A star ice hockey goaltender, Corey Hirsch began making a name for himself in the sport during his days with the Western Hockey League’s Kamloops Blazers from 1988 through 1992, most notably by winning the CHL and WHL Goaltender of the Year Awards in 1992. It was during that year that his team won the Memorial Cup, given annually to the junior men’s ice hockey champions in Canada, where he picked up the Del Wilson Trophy as the top playoff goaltender. Prior to this he had spent one season with the Calgary Canucks of the Alberta Junior Hockey League. He was recruited by the New York Rangers, but spent most of the 1992-1993 season with the American Hockey League’s Binghamton Rangers. There he earned more accolades, including the Aldege “Baz” Bastien Memorial Award as top goaltender, the Harry “Hap” Holmes Memorial Award as the goaltender with the lowest goals-against-average (alongside Boris Rousson), and the Dudley “Red” Garrett Memorial Award as the top rookie. He stayed with Binghamton for the next two years, but also joined the Canadian national team and won a silver medal at the 1994 Winter Olympics and a bronze medal at the 1995 World Championships. At the former tournament he minded the net for eight matches. He re-entered the NHL in 1995 with the Vancouver Canucks and skated with them until 1999, in addition to 65 games spent with the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch. The remainder of his career was eclectic, as he suited up for the International Hockey League’s Milwaukee Admirals (1999-2000), Utah Grizzlies (1999-2000), and Cincinnati Cyclones (2000-2001), the AHL’s Albany River Rats (2000-2001), Portland Pirates (2000-2002), Philadelphia Phantoms (2000-2001), and Utah Grizzlies (2002-2003), the NHL’s Dallas Stars (2002), Sweden’s Timra IK (2003-2004) and Malmo Redhawks (2005-2006), and Germany’s Kassel Huskies (2004-2005) until his 2006 retirement. Since then he has been a consultant to Hockey Canada and was hired by the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs as goaltending coach in 2008.
Canada