Teemu Selanne raced, and still races, rally cars. Dave Semenko boxed “The Greatest” in the ring, and Donald Brashear took his fighting skills into the Octagon.
Those three players are multi-sport athletes. And, contrary to popular belief, there are more than a handful of them who have played professional hockey. While not all of them participated in combat or auto sports, they all left an impact on the leagues they participated in. Here are a few of them.
Teemu Selanne
When Teemu Selanne wasn’t busy shooting down his own glove or golfing for hockey, the “Finnish Flash” turned into “Teddy Flash” and raced in the World Rally Championship (WRC). Using an alias of “Teukka Salama” (translates to Teddy Flash) so the NHL and his teams wouldn’t know he was racing, Selanne raced his way to a 33rd-place finish in the 1997 Finnish Rally in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo, and a 24th place finish in the 1998 Finnish Rally in a specialized Toyota Corolla. While his official results only span two events, he was also planning to race in the 1999 Finnish Rally. However, while practicing on a course for the rally, Selanne forgot there was another car behind him, turned around after missing a turn, and hit it at a speed of around 80 mph. Both he and the driver of the other car would be OK. But who did he hit? The former Finnish Ice Hockey Federation president and current day IIHF vice president, Kalervo Kummola.
Due to this incident, Selanne’s alias was found out and his plan of putting another WRC rally on his resume was scrapped. Officially, he was a non-starter that year. To this day, Selanne tries to drive in racing events as much as he can.
Dave Semenko
An Edmonton Oilers icon, Dave Semenko stepped into the ring to take on Muhammed Ali in an exhibition boxing match. The fight was a three-round exhibition and ended in a draw, but it did pit Semenko, known as “Wayne Gretzky’s bodyguard,” against the heavyweight champion and one of the biggest names in sports history.
In reality, the outcome of the match didn’t mean anything. Ali was two years removed from his last professional match, wasn’t giving even close to 100%, and was playing things up for the crowd. Semenko was in the best shape of his life, but also wasn’t giving 100%. However, according to the Associated Press, Ali started swinging in the final minute: “It wasn’t until the last minute of the third round that Ali threw a flurry of punches that caught the Oiler winger off guard.” With 6,000 people in attendance, all the proceeds from the event went to charity.
Although Semenko isn’t a traditional multi-sport athlete like everyone else on this list, fighting Muhammed Ali deserves a mention.
Donald Brashear
Donald Brashear is known as one of the toughest guys to ever step onto the ice. With over 100 hockey fights to his name (and many wins), it would seem only natural for Brashear to also have a try at MMA.
In the 2009-10 NHL season, the Rangers deemed Brashear’s skills diminished and sent him to the AHL. Instead of sticking around in the minors, Brashear left the major professional game behind (except for 12 SHL games in 2014-15) in favor of the low-level Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey. For those who don’t know, the LNAH has built a reputation of being a fight-happy league.
Taking his fighting out of the rink, Brashear signed a deal in 2011 with Canada’s Ringside promotion to fight in Ringside 11 that June against Martin Trempe, a former minor league hockey player. However, Trempe suffered an injury and was forced to sit out. Mathieu Bergeron, who outweighed Brashear 262 lbs to 238 lbs, replaced him. That advantage didn’t matter; Brashear won in 21 seconds via TKO.
Lionel Conacher and Carl Voss
Conacher and Voss both played in the NHL during its early days in the 1920s and ’30s. They are also the only two players to have their name engraved on both the Stanley Cup and Canadian Football’s Grey Cup as players.
Conacher had a prolific career in hockey, lacrosse, and football, and was also a semi-pro baseball player. He was named Canada’s top male athlete of the half-century in 1950 and is in the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1994. To add to all of this, he was elected to the Ontario Legislature in 1937 and the Canadian Parliament in 1949, where he served until his death in 1954. His NHL career consisted of two Stanley Cup victories in 1934 and 1935 with the Chicago Black Hawks and Montreal Maroons, respectively, and two second-place finishes in Hart Trophy voting. He won the Grey Cup, which was an amateur trophy in its early days, in 1921 with the Toronto Argonauts, a rugby football team, against the Edmonton Eskimos.
Voss won the Stanley Cup in 1938 with the Black Hawks and the Grey Cup in 1924 with the Queen’s Golden Gaels. While he didn’t have quite the hockey career that Conacher had, his lasting impact was far greater. After retiring, he spent the rest of his career fixing issues with officiating in the NHL, minor professional leagues, and college leagues. Voss was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1974.
Although he didn’t play football, Wayne Gretzky’s name is also on the Grey Cup for being a minority owner of the Argonauts in 1991.
Vsevolod Bobrov
If you pay any attention to the Kontinental Hockey League in Russia, you’d notice that one of the divisions is named the Bobrov Division, named after Vsevolod Bobrov. Bobrov, one of the best Russian athletes ever, played hockey for the Soviet national team and won gold medals and championships in several tournaments, including the 1956 Olympics and multiple IIHF World Championships. After his playing career, he coached the USSR in the 1972 Summit Series and several World Championships.
Hockey was actually Bobrov’s second sport. He played club and international soccer in and for the Soviet Union. He scored 97 goals in 116 games in the Soviet Championship, and also took part in the 1952 Summer Olympics for the USSR national team, but failed to win a medal.
Bobrov was inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame in 1997.
Originally published on GNGHockey.com