Height: 5-10
Weight: 175
Catch: L
Born: 5 Aug 1942, Saskatoon SK
| 
| 
|
Regular Season Goaltending Record (key)
| year | team | ||||||||
| 1972-73 | Alberta | ||||||||
| 1973-74 | Edmonton | ||||||||
| 1974-75 | Phoenix | ||||||||
| 1975-76 | Phoenix | ||||||||
| Totals: |
Playoff Goaltending Record
| year | team | ||||||||
| 1974 | Edmonton | ||||||||
| 1975 | Phoenix | ||||||||
| 1976 | Phoenix | ||||||||
| Totals: |
Shutouts
| Date | Opponent | Home/Away | Score | Saves |
| Feb 9, 1973 | Minnesota | Home | 6-0 | 27 |
| Nov 6, 1973 | New York | Home | 8-0 | 31 |
| Nov 13, 1973 | Los Angeles | Home | 4-0 | 26 |
| Mar 2, 1975 | Chicago | Home | 5-0 | 27 |
| Dec 27, 1975 | Denver | Home | 10-0 | 30 |
|
Norris Keeps Dam From Bursting • by Terry Jones • The Hockey Spectator • December 22, 1972
Jack Norris is easy to recognize during the depression that struck the Alberta Oilers. He's the fella with his finger in the dike. He's probably the only guy on the club who smiled during the November-December drop from first to fourth in the World Hockey Association's Western Division. Generally when a hockey club goes into a slump, the two goaltenders wear their most conservative suits, stay home and watch television instead of attending public functions, leave the rink from the back door and generally try to remain as inconspicuous as possible. Not Norris. Lately, he's been The Franchise. Since the Oilers lost Jim Harrison, Doug Barrie and a host of other players with injuries, Norris is the hero, win or lose. Despite winning only one of 11 games at one point, Norris has kept his goals-against average respectable. Often as not he's kept the Oilers in games they had no reason to be in. Oiler Coach Ray Kinasewich started the season alternating Norris with Ken Brown, but had to put a stop to that simply because of the way Norris was playing. Brown was holding his own at the time. But the real reason Norris is smiling is not so much because he's managed to keep his goals against record down despite the slump but that the bushels per acre are up. Norris, like Assistant Coach Glenn Hall, has a farm on the Canadian prairies. This season he and his family took a bumper crop off the 4,000 acres they farm just outside Saskatoon. As one observer pointed out when speaking of Norris: "Normally the two most pessimistic professions in the world are farming and goaltending." It's not that kind of year for Norris, although Lord knows he's had them. "What good does it do to grow wheat if you can't sell it,” he said recently. "We've got thousands of dollars tied up in buildings just to hold the grain we can't sell from as long as five years ago. But this year, I guess, is going to be a record for wheat sales. It seems like we've sold more wheat in the last six months as we did in the last six years." The goaltending business is booming right along with the farming business. "This is the first time in 10 years I've known where I'm going to be. Bill Hunter is paying me major league money with the security that I'll be in Edmonton for the length of my contract. I just hope I can give him major league goaltending. Before, I never knew where I was going to be tomorrow, I was always the guy they sent in when the score was 6-1. Either that or the guy they sent to the minors." Norris speaks highly of his fellow farmer Glenn Hall. Hall, the master who some feel is the greatest goaltender of all time, had a profound effect on Norris' career. "I was playing badly when I was 17 or 18 and I was down on myself. I wrote Glenn a letter not thinking that he would answer, but he did. He told me to work hard and have faith. I've kept the letter all this time. You don’t know what a difference it makes to have somebody to talk to who understands the position." "Val Fonteyne was talking to me about it. He was in the NHL for years and everybody was always saying that goal tending was the most important position in the game and this is the first time somebody has come up with a coach for goalies. It makes sense." |
|
Who Was That Masked Man? (excerpt) • by Walt Marlow • The Hockey Spectator • April 6, 1973
...Alberta's Jack Norris, an outspoken critic of the curved stick, gave up the winning goal in Quebec the other night when Michel Parizeau's slap shot hit him in the forehead and dropped into the net. It wasn't exactly a first for Norris. He's been hit in the head before. But for the mask he'd be occupying a plot of ground in his native Delisle, Saskatchewan. Understandably, Norris is bitter toward the WHA Rules Committee. It is his view that the leagues allowable blade curvature of one and one quarter inches is a concession to Bobby Hull. Curiously, the National League permits only a half-inch curvature. He's not optimistic that the WHA will rule against the curve stick. "They'll never do it," he told Wayne Overland of the Edmonton Journal. "Hull would complain. You should see that weapon of his." Mr. Norris is to be admired. Bobby Hull doesn't really need that kind of advantage. |
|
Excerpts from Zander Hollander Complete Hockey Handbook, 1975-76 (by Reyn Davis) Teamed with Gary Kurt to give Phoenix the third-best goaltending combo in the WHA in 1974-75 ... Started well and finished well for Phoenix, picking up where Kurt left off ... Struck in the forehead by Cam Conner during a practice in Houston late in 1974, and it's tended to turn him gun-shy for awhile ... Starred in Phoenix's 2-1 win in Minnesota in the final week last season to wrap up a playoff spot ... Was named the winner of the Sandy Hucul Award in 1974-75 for his dedication to the game ... Unselfish in many respects ... Takes a keen interest in being of some help to younger players ... Loathes curved sticks, especially Bobby Hull's. |
_______________________________________
Home • Book • Credits & Legal Stuff
(c) Scott Surgent