The hockey arena in the little town of Chicoutimi was filled with spectators. Fans had come from all over northern Quebec to see the exhibition game between the mighty Montreal Canadiens and their own local team.
The powerful Canadiens were very confident that this would be just a warm-up game. But when the action started, they began to think differently.
“Who’s that fellow in the nets?” one Montreal player asked a fan.
“That’s Georges,” was the reply. “He is the local carpenter.”
All night long the Canadiens fired shots on goal, but Georges the carpenter blocked the net. The Canadiens lost the game.
The Montreal coach lost no time signing the local carpenter who had helped defeat the great Montreal team. And that was how Georges Vezina came to hockey’s major league. He played for 15 great years in Montreal. And when he died prematurely, the trophy awarded to the best goalie in the league was named in his honor.
From The Giant Book of Strange But True Sports Stories by Howard Liss. Illustrations by Joe Mathieu.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_V%C3%A9zina
According to Wikipedia, it was actually the Montreal goalie who advocated for the team to sign Georges, but that it took two years to do it. Initially, he turned the team down and it wasn’t until Montreal came back the next year that he decided to sign with them. He died in 1926 from Tuberculosis.