Mike Curran
Michael Vincent Curran ( born April 14, 1944 in International Falls, Minnesota ) is a retired American professional ice hockey goaltender. He is considered one of the most successful U.S. goalkeeper, who never played in the National Hockey League. He represented the national team of his home country with a total of seven international tournaments and won at the Olympic Winter Games in 1972 the silver medal.
Career
Mike Curran played at the beginning of the 1960s, first in his hometown of International Falls High School to the position of the goalkeeper for the International Falls Broncos, with whom he repeatedly won the high school state championship Minnesota. In 1961 he presented here with a Gegentorschnitt of 0.78 to a still existing record. Starting in 1962, Curran played for the Green Bay Bobcats of the United States Hockey League player-coach John Mayasich. After he remains there for three seasons, the Americans began studying at the University of North Dakota and went for the ice hockey team, the North Dakota Fighting Sioux, in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association on the ice. Curran led the team twice in the final game of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. 1967 the team lost the game against Cornell University at the later NHL star Ken Dryden and a year later the team against the national team defeated the University of Denver. The following two seasons spent the goalkeeper again in the Green Bay Bobcats of the USHL. During this time he was first appointed to the squad of the U.S. national team and took it for the first time at the World Cup 1969.
1972 Curran received his first professional contract with the Minnesota Fighting Saints of the World Hockey Association. Already in his debut season, the season 1972/73 he was a regular goalkeeper and was careful in 44 games of the regular season goal of the Fighting Saints. In this he succeeded four shutouts. The following season he made with John Garrett a Torwartduo and both denied each 40 WHA games in the regular season, with Curran reached a quota of around 91 percent. In the following two seasons Garrett sat permanently by as goalkeeper and Curran was at times only third-choice goalkeeper in the squad of the Minnesota Fighting Saints. During the 1975/76 season he was also in nine games for the Johnstown Jets in the North American Hockey League on the ice. Furthermore, the Americans received in the course of the season 1976/77 match practice with the Rochester Americans of the American Hockey League before he was re-appointed in the WHA squad of Fighting Saints. In this he was most recently second goalkeeper behind Louis Levasseur and still played 16 matches before his playing career ended in 1977.
Internationally
For the United States Curran participated in the World Championships in 1969, 1970, 1971, 1976 and 1977, the Winter Olympic Games in 1972 and the Canada Cup in 1976 in part. With seven participations in international tournaments he is the most successful goalkeeper in his home country and only John Mayasich, which the U.S. took a total of nine times, was more successful. The highlight of his international career was winning the silver medal at the Winter Olympics in 1972. During the second game of the finals against Czechoslovakia, he parried 51 shots and the U.S. won 5-1. Curran was awarded after the completion of the tournament as the Most Valuable Player of the U.S.. At the Canada Cup in 1976, he formed with Pete LoPresti the Torwartduo. The U.S. finished the tournament in fifth place and Curran was careful in three games, the gate of his home country.
After his career end Curran's services were recognized and recorded in accordance with the Americans in 1998 in the United States Hockey Hall of Fame, and a year later in the IIHF Hall of Fame.