Big Red hockey legend and Hall of Famer Montreal Canadiens goalie Ken Dryden ’69 has lost his previously considered safe House of Commons seat in Toronto. The loss comes as Tory Prime Minister Stephen Harper wins the majority government he was asking for and Dryden’s Liberal Party, led by Harvard carpetbagger Michael Ignatieff, falls to a distant third place in the Canadian Parliament. Dryden’s seat, formerly considered so safe that it was part of the Liberals’ “Fortress Toronto,” was won by Conservative challenger Mark Adler, the first Tory to win the seat since 1962.
Dryden earned a BA in history from Cornell, all while allowing only 1.59 goals per game and leading the Big Red to three Frozen Four appearances and one NCAA title. He is only one of two Big Red athletes to have his number retired, as his legendary number one jersey sits atop Lynah’s rafters. His political career followed his success in sports writing, when he ran for the York Centre riding in 2004.
Dryden’s loss comes after a hard fought campaign and is likely more indicative of national trends towards both the Tories and the New Democrats, who will replace the Liberals as the second largest party in the House of Commons. Ignatieff, the Liberal leader who also lost his own Toronto riding tonight, was widely unpopular. The Tories sought to paint Ignatieff as a carpetbagger and clearly succeeded, thanks to Ignatieff’s own 2005 statements that he was only leaving a cushy Harvard professorship to run for a Commons seat in his native Canada, as part of his long held ambition to be PM, and that the United States was still “his country.”
