John William Bower (né Kiszkan;[1] November 8, 1924 – December 26, 2017)[2] nicknamed "The China Wall", was a Canadian ice hockey goaltender and inductee to the Hockey Hall of Fame, who won four Stanley Cups during his career with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

In 1945, he turned professional in the American Hockey League (AHL), where he spent eleven seasons playing mostly for the Cleveland Barons in the late 1940s and 1950s.

[7] Biographer Dan Robson was also told that Barons management may have asked him to, to avoid the post-war discrimination against eastern Europeans,[7] while other sources claim that it was because sports writers often misspelled "Kiszkan".

[14] In the AHL, he proved himself the star goaltender of the circuit, winning numerous awards and leading his teams to three Calder Cup championships.

The following season Worsley won back the starting job for the Rangers, and Bower returned to the minor leagues.

[16] He played there for four more years with three teams, the Providence Reds, the Vancouver Canucks and the Cleveland Barons, and was called up briefly by the Rangers in 1954–55 and 1956–57.

In the 1958 Inter-League draft he was claimed by the Toronto Maple Leafs, who were an up-and-coming team of young star players at the time.

Punch Imlach, whom the Maple Leafs had recently hired, visited Bower and convinced him to give the NHL one more try, as he considered him "the most remarkable — and maybe the best — athlete in the world.

He was known for his hard-nosed, scrappy playing style and helped the Leafs win another Stanley Cup in 1967, as part of a tandem with another Hall of Famer, Terry Sawchuk.

On April 6, 1969, at the age of 44 years, 4 months, and 29 days, Bower became the oldest goaltender to play in a Stanley Cup playoff game, a distinction previously held by Lester Patrick.

At the time, he was the oldest full-time player to participate in an NHL game, and remains the second-oldest goaltender (45 years, 1 month, 2 days), behind only Maurice Roberts; he was surpassed as oldest full-time player by Gordie Howe, Chris Chelios, and Jaromír Jágr.

[17] Coach Punch Imlach once told Bower, after seeing a purported birth certificate, "If you were born in this day here that you're telling me, you had to be overseas with the First Division, in 1939, when you were 13.

On October 7, 2010, Bower opened the first game of the regular season for the Toronto Maple Leafs at Air Canada Centre by walking out on an implied "bridge over water" with his goalie stick.

[38] On January 3, the Maple Leafs hosted a public celebration of Bower's life at the Air Canada Centre.