The Triple Gold Club is the group of ice hockey players and coaches who have won an Olympic Games gold medal, a World Championship gold medal, and the Stanley Cup, the championship trophy of the National Hockey League (NHL). The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) considers them to be "the three most important championships available to the sport".
Tomas Jonsson, Mats Näslund and Håkan Loob became the first members on 27 February 1994 when Sweden won the gold medal at the 1994 Winter Olympics. The term first entered popular use following the 2002 Winter Olympics, which saw the addition of the first Canadian members. On 8 May 2007, the IIHF announced it would formalize the club and recognize the players who had won the three championships. The ceremony was to take place in Canada during the 2008 World Championship but it was later changed to occur during the inaugural Victoria Cup, in September 2008. Ultimately, the induction ceremony was held, with all 22 members at the time present, at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, on 22 February 2010.
There are twenty-five player members of the Triple Gold Club—nine Swedes, eight Canadians, six Russians, and two Czechs. Ten of the players are defencemen and the remaining players are forwards; no goaltenders have won all three championships. Measuring from the time of their first victory of one of the three championships, Swedes Niklas Kronwall, Mikael Samuelsson and Henrik Zetterberg needed the least amount of time to join the club, winning the Olympics and World Championships in 2006 and the Stanley Cup in 2008 (as members of the Detroit Red Wings). In contrast, it took Russian Viacheslav Fetisov 19 years from his first victory to become a member. Jonathan Toews is the youngest player to accomplish the feat, winning the third championship (the Stanley Cup) at the age of 22 years, 42 days; Fetisov was the oldest, winning the Stanley Cup at 39 years, 48 days. Fetisov, his countryman Igor Larionov, and Swede Peter Forsberg are the only players to have won each of the three championships more than once. Eight members of the Triple Gold Club have won the Stanley Cup as part of the Detroit Red Wings, more than any other NHL team.
Mike Babcock became the first coach to win all three components of the Triple Gold Club on 28 February 2010 when he led Canada to a gold medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics. He won the World Championship in 2004 and coached the Red Wings to a Stanley Cup win in 2008.
Read more about Triple Gold Club: Components, Members
Famous quotes containing the words triple, gold and/or club:
“Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O’er all the Italian fields where still doth sway
The triple tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery...”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 8:12-14.
“Women ... are completely alone, though they were born and bred upon this soil, as if they belonged to another class in creation.”
—“Jennie June” Croly 1829–1901, U.S. founder of the woman’s club movement, journalist, author, editor. F, Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly Mirror of Fashions, pp. 363-4 (December 1870)