I think NHL players can cross over easier to other sports. Take Chara, he is trained as a Greco-Roman wrestler by his father, Zdeněk, who is a former elite-level Greco-Roman wrestler who once represented Czechoslovakia in the Olympics. Not many athletes in the world train as hard as he did. The All-Star defenseman rides the Tour de France course each summer. Cycling has been a part of my training for as long as I can remember and eventually I talked a couple friends into riding some stages of the
Tour de France. We pick either the Alps or the
Pyrenees. We'll do five, six or seven stages. After we ride each one, we wait for the racers to come.
Red Storey, Toronto Argonauts.
He was on the team for six seasons from 1936 to 1941, winning the
Grey Cup in 1937 and 1938. During the 1938 Grey Cup game, Storey scored three touchdowns in twelve minutes versus Winnipeg, all in the fourth quarter, to give the Argos the victory. He was forced to retire after suffering a knee injury.
At the same time he was playing football, Storey was also playing competitive lacrosse. In the
Ontario Lacrosse Association, he played for Orillia and was an all-star with the Hamilton Tigers in 1941.
Storey was also a prominent senior men's baseball player and received an offer from the
Philadelphia Athletics of the American League.
As a defenceman, he played hockey in
New Jersey for the
River Vale Skeeters in 1941. Storey then moved to
Montreal and joined the Montreal Royals late in the 1941–42 season.
He played lacrosse for Lachine in 1942 and 1943. He later joined the Montreal Canadiens lacrosse team, and was playing there in 1946.
By the mid-1940s, Storey—in addition to his regular job—was officiating football, lacrosse, and hockey games. He officiated for 12 years in the precursor to the
Canadian Football League.
Anders Lee - New York Islanders
In 2009, he was an
All-State quarterback at Edina High School in Minnesota, and the year prior was an All-State pitcher for the school's baseball team. However, that's not all. Lee is also a former long-track speed skating national champion - not a bad skill for a hockey player - and even held a record in the sport.
Despite the pressure and multiple offers to play Division I football, Lee decided to attend the University of Notre Dame to play hockey and, well, the rest is history.
Jarome Iginla - Colorado Avalanche
Colorado Avalanche forward and veteran of 18 seasons,
Jarome Iginla, is one of the greatest goal-scorers the game has ever known. However, there was a time Iginla also excelled at baseball, a sport he loved growing up. He had brief stints as pitcher and shortstop, but eventually settled into the backstop role and became the starting catcher on Canada's National Junior team in his early teens. He was eventually introduced to hockey by his grandfather.
Teemu Selanne – World Rally Championship
The 'Finnish Flash' has always had a love for fast cars, so it was natural that he took up the sport during his downtime in the NHL. While a member of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, Selanne – sorry, Salama – raced under the pseudonym 'Teukka Salama' (which translates to 'Teddy Flash' in English) at the 1997 and 1998 editions of the World Rally Championship event in Finland, with a career-best finish of 24th in 1998. The crazy thing about it is that rally racing is among the most physically demanding and challenging forms of motorsport – it's not something you just jump into and can be good at right away, whether you're the driver or in-car spotter. He's just THAT good at everything he does.
Lionel Conacher – Just about everything
Few athletes can say they had as rounded of a career as Conacher, a champion in nearly every sport he took part in. As a teenager, Conacher won multiple boxing and wrestling championships, even fighting against legendary heavyweight boxer Jack Dempsey. Later, he went on to help the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team win the 1926 International League title, and even won a lacrosse championship in a league run by NHL owners, the International Professional Lacrosse League. But Conacher will be forever remembered as being the first player to win the Stanley Cup and the Grey Cup during his career (Carl Voss would go on to do so as well). In 1921, Conacher was a member of the Toronto Argonauts' championship team before winning the Stanley Cup twice with Chicago and the Montreal Maroons. By the end of his career, Conacher was named Canada's greatest male athlete of the half-century in 1950 and was inducted into multiple halls of fame, including the Hockey Hall of Fame. To top it off, Conacher dabbled in a career in politics before passing away during a softball game between MPs and parliamentary media members.