Curtis Joseph

Curtis was born April 29, 1967 in Keswick, Ontario. His biological parents are Wendy Munro and Curtis Knickle. His adoptive parents are Harold and Jeanne Joseph. Four days after his birth, unwed Wendy Munro left Curtis to be taken care of by a Nurse, Jeanne Joseph and her husband Harold Joseph. As a youngster, he was known as Curtis Joseph, but his legal name was Curtis Munro. He stayed a post graduate year at a Saskatchewan prep School because he hadn't attracted the attention of any NHL teams yet and it paid off as he got a college scholarship to Wisconsin. At Wisconsin, he was the Western Collegiate Hockey Association's 1988-89: MVP, Rookie of the Year, and 1st Team All-Star in his freshman year. He signed with the St. Louis Blues, and at the same time changed his name to Curtis Joseph legally.

Curtis is actively involved in charity. He runs an annual golf tournament. As part of his contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs, he asked that he be granted a private box, valued at $200,000. Wearing a hard hat, he went into the under construction Air Canada Centre to pick out the exact location. The purpose of this box is to allow under privileged or seriously ill kids to watch hockey games at no price. The project is called "Cujo's Kids", similar to what Curtis was doing in Edmonton, though that was called "Cujo's Cloud Nine". Some people ask him if it was because of his childhood that he does this. He admits that he was very lucky as a child to be raised by loving parents.

Another trait of Cutris would be that he is imperfect. As a child when he played nets for his junior team, he could not skate and always fell down. You would think this would affect Joseph's play in a bad way, but falling down is half of what a goaltender does while playing goal. This inability to skate, resulted in Joseph's own style of goaltending.

Curtis Joseph to me is a role model. Although he had a very tough childhood, he never complained and turned out to be one of the best goaltenders in the National Hockey Legue at one time. Instead of complaining, he discovered his own charity to help underprivlidged children.

In conclusion, Curtis Joseph is a very generous and determined man. I have learned much more about him, and he will inspire me to be a better person in my life.