The Turner Cup playoffs begin Tuesday. Ten teams will vie for a chance to hold the 3-foot trophy named for Joe Turner.
Joe who?The IHL's championship cup is actually named for a Windsor, Ontario, boy who only played one game in the big leagues.
Joe Turner was called up to tend goal for the Detroit Red Wings in the days before masks and was thought by most to have a stellar career ahead of him because of his quick reflexes and courage in the net. He'd led the Red Wings' top farm club, the Indianapolis Capitals, to the league championship that year -- 1942.
Just after the final game, the Canadian enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight in World War II. He was sent to Europe, where he fought for two years. Then on Dec. 13, 1944, he was killed by a German artillery while serving as an infantry corporal. He was one of 50,000 Canadians to die in World War II.
He was well-known in the community, and many in the area where the IHL was born believed he would have been the goalie for the Red Wings when they won the Stanley Cup in 1943. The league was formed for returning war veterans, and league officials decided to name their championship cup after Turner that first year.