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Charlie Burns
Charlieburns
Position Centre
Shot Left
Height
Weight
5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)
170 lb (77 kg)
Teams Detroit Red Wings
Boston Bruins
Oakland Seals
Pittsburgh Penguins
Minnesota North Stars
Nationality Flag of the United States American
Born February 14, 1936,
Detroit, MI, US
Died November 5, 2021 (aged 85),
Wallingford, Connecticut, U.S.
Pro Career 1952 – 1974


Charles "Charlie" Frederick Burns (February 14, 1936 – November 5, 2021) was an American-born Canadian former professional ice hockeyforward who played 749 games in the National Hockey League. He played for the Detroit Red Wings, Boston Bruins, Oakland Seals, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Minnesota North Stars. Burns was mainly known for being an excellent skater, playmaker and defensive player who performed checking and penalty-killing. His trademark was the heavily padded helmet that he was forced to wear after suffering a serious head injury while playing junior hockey in 1954–55. In 1959, he was the only US-born player in the NHL. Although Burns was born in Detroit, Michigan, his family moved to Toronto, Ontario, when he was a child.[1] Burns chose Canadian citizenship when he turned 21[2] and later played for the 1958 world champion Whitby Dunlops. Burns had three spells as a player-coach, twice with the San Francisco Seals (1965–66 & 1966–67) and one with the Minnesota North Stars (1969–70). He coached the Stars again in 1974–75 after his retirement. Curiously, all of these were mid-season assignments. He later coached youth hockey for the Wonderland Wizards of Bridgeport, Connecticut in his spare time.[3]

Career statistics[]

Regular season and playoffs[]

Medal record
Regular season Playoffs
Season Team League GP G A Pts PIM GP G A Pts PIM
1952–53 Toronto Marlboros OHA-Jr 33 5 7 12 17
1953–54 Toronto Marlboros OHA-Jr 59 17 14 31 45
1954–55 Toronto Marlboros OHA-Jr 3 0 0 0 0
1955–56 Toronto Marlboros OHA-Jr 20 5 8 13 0
1956–57 Whitby Dunlops OHA-Sr 40 16 25 41 29
1957–58 Whitby Dunlops OHA-Sr 31 24 28 52 32
1958–59 Detroit Red Wings NHL 70 9 11 20 32
1959–60 Boston Bruins NHL 62 10 17 27 46
1960–61 Boston Bruins NHL 62 15 26 41 16
1960–61 Kingston Frontenacs EPHL 8 3 6 9 4
1961–62 Boston Bruins NHL 70 11 17 28 43
1962–63 Boston Bruins NHL 68 12 10 22 13
1963–64 San Francisco Seals WHL 68 33 36 69 27 11 1 3 4 2
1964–65 San Francisco Seals WHL 51 27 36 63 19
1965–66 San Francisco Seals WHL 40 10 35 45 26 7 1 5 6 0
1966–67 California Seals WHL 71 22 38 60 29 6 0 0 0 9
1967–68 Oakland Seals NHL 73 9 26 35 20
1968–69 Pittsburgh Penguins NHL 76 13 38 51 22
1969–70 Minnesota North Stars NHL 50 3 13 16 10 6 1 0 1 2
1970–71 Minnesota North Stars NHL 76 9 19 28 13 12 3 3 6 2
1971–72 Minnesota North Stars NHL 77 11 14 25 24 7 1 1 2 2
1972–73 Minnesota North Stars NHL 65 4 7 11 13 6 0 0 0 0
1973–74 New Haven Nighthawks AHL 64 10 19 29 73 10 1 3 4 16
NHL Totals 749 106 198 304 252 31 5 4 9 6

Coaching record[]

Team Year Regular season Post season
G W L T Pct Finish G W L Result
MIN 1969–70 44 10 22 12 0.364 3rd in West 6 2 4 Lost in quarter-finals
MIN 1974–75 42 12 28 2 0.310 4th in Smythe Did not qualify
Total 86 22 50 14 .204 - 6 2 4 1 playoff appearance

References[]

  1. Shorthanded: The Untold Story of the Seals: Hockey's Most Colorful Team (p. 47), by Brad Kurzberg, AuthorHouse (2006), <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css" />ISBN 1425910289
  2. "Sport: The Pappy Line". Time. March 2, 1959.
  3. Kurzberg, p.48

External links[]

Preceded by
Wren Blair
Jack Gordon
Head coach of the Minnesota North Stars
1969–70
1975
Succeeded by
Jack Gordon
Ted Harris
This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Charlie Burns. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Ice Hockey Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA).


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