Grant Fuhr
*Grant Fuhr was born on this date in 1962. He is a former Black Canadian ice hockey goaltender in the National Hockey League.
From Spruce Grove, Alberta, Grant Scott Fuhr was born to a Black Canadian father and an Enoch Cree Canadian mother. He was adopted by parents Betty Wheeler and Robert Fuhr and raised in Spruce Grove, Alberta. In the mid-1970s, Fuhr played for the Enoch Tomahawks' hockey team. In 1979, at seventeen, Fuhr joined the Victoria Cougars of the WHL. After two outstanding seasons, including the league championship and a trip to the Memorial Cup in 1981, Fuhr was drafted eighth overall by the Edmonton Oilers in the 1981 NHL Entry Draft.
Fuhr played ten seasons for the Oilers, part of one of the most formidable goaltending tandems in history. Edmonton won the Stanley Cup four times in five seasons (1983-84 through '87-88). Fuhr was also involved with the infamous goal where Steve Smith scored on his net to cost the Oilers the '86 playoffs against the Calgary Flames. Fuhr was injured and did not play in the 1990 playoffs when the Oilers won for the fifth time. In 1987, he played in goal for the NHL All-Stars in the Rendezvous '87 series games against the Soviet National Team. In 1987-88, Fuhr backstopped Canada to a victory at the Canada Cup, playing in all nine games, then 75 regular seasons and 19 playoff games.
He also played in the National Hockey League All-Star Game in 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988, and 1989. Fuhr's playoff success fed into his reputation as the supreme clutch goaltender of his era, and there was a period from 1987 through at least 1989 where Fuhr was often called "the best goaltender in the world ."The NHL suspended Fuhr for 59 games of the 1990–91 season. Fuhr had come forward about his drug use after spending two weeks in a counseling center in Florida. He admitted that he used "a substance" (not specifying whether it was cocaine) for seven years or most of the time that the Oilers rested at the top of the NHL.
Once Fuhr was re-instated, opposing team fans taunted him with bags of sugar at games. Fuhr was the Phoenix Coyotes goaltending coach on July 22, 2004. He held a similar post with the Calgary Flames in the 2000–2001 and 2001–2002 seasons. Fuhr was married to Lisa Cavanaugh on September 14, 2014. He has four children from previous marriages and a stepdaughter. In 2015, Fuhr collaborated on Grant Fuhr's biography, The Story of a Hockey Legend.
