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Goldie Goldthorpe

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Goldie Goldthorpe
Born (1954-06-20) June 20, 1954 (age 70)
Hornepayne, ON, CAN
Height 5 ft 11 in (180 cm)
Weight 185 lb (84 kg; 13 st 3 lb)
Position Left Wing
Shot Left
Played for Minnesota Fighting Saints
Michigan Stags/Baltimore Blades
Denver Spurs/Ottawa Civics
San Diego Mariners
WHA draft Undrafted
Playing career 1973–1984

Bill "Goldie" "Harpo" Goldthorpe (born June 20, 1953 [1] in Hornepayne, Ontario) is a retired professional ice hockey player who served as the inspiration for Ogie Ogilthorpe in the 1977 film Slap Shot. His father was an engineer for the Canadian National Railway and his mother was a nurse's aide. At their wedding, Leo Boivin (NHL defenceman, future captain of the Boston Bruins and Hockey Hall of Fame inductee) was the best man.

Goldthorpe, a left winger who grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario, is widely regarded as one of the most infamous hockey enforcers to have ever played the game, a man once dubbed the "wildest, meanest, most unpredictable player in hockey."[2] In his chequered eleven-year career (1973–84), Goldthorpe played for no fewer than ten minor league teams and four World Hockey Association squads; he also suited up for exhibition games with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Pittsburgh Penguins, but never played in a regular-season NHL game. Along the way, Goldthorpe racked up an amazing 1,132 penalty minutes in just 194 professional games.

His play was representative of his personality; fierce determination and perseverance with a very low tolerance for actions that could be interpreted as threatening or disrespectful of himself, his teammates or associates either on the ice or off.

Bill Goldthorpe's coach in Thunder Bay, Albert Cava, said, "He was a helluva hockey player, the best penalty killer I've ever seen. He played every shift as if his life depended on it."

On January 1, 2008 during the first intermission of the NHL's Winter Classic outdoor game in Buffalo, NBC showed a short piece on the movie Slap Shot and Goldthorpe's connection to Bob Costas: Costas once did radio play-by-play for the 1973-74 Syracuse Blazers, Goldie's team at the time.

Goldthorpe is currently a foreman at a construction company in San Diego (where he played for the WHA Mariners), a position he has held for several years.

Auditions for roles for a film about Goldthorpe's life, named Ogilthorpe were held in Humboldt, Saskatchewan in February 2012.[3] Most scenes will be filmed in Humboldt, Saskatchewan and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.

References

  1. ^ http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=167902
  2. ^ Big, Bad Goldie, Globe and Mail, accessed October 2, 2007
  3. ^ http://www.ogilthorpethemovie.com
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