Stan Mikita

At 78 years old, Stan Mikita has this physical status:

Stanley Mikita (born Stanislav Guoth) was a professional ice hockey player for the Chicago Black Hawks of the National Hockey League, who was generally considered the best center of the 1960s.

In 2017, he was ranked as one of the 100 Best NHL Players.

Early life

During the brief period when Sokole, Slovak Republic, became a client state of Nazi Germany, Mikita was born as Stanislav Guoth. He was born in a small farming community until 1948, when he moved to St. Catharines, Ontario. Anna and Joe Mikita, his uncle and uncle, who had immigrated from Slovakia to Canada 20 years ago and were childless, were adopted by him. They travelled to Slovakia to visit the Guoth family before Christmas 1948 and carried 8-year-old Stan with them when they returned to Canada. His parents hoped that he in Canada had a better future than those in then Communist Czechoslovakia, whose boundaries (including Slovakia) had been restored at the end of World War II. His aunt and uncle gave him their surnames as well.

Stan said in interviews that he was proud of his Slovak roots, and that he was a Slovak.

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Playing career

Mikita was promoted to the Chicago Black Hawks in 1959-60 after three starring junior seasons with the St. Catharines Teepees of the Ontario Hockey Association. The Black Hawks won their third Stanley Cup in his second full year, in 1961. During the playoffs, the young center led the entire league in goals, scoring a total of six.

The following year was his breakout season. Mikita was a central figure of the famed "Scooter Line" with right wing Ken Wharram and left wing Ab McDonald and Doug Mohns. Mikita led the league in scoring four times in the decade, beating Bobby Hull's year-old single-season record of 97 points (which was broken two years later by former teammate Phil Esposito and now held by Wayne Gretzky). The 1967–68 season, an 87-point effort from Mikita, was the last time a Chicago player won the scoring crown until Patrick Kane's 106-point 2015–16 season.

Mikita was one of the league's most disciplined players in his youth, but he later decided to play a cleaner sport and took home the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy for outstanding sportsmanlike behavior combined with excellence twice. Mikita's drastic change in behavior came after he returned home from a road trip. "Why does Daddy spend so much time sitting down?" His wife told him while watching their daughter, Meg, on television. Mikita had just been caught in the penalty box again, and the camera had just caught him in the penalty box again.

Mikita formed the American Hearing Impaired Hockey Association (AHIHA), bringing together deaf and hard-of-hearing hockey players from around the country, inspired by a friend's deaf son, who was a young goalie, during his playing career. He also helped bring the Special Olympics to Chicago by taking his family out to volunteer at races.

Mikita also appeared in two games of the Summit Series in 1972, two of whom were in Canada, as well as two exhibition games during the Summit Series, one against Sweden in Stockholm and one against Czechoslovakia in Prague. In summer 1967, he played numerous exhibition games for Czechoslovakia, visiting his family in his country of origin.

Mikita and her partner Bobby Hull were a well-known forward pair in the 1960s, gained notoriety for using sticks with curved blades. Shooters had a definite advantage over goaltenders over goalkeepers. As a result, the NHL limited blade curvature to 12" in 1970. Mikita started the activity after his standard stick became trapped in a bench door, bending the blade before he reached the ice; he soon discovered a propane torch from team trainers to create a deliberate curve.

After a December 1967 game in which an errant shot tore a piece off one of his ears (it was stitched back on), Mikita became one of the first players to wear a helmet full time.

Career statistics

* Stanley Cup champion.

Statistics via HockeyDB

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Awards and accomplishments

• Ranked 14th all-time in points, 18th in assists, 31st in goals, and 40th in games played (at end of 2017-18 NHL season)
• Won the Hart Memorial Trophy as most valuable player in 1967 and 1968
• Won the Art Ross Trophy as leading scorer in 1964, 1965, 1967, and 1968
• Won the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy in 1967 and 1968
• Stanley Cup champion (1961)
• Named to the NHL's First All-Star Team in 1962, 1963, 1964, 1966, 1967, and 1968
• Named to the NHL's Second All-Star Team in 1965 and 1970.
• Played in NHL All-Star Game in 1964, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, and 1975
• Won the Lester Patrick Trophy in 1976
• The only player in NHL history to win the Hart, Art Ross, and Lady Byng trophies in the same season, doing so in consecutive seasons, in 1966–67 and 1967–68
• Was named to Team Canada for the 1972 Summit Series, but only played two games due to injuries
• In 1998, he was ranked number 17 on The Hockey News' list of the 100 greatest NHL players
• Mikita's number 21 was retired by the Blackhawks on October 19, 1980; he was the first player to have his jersey number retired by the Blackhawks
• Mikita was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983
• Mikita was inducted into the Slovak Hockey Hall of Fame in 2002
• The ice rink in Ružomberok, Slovakia, is named after him
• In 2011, statues of Mikita and Bobby Hull were installed outside the United Center, where the Blackhawks currently play
• The first player of Slovak origin who won the Stanley Cup