Tony Esposito and Ken Dryden amongst six elite goaltenders honoured with stamps by Canada Post

Stanley Cup, Conn Smythe Trophy, Vezina Trophy, Calder Memorial Trophy . . . Postage Stamp.

With their resumes already filled with hockey’s highest honours, six legendary goalies added yet another accolade to their names when Canada Post unveiled Great Canadian Goalies - a new postage stamp issue at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto on Thursday.

Lorne "Gump" Worsley, Johnny Bower, Tony Esposito, Bernie Parent, Ken Dryden and Martin Brodeur were chosen in a process involving the NHL, Canada Post and the Hall of Fame.

Esposito, who these days is a community ambassador with the Chicago Blackhawks, used to the opportunity to toss some friendly barbs at his older brother Phil Esposito. Phil, who like Tony has won the Stanley Cup, had his number retired and is a Hockey Hall of Fame inductee. Now they both have a stamp (Phil was honoured with a Canada Post stamp in 2002).

"I’ll show him when I get home,” joked the always dapper Esposito. “Now I’m going to go back with the stamp and I’m going to Chicago from here and on Monday I get my new Stanley Cup ring and then I’m gonna go home (to Florida), my brother works for the Tampa Bay Lightning, and I’m gonna show him (and say) we won this ring – what did you win in the Stanley Cup Final?”

The Blackhawks defeated the Lightning this past June in six games to win their third Stanley Cup over the past six seasons.

Esposito, 72, backstopped the Blackhawks for 15 seasons from 1969 to 1984 and won the Vezina Trophy three times (1970, ’72, ’74).  He began his NHL career with the Montreal Canadiens where he played 13 games as rookie in 1968-69 before being claimed on waivers by the Blackhawks.

Looking back at the image used for the oversized rate souvenir sheet where he is pictured making a save, he recalled vividly the details of the play that was captured.

“You can’t see the puck on this but that happened in the Montreal Forum – that save,”  he said. “The puck is rolling toward the corner and it’s on its edge and (in the original picture) you can see the CH on the side.  The shot had deflected off my blocker.”

“It’s really fun to be on a stamp; not too many people can say that.”

Dryden, Esposito’s teammate with Team Canada in the 1972 Summit Series, was also in attendance.  In his prolific career Dryden won the Stanley Cup a whopping six times in just nine seasons between 1971 and 1979.

While his stamp features a head and shoulders image of him fixated on a puck that is just above eye level, it is the souvenir sheet which bears his iconic pose – standing tall in the crease – looking down the ice in what seems to be quiet contemplation, his chin resting on his catcher, his blocker fixed atop his Sherwood goalie stick.

“It’s quite amazing that you get recognized for the image of doing nothing, the others are action poses and mine is an inaction pose,” said the cerebral 68-year-old. “I never knew this when I was playing in Montreal but somebody about two or three years ago told me that there were a number of Quebecers that had a nickname for me when I was playing – they called me Le Berger, The Shepherd – and I never had thought of it that way or imaged that would be a nickname – but that’s a nice thing to be and that’s kind of what you try to be as a goalie.”

Parent and Bower were also on hand while the late Worsley was represented by his wife and children.  Brodeur was attending to his front office duties with the St. Louis Blues but sent a video message.

The picture used for his stamp was originally shot by his late father Denis Brodeur who was a former team photographer for the Montreal Canadiens.

The Great Canadian Goalie series is part of a five-year rollout of special NHL stamps by Canada Post leading up to 2017 when the NHL will celebrate its 100^th anniversary and Canada turns 150.

Mix Design, a Toronto based firm designed the six-stamp Canadian issue.

In 2014 Canada Post released the Original Six Defenceman series.

So can we expect forwards and coaches to round out the collection over the next two years?

Canada Post President and CEO Deepak Chopra isn’t about to let the cat out of the bag.

“I cannot tell you anything about that,” he said with a smile.  “That’s a secret.”

Follow Neil Acharya in Twitter @Neil_Acharya