Dustin Penner, a hockey player who never played junior but still ended up with two Cup rings, turns 42 today

He was cut from minor and junior teams in his hometown. He was the reason why Brian Burke wanted to rent a barn and challenge Kevin Lowe to a fistfight. He was once forced out of the Los Angeles Kings’ lineup because he hurt his back while eating pancakes.

To say Dustin Penner has had an eventful hockey career is an understatement.

After all that, the Winkler, Man. native, who turned 42 years old today, can at least still say he is a two-time Stanley Cup champion.

Penner was seen as too small as a teen in Winkler and never played a second of junior hockey. But, after two seasons of club hockey at a junior college in North Dakota, he managed to attract the attention of the Maine Black Bears after being invited to a prospects camp in Saskatoon.

Forced to redshirt in his first year at Maine, Penner joined the varsity team in 2003-04. Having finally grown and filled out to 6-4 and 240 pounds, he played a key role as the Black Bears advanced to the NCAA Division I championship game. That led to a free-agent contract with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. Penner became a full-time Duck in 2006-07 and scored 29 goals in the regular season and three more in the playoffs as the Ducks won their first Stanley Cup championship.

A restricted free agent following that victory, Penner signed a five-year, $21-million offer sheet from Edmonton Oilers’ GM Lowe, prompting Ducks’ GM Burke to lash out at his rival executive, which led to a war of words that almost culminated in a barn brawl. (Seriously.) While Penner scored a career-best 32 goals and 63 points in 2009-10, his time in Edmonton was ultimately disappointing as the Oilers finished last in the NHL standings that same year.

Penner was traded to Los Angeles in 2011 and won his second Cup with the Kings in 2012, although the win came on the heels of a strange injury in January that forced him to miss a game. Reportedly, he suffered back spasms while attempting to eat pancakes at home. It was fitting, then, that when Penner was traded to Washington in his final NHL season, 2013-14, the deal happened on Pancake Tuesday. (Seriously.)

Also on this date:

1895 – Rod Smylie was born in Toronto. Smylie won the Allan Cup in 1917 as a member of the Toronto Dentals, a team comprised of students from the Royal College of Dental Surgeons, now the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Toronto. After the dental team was absorbed into the university’s Varsity hockey program in 1920, Smylie opted to turn professional with the Toronto St. Patricks even though he was still enrolled in U of T’s medical school. He graduated as a physician in 1921, but he continued to play sporadically with the St. Pats and the Ottawa Senators until 1926. He scored a goal and four points in Toronto’s 1922 Stanley Cup win over Vancouver and was the last surviving member of that St. Pats team before he died, aged 89, in 1985. Two of his sons, Doug and Rod Jr., followed him into pro sports, each winning multiple Grey Cups with the Toronto Argonauts between 1945 and 1952.

1911 – Syd Howe was born in Ottawa. He was still a teenager when he broke in with his hometown Senators during the 1929-30 season, and he bounced around between that franchise, the Philadelphia Quakers, and the Toronto Maple Leafs early in his career. He went to St. Louis when the Senators moved there in 1934 and became the Eagles, but a trade that season sent him to the Detroit Red Wings and finally gave him the opportunity to play with a winner. He was part of three Stanley Cup teams in Detroit and, on February 3, 1944, he became the first NHL player in 23 years to score six goals in a game. Howe held the league records for career points in the regular season (528) and playoffs (572) when he retired in 1946 but saw both marks fall the next season to former Eagles teammate Bill Cowley. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1965 and died in 1976.

1948 – Barry Gibbs was born in Lloydminster, Sask. Not to be mistaken for the eldest Bee Gee brother of nearly the same name, Gibbs played junior hockey with the Estevan Bruins and was the first overall selection in the 1966 NHL amateur draft by the Boston Bruins. He played parts of two seasons with Boston and then became a fixture on the defensive corps of the Minnesota North Stars and the Atlanta Flames. Gibbs finished his career after stints in St. Louis and Los Angeles, retiring with more than 800 NHL games to his credit. His nephew, Darren Gibbs, worked as an NHL linesman from 1997 to 2020.

1955 – Don Edwards was born in Hamilton, Ont. Chosen by the Buffalo Sabres in the 1975 NHL Entry Draft, he made his big-league debut under bizarre circumstances in February 1977 at the Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo. Called up from the AHL, ostensibly to back up starting goalie Al Smith, Edwards was instead told he would be playing in the game against Minnesota. Following the national anthem, Smith left the Sabres' bench, skated off the ice, changed into his street clothes, and left the arena. Edwards had to play the entire game without a backup, but he performed well and won the game 6-2. He became the Sabres’ No. 1 goalie the following season, leading the league in wins and earning the first of his two post-season all-star selections. He co-led the NHL in shutouts in 1980-81 but is also remembered for having given up Wayne Gretzky’s record-breaking 77^th goal during the 1981-82 season. Edwards also played with the Calgary Flames and the Leafs before his NHL career ended in 1986.

1961 – Steve Kasper was born in Saint-Lambert, Que. The veteran of more than 900 NHL games, Kasper was drafted out of the QMJHL’s Sorel Eperviers in 1980 and made the Boston Bruins as a rookie. A two-way forward who scored 15 or more goals seven times, Kasper won the Frank Selke Trophy as the NHL’s best defensive forward in 1981-82 – the first player not named Bob Gainey to win the award. His finest season was 1987-88, when he recorded career bests in goals (26), assists (44), and points (70), finished second in the Selke voting, and helped the Bruins reach the Stanley Cup final. Kasper also played for Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Tampa Bay before he retired in 1993. He returned to the Bruins as their head coach from 1995 to 1997.

1962 – Grant Fuhr was born in Edmonton. Raised in nearby Spruce Grove, Fuhr played junior hockey in Victoria and returned to Edmonton after the Oilers selected him eighth overall in the 1981 NHL Entry Draft. Fuhr was known as a money goalie who could be counted on to come up big when the stakes were high, and he won five Stanley Cups with the Oilers. He was also part of Canada’s 1984 and 1987 Canada Cup-winning teams, earning an all-star selection in the latter tournament. Fuhr was named to two NHL postseason all-star teams and won the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top netminder in 1987-88. He retired in 2000, having won nearly 500 NHL games, and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2003.

1973 – Brian Rafalski was born in Dearborn, Mich. After playing college hockey at Wisconsin and several seasons in Europe, Rafalski signed with the New Jersey Devils and entered the NHL at age 26. He made up for lost time by winning the Stanley Cup as a rookie and appearing in four more Cup finals over the next decade, winning again in 2003 with the Devils and in 2008 with the Detroit Red Wings, who had been his favourite team as a child. During his 11-year career, Rafalski’s teams never missed the post-season, and he ended up dressing for more playoff games than any other NHL player during the 2000s. He retired in 2011 with 998 career regular season and playoff games under his belt.