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Dany Heatley
Daniel "Dany" Heatley (born January 21, 1981, in Freiburg, Germany) is a Canadian professional hockey player.
Heatley played with the University of Wisconsin hockey team, and was drafted by the Atlanta Thrashers second overall in the 2000 NHL Entry Draft after Rick DiPietro. He won the NHL Calder Memorial Trophy for Rookie of the Year after scoring 26 goals and 67 points in 82 games. He was also picked as Most Valuable Player of the 2003 NHL All-Star Game. During that game, he found himself constantly complimented by Eastern Conference teammate Jeremy Roenick, then of the Philadelphia Flyers. Watching Heatley from the bench, the then 33-year-old Roenick said, "Twenty-two years old? You're not supposed to be able to pull moves like that at 22. My goodness."After Heatley scored another goal off a feed from Jaromir Jagr and Olli Jokinen, and noticing Heatley's missing tooth, Roenick said to the young star in relation to his smile, "The good thing is that you're gonna win that truck. The bad thing is you're gonna be smiling all day on TV and I don't really think that's that pretty."
During the 2004-05 NHL lockout, Heatley initially played for the Swiss team SC Bern. He played well, scoring more than a point per game, until being injured in November when he required surgery for a broken orbital bone after being struck in the left eye with a puck. The pupil in his left eye became permanently dilated as a result. He finished the year with the All-Star laden Aq Bars Kazan in the Russian Superleague, joining former Thrashers teammate and friend Ilya Kovalchuk, among others, but had an unimpressive stint. He also played in the 2005 World Championships, but had a disappointing tournament compared to the previous year in Prague, where he was part of the gold medal winning team.
Prior to the return of the NHL in 2005, Heatley asked to be traded from Atlanta. On August 23rd, 2005 he was sent to the Ottawa Senators for established Slovak star Marian Hossa and veteran defenceman Greg de Vries. Heatley made a spectacular start with his new team. On October 5th, 2005, opening night for the 2005-06 NHL season, Daniel Alfredsson and Dany Heatley became the first players to score goals in the 1st official NHL shootout in history when they both scored against the Toronto Maple Leafs goalie Ed Belfour. Their sticks were subsequently sent to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Heatley managed a 22-game scoring streak during the 2005-06 season. Among players with new teams, this was behind only Wayne Gretzky's 23-game streak upon joining the Los Angeles Kings during the 1988-89 NHL season. Heatley's scoring streak has surpassed Marian Hossa's franchise record. The hardest game of the season for Heatley was his first game back at Philips Arena. The Thrashers fans booed his every move, especially when he scored a goal. The game proved to be the hardest loss for the Senators all year, an 8-3 defeat powered by a four-point game for Vyacheslav Kozlov. Thanks to his spectacular start to the season, he was selected to play for Canada at the 2006 Winter Olympics. However, in a disappointing group effort, the team was eliminated in the quarter-finals.
Heatley became the first Senator in franchise history to record 100 points in a season. During the last game of the season, Heatley also became the first Senator in franchise history to reach the 50 goal mark.
Heatley's father, Murray Heatley, also played professional hockey from 1970 to 1984. Dany Heatley's parents are Canadian, but he was born in Germany as his father was then playing in a German hockey league. Murray Heatley also played for the Central Hockey League and World Hockey Association. When Murray Heatley retired from hockey the family settled in Calgary, where Dany was raised. He thus grew up as a Calgary Flames fan.
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