Remembering Charlie Gardiner (Part Two)

Winnipeg's Charlie Gardiner carried the 1934 Chicago Black Hawks on his back all the way to the Stanley Cup, before tragically passing away from a brain hemorrhage just two months later.

Continued from last week’s story…

In a December 1932 game against the Toronto Maple Leafs is when Chuck's health problems first came to light. Gardiner heroically made 55 saves in a Chicago win. But what the public didn't know at the time was that Chuck was running a high fever and was sprawled out on the locker room floor to rest between periods. After the game he was rushed to the hospital, but was released the following day.

Unfortunately that was just the beginning for Chuck's health problems. He was later bothered by pains in his throat and kidneys. He often had pain shooting upward from his throat to his head and pain burning like liquid fire through his kidneys. He experienced vision problems and once while the Blackhawks were on a train back to Chicago, Chuck suddenly felt an intense pain in his throat that spread to the rest of his body, notably his kidneys. When questioned by the team’s coaching staff about the issue, he lied and said it was only a minor headache. But when Charlie woke up on the train in the morning, he had trouble seeing as black spots obscured his vision. This was Gardiner`s first uremic convulsion.  He told his coach Tommy Gorman, "I can’t see...there's black spots before my eyes." Gorman told Gardiner that those black spots were just pucks.

Still, Gardiner played, and played extremely well. His teammates unanimously elected him team captain to start the 1933-34 season. It was during this year that Charlie’s heath really started deteriorating as he was playing with a tonsillar infection for most of the season. He was often seen slumping over his crossbar during stoppages in play, nearly blacking out. At intermissions and after games you would find him passed out on the floor of his team's dressing room.