Cecil Ralph "Tiny" Thompson (May 31, 1903 – February 9, 1981) was a Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender. He played 12 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL), first for the Boston Bruins, and later for the Detroit Red Wings. A four-time Vezina Trophy winner, Thompson was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1959. He was a member of one Stanley Cup-winning team, as a rookie in the 1928–29 season with the Boston Bruins. At the start of the 1938–39 season, after ten full seasons with Boston, he was traded to the Detroit Red Wings, where he completed the season, and played another full one before retiring. During his NHL career, he recorded 81 shutouts, the sixth-highest of any goaltender. After retiring from playing, he coached lower-league teams before becoming a noted professional scout. Thompson helped popularize the technique of the "glove save" which was catching the puck with his hands as a method of making a save. A competent puckhandler, he was the first goaltender in the NHL to record an assist in 1936 by passing the puck with his stick to a fellow player.
Early life
Thompson was born in the mining community of Sandon, BC. He grew up in Calgary, Alberta, where his brother, Paul—who also became a professional ice hockey player—was born in 1906. As a child, he enjoyed playing baseball and ice hockey. Initially, Thompson was not a goaltender, though he agreed to play the position to get into games. As a teenager playing competitive ice hockey, he acquired the nickname "Tiny" as a joke, as he was the tallest player on the team, standing ; the nickname stuck with him for the rest of his career.
Thompson began his junior career playing for the Calgary Monarchs in 1919 at the age of 16. He competed for the Memorial Cup, awarded to the Canadian junior hockey champions that year, playing in two games and surrendering 11 goals, a respectable amount in that era. After spending the 1920–21 season playing for Calgary Alberta Grain, Thompson played three seasons in Bellevue, Alberta. In the 1924–25 season, he joined the Duluth Hornets, playing 40 games, recording a shutout in 11 of them. The following season, Thompson joined the Minneapolis Millers of the American Hockey Association (AHA). In his three seasons with the Millers, he appeared in 118 games, recording 33 shutouts with a 1.37 goals against average (average of goals surrendered in a span of sixty minutes).
NHL career
Boston Bruins
Thompson began his National Hockey League (NHL) career with the Boston Bruins in the 1928–29 season after his contract was purchased by Boston manager Art Ross. Despite having never seen Thompson play, Ross had heard about Thompson's good reputation in Minnesota. In his first game, he posted a shutout, becoming the only Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender to accomplish this feat. In his first season, he appeared in all 44 of the Bruins' games, posting 12 shutouts and a 1.15 goals-against average, the fourth-lowest goals-against average in NHL history to date, fourth to Alec Connell's 1.12 GAA and George Hainsworth's 1.05 and 0.98 GAA. Hainsworth set his record that same season. Placing first in the American Division, the Bruins had a perfect record in the playoffs en route to their first Stanley Cup victory, defeating the Montreal Canadiens and the New York Rangers. Thompson recorded three shutouts in the five playoff games, and allowed only three goals. Tiny faced his brother Paul Thompson in the 1929 Stanley Cup Finals, marking the first time a set of brothers faced each other in a goaltender-forward combination in Stanley Cup Finals history. Tiny said of the matchup: "When I played goal for Boston against Paul (in) the final of 1929, he was just a rookie. It was really no contest."
The following season, Thompson again appeared in all of the Bruins' 44 games, posting three shutouts and a 2.19 goals-against average. The league changed its rules on forward passing, which resulted in a sharp increase in goal-scoring. Boston won all but six games, finishing with a 38–5–1 record, the best winning percentage for any team in a season. Surrendering only 98 goals, Thompson bested Chicago goaltender Charlie Gardiner to win the first of his four Vezina Trophies. The Vezina Trophy is awarded to the league's top goaltender, which was determined prior to the 1981–82 season by number of goals surrendered by goaltenders who had played a minimum number of games. In the playoffs, however, they suffered their first two-game losing streak, as they were swept 2–0 by the Canadiens in the Stanley Cup finals. Earlier in the playoffs, Thompson's winning streak of seven playoff games was snapped; it remains, as of 2014, the longest playoff winning streak to start a career.