Ralph Lawrence Hansch (May 20, 1924 – February 29, 2008) was a Canadian

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

goaltender In ice hockey, the goaltender (commonly referred to as goalie or netminder) is the player responsible for preventing the hockey puck from entering their own team's net, thus preventing the opposing team from scoring. The goaltender mostly plays ...

Early life

He was born in

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

. In 1950 and 1951, he played with the

Edmonton Flyers The Edmonton Flyers are a defunct ice hockey team that was based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The team existed from 1940 until 1963, first as an amateur senior ice hockey team (1940–1951), and then as a professional minor league team. The Fly ...

Career

Hansch was a member of the

Edmonton Mercurys The Edmonton Mercurys were a Canadian intermediate-level senior ice hockey team based in Edmonton, Alberta, during the 1940s and 1950s. The team represented the Canada men's national ice hockey team twice, winning the 1950 World Ice Hocke ...

that won a

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have b ...

at the

1952 Winter Olympics The 1952 Winter Olympics, officially known as the VI Olympic Winter Games (; ) and commonly known as Oslo 1952, were a winter multi-sport event held from 14 to 25 February 1952 in Oslo, the capital of Norway. Discussions about Oslo hosting ...

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. He is the only goaltender to wear number "0" at the Olympics. From 1949 to 1984, Hansch served as a firefighter in the Edmonton Fire Department.

Personal life

Hansch and his wife, Bonnie, had three children. His son, Randy Hansch, played in the

Western Hockey League The Western Hockey League (WHL) is a junior ice hockey league based in Western Canada and the Northwestern United States. The WHL is one of three leagues that constitutes the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) as the highest level of junior hocke ...

and was general manager of the

Edmonton Oil Kings The Edmonton Oil Kings are a Canadian junior ice hockey team based in Edmonton, Alberta, that play in the Western Hockey League (WHL). The team, founded in 2006, shares an ownership group with the National Hockey League's Edmonton Oilers. The te ...

References

External links

* 1924 births 2008 deaths 20th-century Canadian sportsmen Canadian ice hockey goaltenders Ice hockey people from Edmonton Ice hockey players at the 1952 Winter Olympics Medalists at the 1952 Winter Olympics Olympic gold medalists for Canada Olympic ice hockey players for Canada Olympic medalists in ice hockey {{Canada-Winter-Olympic-medalist-stub