compensation, but Sargent quickly became one of his new team's most important defensemen in 1978–79, being on ice for a league-record 53.1 percent of his team's goals that season. Sargent was selected for the 1980

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 ...

(in Los Angeles) but was unable to participate due to persistent back and knee problems which eventually forced him to retire prematurely in 1983 after missing most of the previous three seasons.

Post career

Sargent returned to the Los Angeles Kings after retiring as a player. He worked as a

talent scout In professional sports, scouts are experienced talent evaluators who travel extensively for the purposes of watching athletes play their chosen sports and determining whether their set of skills and talents represent what is needed by the scou ...

for them in 1986–1988.

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

International

References

External links

*
Sargent's player profile at HockeyDraftCentral.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sargent, Gary 1954 births Living people American men's ice hockey defensemen Bemidji State Beavers men's ice hockey players Ice hockey players from Minnesota Indianapolis Racers draft picks Los Angeles Kings scouts Los Angeles Kings draft picks Los Angeles Kings players Minnesota North Stars players Native American sportspeople People from Red Lake, Minnesota Springfield Indians players People from Bemidji, Minnesota