Len Lunde
Encyclopedia
Leonard Melvin Lunde was a professional ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

 player who played 321 games in the National Hockey League
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...

 and 72 games in the World Hockey Association
World Hockey Association
The World Hockey Association was a professional ice hockey league that operated in North America from 1972 to 1979. It was the first major competition for the National Hockey League since the collapse of the Western Hockey League in 1926...

. He played for the Chicago Black Hawks
Chicago Blackhawks
The Chicago Blackhawks are a professional ice hockey team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the Central Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League . They have won four Stanley Cup championships since their founding in 1926, most recently coming in 2009-10...

, Minnesota North Stars
Minnesota North Stars
The Minnesota North Stars were a professional ice hockey team in the National Hockey League for 26 seasons, from 1967 to 1993. The North Stars played their home games at the Met Center in Bloomington, and the team's colors for most of its history were green, yellow, gold and white...

, Vancouver Canucks
Vancouver Canucks
The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver, :British Columbia, Canada. They are members of the Northwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League . The Canucks play their home games at Rogers Arena, formerly known as General Motors Place,...

, Edmonton Oilers
Edmonton Oilers
The Edmonton Oilers are a professional ice hockey team based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. They are members of the Northwest Division in the Western Conference of the National Hockey League ....

, and Detroit Red Wings
Detroit Red Wings
The Detroit Red Wings are a professional ice hockey team based in Detroit, Michigan. They are members of the Central Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League , and are one of the Original Six teams of the NHL, along with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, New York...

.

Lunde was born in Campbell River, British Colubmia, and played junior hockey with the Edmonton Oil Kings of the WCJHL. A prospect of the Detroit Red Wings, he moved up to the Edmonton Flyer of the Western Hockey League, where he scored 39 goals during the 1957-58 season. The following season he debuted in the National Hockey League, playing in 68 games for the Red Wings, and scoring 14 goals and 12 assists.

He was a regular in the Red Wings' lineup though the 1960-61 season, when Detroit reached the Stanley Cup finals, but after spending a majority of the 1961-62 season in the minors was traded to Chicago in June 1962. With the Black Hawks, he notched six goals and 22 assists playing playing on a checking line with Eric Nesterenko
Eric Nesterenko
Eric "Sonja" Nesterenko is a Canadian former professional National Hockey League player from 1951 to 1972, playing centre for the Toronto Maple Leafs until 1956 and for the Chicago Black Hawks thereafter. In 1973–74 he played for the Chicago Cougars of the World Hockey Association, after a year...

 and Ron Murphy.

Beginning in 1963-64, Lunde was chiefly a minor leaguer over the next few seasons. He did play a handful of games for the Hawks, Minnesota North Stars and Vancouver Canucks but saw most of his ice time as an offensive sparkplug in the American Hockey League
American Hockey League
The American Hockey League is a 30-team professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental circuit for the National Hockey League...

, the Western Hockey League
Western Hockey League
The Western Hockey League is a major junior ice hockey league based in Western Canada and the Northwestern United States. The WHL is one of three leagues that constitute the Canadian Hockey League as the highest level of junior hockey in Canada...

 and the Central Hockey League
Central Hockey League
The Central Hockey League is a mid-level professional hockey league, owned by Global Entertainment Corporation. Its current champions are the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs, which defeated the Colorado Eagles four games to three in the 2011 playoffs....

.

His best year was 1964-65 when he scored 50 goals for the AHL's Buffalo Bisons
Buffalo Bisons (AHL)
The Buffalo Bisons were an American Hockey League ice hockey franchise that played from 1940 to 1970 in Buffalo, New York. They replaced the original Buffalo Bisons hockey team, which left the area in 1936 after its arena collapsed...

 and was voted on to the league's first all-star team.

His last full season was 1973-74 with the Edmonton Oilers of the World Hockey Association
World Hockey Association
The World Hockey Association was a professional ice hockey league that operated in North America from 1972 to 1979. It was the first major competition for the National Hockey League since the collapse of the Western Hockey League in 1926...

, where he scored 26 goals and added 22 assists for 48 points.

He also played in Finland with Ilves
Ilves
Ilves is a Finnish sports club nowadays mostly known for their youth work. The ice hockey team plays in the SM-liiga at the Tampereen jäähalli in Hakametsä...

 in 1971–1972 and was head coach of the Finnish national team in World Championships 1973 in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. Lunde had initially retired in 1972 before playing for Edmonton Oilers. Lunde re-retired in 1974, but made a one-game return in 1979, when he played for Mora IK
Mora IK
Mora Ishockeyklubb is a Swedish professional ice hockey club from Mora, Sweden. They are currently playing in the second highest league in Sweden, HockeyAllsvenskan...

.

Overall, Lunde scored 39 goals and 83 assists, and recorded 75 penalty minutes in 321 NHL games. He also scored three goals and two assists in 20 playoff games.

Lunde was hired as a European scout of the Edmonton Oilers on August 10, 1979.

Lunde died on November 22, 2010, of a heart condition in Edmonton
Edmonton
Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...

, Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

.

External links

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