Roy Thomas "Shrimp" Worters (October 19, 1900 November 7, 1957) was 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 ...

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skil ...

Hockey Hall of Fame , logo = Hockey Hall of Fame Logo.svg , logo_upright = 0.5 , image = Hockey Hall of Fame, Toronto.jpg , caption = The Hall's present location on Yonge Street since 1992 , map_type = , former_name = , established = 1943 , location = 30 Y ...

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 played twelve seasons 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 ...

for the

Pittsburgh Pirates The Pittsburgh Pirates are an American professional baseball team based in Pittsburgh. The Pirates compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Founded as part of the American Associati ...

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 ...

and

New York Americans The New York Americans, colloquially known as the Amerks, were a professional ice hockey team based in New York City from 1925 to 1942. They were the third expansion team in the history of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the second to play ...

. Worters recorded 66 shutouts in his career. At 5'3" (160 cm) tall, he was the shortest player ever to play in the

NHL 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 ...

Playing career

Worters played

junior ice hockey Junior hockey is a level of competitive ice hockey generally for players between 16 and 21 years of age. Junior hockey leagues in the United States and Canada are considered amateur (with some exceptions) and operate within regions of each cou ...

in Toronto with the

Toronto Canoe Club Paddlers The Argonaut Rowing Club is an amateur rowing club in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The club was founded in 1872. The current junior head coach is Connor Elsdon. In the past, the club fielded teams in ice hockey and football, and the football team ...

, winning the 1920 Memorial Cup, the national junior championship. He then spent several years in amateur and senior leagues, including the 1923–24 and 1924–25 seasons as the star netminder for the

Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets was the name of three separate ice hockey teams based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The original team was part of the United States Amateur Hockey Association (USAHA) from 1920 to 1925 and developed from predecessors dating ...

of the

United States Amateur Hockey Association The United States Amateur Hockey Association (USAHA) was an ice hockey governing body in the United States from 1920 to 1925, which operated at an amateur level. The league was filled with predominantly Canadian-born players, but struggled to ach ...

, leading the Yellow Jackets to championships both seasons. Bolstered by the success, the expansion

joined the NHL the following season, with Worters in goal and substantially the same lineup as the Yellow Jackets. Worters proved an iron man, playing three seasons for the Pirates and in virtually all of their games, showing great skill while backstopping a weak defensive team; in the Pirates' first season, Worters stopped 70 of 73 shots (setting a then-NHL record) in a 3–1 loss to the Americans. Worters refused to sign with the Pirates for the 1927–28 season, and was suspended briefly before being traded to the Americans, for whom he would spend the rest of his career (save for a single game on loan to the Canadiens in 1930). His first season with the Americans saw Worters becoming the first goaltender to win the

Hart Memorial Trophy The Hart Memorial Trophy, originally known as the Hart Trophy, is an annual award for the most valuable player in the National Hockey League (NHL), voted by the members of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association. The original trophy was donat ...

with a 1.15 goals against average as he led the Americans to second place in the Canadian Division, after the team finished in last place the year before. During his time with the

, Worters had a corps of large defencemen in front of him, including

Bullet Joe Simpson Harold Edward Joseph "Bullet Joe" Simpson (August 13, 1893 – December 26, 1973) was a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman who played for the Edmonton Eskimos and New York Americans between 1920 and 1931. He later served as coach of the ...

, "Red" Dutton, and

Lionel Conacher Lionel Pretoria Conacher, MP (; May 24, 1900 – May 26, 1954), nicknamed "The Big Train", was a Canadian athlete and politician. Voted the country's top athlete of the first half of the 20th century, he won championships in numerous sports. ...

. Coincidentally, Conacher grew up in the same Toronto neighbourhood as Worters. The Americans would make the playoffs only once more during Worters' career, although he would win the

Vezina Trophy The Vezina Trophy is awarded annually to the National Hockey League's (NHL) goaltender who is "adjudged to be the best at this position". At the end of each season, the thirty-two NHL general managers vote to determine the winner. It is named in ...

in 1930–31 as the league's best goaltender. During the ensuing contract negotiations following the season, Worters signed for $8,500 per season, an unprecedented sum for a goalie. He became the first goalie in NHL history to record back to back shutouts in his first two games for a new team. While with the Americans, Worters was named team

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

for the 1932–33 season. In 1937, Worters needed hernia surgery and retired following the season. Roy Worters died of throat cancer on November 7, 1957. He was inducted into the

in 1969.

Awards and achievements

Winner in

1929 This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic ...

*Selected to the

NHL Second All-Star Team The National Hockey League All-Star teams were first named at the end of the 1930–31 NHL season, to honor the best performers over the season at each position. Representatives of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association vote for the all- ...

1932 Events January * January 4 – The British authorities in India arrest and intern Mahatma Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel. * January 9 – Sakuradamon Incident (1932), Sakuradamon Incident: Korean nationalist Lee Bong-chang fails in his effort ...

1934 Events January–February * January 1 – The International Telecommunication Union, a specialist agency of the League of Nations, is established. * January 15 – The 8.0 1934 Nepal–Bihar earthquake, Nepal–Bihar earthquake strik ...

Winner in

1931 Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir I ...

*First

goalie to record back to back

shutouts In team sports, a shutout ( US) or clean sheet ( UK) is a game in which one team prevents the other from scoring any points. While possible in most major sports, they are highly improbable in some sports, such as basketball. Shutouts are usuall ...

*Inducted to the

in 1969

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Worters, Roy 1900 births 1957 deaths Canadian ice hockey goaltenders Deaths from cancer in Ontario Hart Memorial Trophy winners Hockey Hall of Fame inductees Ice hockey people from Ontario Memorial Cup winners Montreal Canadiens players National Hockey League goaltender captains New York Americans players Ontario Hockey Association Senior A League (1890–1979) players Pittsburgh Pirates (NHL) players Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets (USAHA) players Sportspeople from Toronto Vezina Trophy winners Canadian expatriate ice hockey players in the United States