Holland's Harmon Won Two Stanley Cups
Glen Harmon of Holland, Manitoba, won two Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens in 1944 and 1946.
Glen Harmon was everything you wanted in a defensemen. At 5'8'' and 165 pounds, Glen's stocky frame was put to good use as he was able to crunch opposing players with some of the league's most physical bodychecks. Mixed in with solid positioning, strong defensive play, and the offensive skills required to support his forwards on a nightly basis, Glen was a speedy skater who could carry the puck up himself or send it to his teammates with perfect passes.
"He was really fast for a defensemen," recalled Habs teammate Howard Riopelle. "He could carry it out and headman the puck, too. That's the big thing, getting it out on your end."
Harmon could also score when it was needed. A high scoring defensemen of his time, he was one of the first masters of the slapshot, a good decade before Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion started claiming it as his own invention.
Harmon could have no doubt been a Hall of Famer, but he was the third defensemen behind Ken Reardon and Emile "Butch" Bouchard on a star-studded Montreal Canadiens lineup. On any other team in the league, Glen would have been a top pairing defensemen and would have gotten the credit that he definitely deserved.
The Montreal Gazette used to praise Harmon on a nightly basis when talking about the positives of their city's team: "The underrated Harmon moves fast enough to cover up his mistakes and even those of his teammates, and if there is a defensemen in the league who can come out of his own end-zone with the puck faster than Glen, then we haven't seen him.”
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