Each NHL team’s most memorable hockey name
By C.L. Kohuss
Dallas Stars: Darcy Wakaluk
Darcy Wakaluk has been a treasure of a name since I was eight years old. Since the first day of opening Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey and finding out you can choose between goaltender Andy Moog or this guy. You know the choice already.
There was no actual difference between either of them in the game. In fact, there was no difference between any of the players in this game, goalie or forward. Moog, Wakaluk, Brodeur or Hasek, Gretzky or scrubs. One was bound to be a brick wall at least once only to surrender sixteen goals 30 seconds later and fall on the ice in shame. But the fighting. Lord, the fighting.
To this day, there’s still no real reason to love the name “Wakaluk.” Maybe it’s the barnyard animal sound of it, like the thought of ducks wakalucking to the pond or something else totally silly and unnecessary.
He also sported a pretty uh, interesting ‘stache (Google it) while compiling astounding numbers. Astounding in the sense that a career save percentage below .890 would never fly in the AHL these days, much less in the bigs.
To his credit, Wakaluk was a gambler and it’s easy to love gamblers. At least he takes risks. Welp, not against Sergei Federov though.
In more fairness to him, he did score a goal once while playing down in the AHL. That’s something to hang your hat on, right? He even did it before Ron Hextall, who popped his in the NHL in 1987.
Honorable mentions: Radek Faksa, Fabian Brunnstrom, Tony Hrkac, Benoit Hogue, Jamie Langenbrunner and Johnny Oduya