Len Lunde

Who was Len Lunde?

Leonard Melvin Lunde was a professional ice hockey player who played 321 games in the National Hockey League and 72 games in the World Hockey Association. He played for the Chicago Black Hawks, Minnesota North Stars, Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers, and Detroit Red Wings.

Lunde was born in Campbell River, British Columbia, 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 on a checking line with Eric Nesterenko 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, the Western Hockey League and the Central Hockey League.