Cleon Daskalakis

Cleon Daskalakis has a special connection with Boston. He was born there, raised there, played NCAA all star hockey at Boston University and later signed and played with the Boston Bruins. 

Every hometown kids dream come true, right?. Well, almost.

Cleon's NHL stint was short. He played in 12 games over 3 years. Despite a save percentage of just .839 and a GAA of 4.86, he managed to post a 3-4-1 record, but was never able to stick in Boston. Instead, he spent most of his career in the American Hockey League with a variety of farm teams.

An interesting story about Cleon is told by Wayne Gretzky in The Great One's autobiography.

Apparently Cleon told Glen Sather that "When Gretzky scores his first goal against me tonight, I'd sure like to have an autographed picture." Not if, but when!

Wayne goes on to say in his book "I guess the kid really wanted that picture because I scored on him in the first period. I autographed the puck for him and sent it to his locker room."

Just goes to show even NHL players are big fans of Gretzky.

Gretzky also jokingly adds "I always hoped they'd trade him to the Calgary Flames so I could sign a lot of pucks for him!"

Nowadays Daskalakis is president of Celebrity Marketing, Inc., a sports marketing and event production firm that he founded in 1996. He also does volunteer work at the New England Sports Museum.