clear the track for Team Toe Blake's
4th Left Winger,
Eddie Shack
Eddie Steven Phillip Shack (born February 11, 1937), also known by the nicknames "The Entertainer" and "The Nose"
[1] is a retired
Canadian hockey player who played for six
National Hockey League teams from 1959 to 1975,
Shack was born
Sudbury,
Ontario. His parents were Ukrainian immigrants.
Shack played junior hockey for the
Guelph Biltmores of the
OHA for five seasons starting at the age of 15. His best season was 1956–57, where he led the league in assists and starred in the
Memorial Cup playoffs.
Signed by the
New York Rangers and playing half a season for their
AHL Providence Reds farm team, he made the
NHL with in the
1959 season and played two undistinguished seasons for the Blueshirts.
In November of the
1961 season, Shack was traded to the
Toronto Maple Leafs, where he played five seasons on the left wing as a colourful, third-line agitator who was popular with the fans despite a lack of scoring prowess (Canadian hockey writer
Stephen Cole likened Shack's playing to 'a big puppy let loose in a wide field'). During the
1966 season Shack broke out, scoring his career high 26 goals on a line with
Ron Ellis and
Bob Pulford, and his popularity was such that a novelty song called
Clear The Track, Here Comes Shack written in his honor and played by "Douglas Rankine with the Secrets".
[2] It reached #1 on the Canadian pop charts and charted for nearly three months.
Shack was a part of the Maple Leafs last Stanley Cup-winning team in
1967, even though his production fell significantly and he was traded in the fall of
1967 to the
Boston Bruins. Playing on the right wing on a line with
Derek Sanderson and
Wayne Cashman, Shack revived and scored 23 goals for the powerhouse Bruins team.
Injuries marred the following season, and he spent the next four seasons moving between the
Los Angeles Kings, the
Buffalo Sabres and the
Pittsburgh Penguins. Pittsburgh sold him back to Toronto for the
1974 season, but his skills eroded by age and injuries, Shack's skills had largely deserted him and he retired after the
1975 season.
After retirement, Shack was a popular advertising spokesman in Canada, most notably for the
Pop Shoppe soft drink brand
[3] and a
Schick razor promotion (for which Shack shaved his mustache), and a welcome presence in many alumni all-star games. He also use his name for a small chain of
doughnut stores.
[4]
Shack also revealed that he had been
illiterate most of his life and has become an advocate for literary programs in his native Ontario.
[5]