Curt Alexander Bennett (born March 27, 1948 in Regina, Saskatchewan, but raised in Cranston, Rhode Island) is a former American ice hockey forward, who played in the National Hockey League as well as for the United States national ice hockey team in the 1970s.

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Bennett came from a very good hockey family as his father Harvey Bennett, Sr., and two of his brothers (Harvey Bennett Jr. and Bill Bennett) also played in the NHL. He was drafted by the St. Louis Blues with the 16th pick in the 1968 NHL Entry Draft and joined the Blues in 1971 after three very successful seasons with the Brown University men's hockey team where he was a defenceman while obtaining a degree in Russian studies. He was also a captain of the men's tennis team at Brown. He was also nominated for a Rhodes scholarship. Bennett is a member of the Brown University Athletic Hall of Fame, holding the school records for goals by a defenceman in a game (7), season and career.

[edit] Playing career

Bennett appeared in four NHL games in his rookie season before finally becoming a regular player for the Blues in the 1972 Stanley Cup playoffs. However, he was traded to the New York Rangers during the offseason. After 16 games as a Ranger, he was dealt to the expansion Atlanta Flames where he became one of the Flames premier forwards. Bennett provided the leadership, defensive skills (he frequently guarded the opposing team's star player) and toughness a young team needs, and he represented the Flames in the 1975 and 1976 NHL All Star game after scoring a career-high 65 points in the 1975–1976 NHL season. He also served as one of the assisting captains on the United States team in the inaugural 1976 Canada Cup tournament. However, he struggled in the next two NHL seasons after that and was dealt back to the St.Louis Blues in a six player trade in late 1977. Bennett spent the next two seasons with the Blues and also played for the US national team at the 1978 and 1979 Ice Hockey World Championship tournaments as St.Louis failed to make the NHL playoffs. He was traded back to the Flames in the summer of 1979 where he played a final 21 games in 1979/80, scoring just one goal.

Bennett ended his NHL career with 334 points in 580 games. He was the first American to reach the 30 goal plateau in a season.

[edit] Post career

Bennett and his his wife emigrated to Nikko, Japan in 1980 to be a player/coach for the Furukawa Denko club. While in Japan, Bennett filed some television reports and wrote a number of articles for 'Goal' magazine about his experience living in Japan and the local ice hockey culture over there (he had previous experience from working as a part-time Atlanta sportscaster during his career with the Flames and also served as national television color commentator during the 1977 Stanley Cup playoffs). He and his brother Harvey Bennett finally retired in 1982 after two years with Furukawa. After moving back to the United States, he would work with the NHLPA to help players transition to life after hockey. As an Atlanta resident in the early 1990s, he worked as an assistant coach for the International Hockey League Atlanta Knights in 1992–93 while leading a group of local businessmen to bring NHL hockey back to Atlanta. In 2007, he was a commercial real estate broker in Hawaii, where he has his own firm.

[edit] References

• Curt Bennett's homepage
• Curt Bennett's biography at Legends of Hockey
• Bennett's player profile at HockeyDraftCentral.com