Ken Dryden to kick off Homecoming '11: The man behind the legend
Who is Ken Dryden? The Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender, lawyer, best-selling author, former Member of Parliament defies pigeonholing when it comes to his profession.
And yet there is a connection, says Dryden, who will be appearing at the AbitibiBowater Lecture on September 15 at the D.B. Clarke Theatre. Titled “A Canadian/en Life”, the format is mainly question-and-answer, with moderator Mutsumi Takashi, BA 79, MBA 95, of CTV.
Dryden expects the audience will most probably want to know about his best-known career, those famous eight seasons during which he backstopped the Montreal Canadiens to six Stanley Cups.
They might be surprised to learn he doesn’t define himself by that vocation. "I never thought of myself as a hockey player; I thought of myself as someone who played hockey," says Dryden, who also took home multiple individual hockey trophies. "I never thought of myself as a lawyer but as somebody who had graduated from law school." (Although he took a season off from the NHL to article and was called to the bar, he’s never practised).
The same goes for writing: he doesn’t self-identify as a writer but he really likes to write (he does it very well, too, with bestsellers such as The Game). And, in his mind, he’s not a politician but rather someone who’s engaged in politics. (He did well at that, too: He won Toronto’s York Centre riding three times in federal elections before losing the seat last May).
Dryden’s been described as "reinventing" himself on these occasions, but it's a term he doesn't relate to. He sees these discrete post-hockey careers simply as finding the best way to use his different skills to meet a need.
"What connects all of them has to do with the things that seem to me to be important, and how it seems I can best be involved, how I might do something that may otherwise go undone."
Following your interests: Is this a message he hopes the students in the audience will come away with, that they shouldn’t feel bound to a single career track? Dryden declines to answer, saying he doesn't want to pre-empt what may come up during the lecture on this or any other topic.
He would allow that he's been recollecting his thoughts about the future when he was an undergraduate at Cornell University. And when he was 18, he didn't expect things to turn out like they did.
"I thought I was going to be a lawyer, and that hockey would end at the end of university," he recalls. "That would be a dream fulfilled."
What's key is that people do what interests them. "That’s when you do your best work, that’s when it’s the most fun, that’s when it’s the most satisfying," he says. "Not just the work itself, but how you feel -- when you’re doing something that feels it has a purpose to it."
What's next for Dryden, who turned 64 last month? He’s not sure yet, but he's been mulling over some ideas. It's impossible now to imagine he won't find a new purpose – and follow it very well.
The AbitibiBowater Lecture is free and open to all, but requires registration.
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