Gary Roberts

Gary Roberts (born May 23, 1966) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player who played 21 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Calgary Flames, Carolina Hurricanes, Toronto Maple Leafs, Florida Panthers, Pittsburgh Penguins and Tampa Bay Lightning, finishing with 1,224 games, 438 goals and 910 points. Born in Toronto and raised in Whitby, he played minor hockey in the winter and box lacrosse in the summer with his best friend Joe Nieuwendyk. He played Junior A lacrosse for the Whitby Warriors in the mid-1980s, winning the Minto Cup as Canadian junior champion, and he was also on a Memorial Cup winning junior hockey team. A first round pick of the Flames in 1984, he was on Calgary's 1989 Stanley Cup team, won the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy in 1996 after a serious neck injury, and later became a high performance trainer. In 2004, during the NHL lockout, the Calgary Roughnecks of the National Lacrosse League drafted him in the sixth round, partly as a public relations stunt, and he declined the chance to play professional lacrosse.