Since news of legendary Montreal Canadiens goaltender Ken Dryden’s passing came out, there have been many tributes, articles, and videos all over social media, and I came across one I felt was worthy of sharing here.

Dryden was an absolute giant of the game, and as such, he was a player collectors loved chasing mask replicas, cars, and pictures avidly. For those who liked to get collection pieces autographed, he could sometimes be hard to deal with. Not that the goaltending ace didn’t want to give autographs, he didn’t want to sign for people who would then sell the stuff online at a high price. Sometimes, that meant he refused to sign; other times, he would sign but with an inscription. Making it much harder for people to turn around and sell things on.

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One fan who had bought a 16x20 picture of the netminder at the Hockey Hall of Fame before its relocation, Paul Antoniadis, decided he wanted to treat his son to a special gift for his ninth birthday. He wrote a letter to Dryden explaining that he wanted to gift his son with the picture immortalizing a save autographed by the man himself. He made sure to add his son’s name so that Dryden could make an inscription and a self-addressed Loomis waybill, mentioning he would be grateful if the photo could be returned, whether or not the former netminder decided to accommodate the autograph request.

Mr. Antoniadis was not disappointed; not only was the picture returned to him, but it came with a great inscription: “To Peter Matthew, at 9, with best wishes, Ken Dryden”. He could have included the boy’s name and his autograph, but he ensured that the youngster would never forget the occasion on which he received his special gift. That’s just who Dryden was, a classy man who believed that everything that deserved to be done deserved to be done right.

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