Didier Pitre | Illegal Curve Hockey

Joe Pelltier over at Greatest Hockey Legends has a number of great bios up on his site. One of which focuses on Didier Pitre, one of the first great French-Canadien hockey players. French Canadiens have a long storied history of producing great hockey talent. The long list begins with Didier Pitre. Pitre, who Hall of Famer Cy Denneny calls "one of the fastest skaters of all time," was nicknamed "Cannonball" because of his dynamic wrist shot. His perfected shot and superior skating made Pitre a hot commodity in hockey's early days when pioneers routinely joined teams for even just one game. That was just how it was done in early frontier hockey.