Andy Hebenton
| Andy Hebenton | |||
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Hebenton on a 1962 Topps hockey card
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| Born |
October 3, 1929 Winnipeg, MB, CAN |
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| Height | 5 ft 9 in (175 cm) | ||
| Weight | 182 lb (83 kg; 13 st 0 lb) | ||
| Position | Right Wing | ||
| Shot | Left | ||
| Played for |
New York Rangers Boston Bruins |
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| Playing career | 1949–1976 | ||
Andrew Alexander "Spuds" Hebenton (born October 3, 1929) is a former professional ice hockey right winger, and holds the record for the longest streak without missing a game in professional hockey history.
After playing junior hockey for a local Winnipeg team, Hebenton made his professional debut in 1949 for the Cincinnati Mohawks of the American Hockey League. The following season he moved on to the Victoria Cougars of the Pacific Coast Hockey League (subsequently renamed the Western Hockey League. He starred with Victoria for five seasons, his best year being 1955, when he scored 46 goals and was named to the league's First All-Star team.
The following season his rights were purchased by the New York Rangers of the NHL, for whom he played for eight seasons. He scored twenty goals or more in five of those seasons, his best year coming in 1958–59, when he scored 33 goals and 29 assists and was the runner up for the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy for gentlemanly play, which he had won in 1956-57. After the 1962–63 season, the Boston Bruins acquired Hebenton in the waiver draft, for whom he played his final NHL season. He played 630 straight NHL games in all, breaking the record for the most consecutive games (a mark subsequently broken by Garry Unger in the Seventies and currently held by Doug Jarvis).
Hebenton's rights were sold by Boston after the 1963–64 season to the Portland Buckaroos of the WHL, and he remained in Portland for the rest of the league's history (barring two seasons in Victoria once more), becoming one of the WHL's all-time leading scorers and perennial stars, and never once missing a game. He was a perennial winner of the Fred Hume Cup for gentlemanly play, winning it nearly half the seasons it was offered, the final time when he was 43 years old.
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