Frank Patrick

Frank Patrick
Hockey Hall of Fame , 1950
Date of birth	December 21, 1885
place of birth	Ottawa , Ontario , Canada
date of death	June 29, 1960
position	defender
Career stations
1901-1905	Westmount Academy
1905-1907	McGill Redmen
1907-1908	Montreal Victorias
1908-1909	Nelson Hockey Club
1909-1910	Renfrew Hockey Club
1910-1911	Nelson Hockey Club
1911-1918	Vancouver Millionaires
1922-1924	Vancouver Maroons

Frank Patrick (born December 21, 1885 in Ottawa , Ontario ; † June 29, 1960 ) was a Canadian ice hockey player , coach and functionary , and referee . His older brother Lester was also a professional ice hockey player. Due to numerous rule changes that are still in use today, Frank Patrick has been referred to as the brain of modern hockey .

Career

Frank Patrick began his career as an ice hockey player with the amateur teams of the Westmount Academy and McGill Redmen, for which he was active from 1901 to 1907 - during this period he also worked as a referee in the Montreal Senior Hockey League, where he initiated for the first time at the age of 20 Stanley Cup game. He then moved to the Montreal Victorias in the Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association for a year . After a season at Nelson Hockey Club, the attacker made his professional ice hockey debut for the Renfrew Hockey Club of the National Hockey Association in the 1909-10 season . He then returned to Nelson for another year before joining the Vancouver Millionaires in 1911 with his brother Lester . With the financial resources they had received from the sale of the family's own lumberjack business, the Patrick brothers built a 10,000-seat ice hockey arena in Vancouver , which at the time was the largest building in Canada. It also funded the construction of a 4,200-seater arena in also in British Columbia lying Victoria .

With the West Coast, the Patricks wanted to conquer a hitherto untapped ice hockey market and founded the professional Pacific Coast Hockey Association , which began playing in the 1911/12 season. In this Frank Patrick served as both league president and manager of the Vancouver Millionaires, for which he played in the PCHA himself. With the British Columbia team , he won the prestigious Stanley Cup in 1915 for the first and only time in his career. At the time, Frank Patrick was considered one of the best ice hockey defenders in the world. In the PCHA, the Patrick brothers, especially Frank, introduced numerous rule changes that are still used today in the National Hockey League and other sports leagues. For example, playoffs were introduced in the PCHA for the first time, the players wore jersey numbers for better differentiation, the penalty shot was introduced, they introduced the so-called blue lines and for the first time also gave scorer points to the providers of the goals. Today there are still 22 of these changes in the rules of modern ice hockey.

After a two-year hiatus, the Canadian returned as a coach to the Vancouver Millionaires in 1920 and was again on the ice from 1922 to 1924 as player-coach for the PCHA team, which has now been renamed Vancouver Maroons. With the Maroons he took part in the Western Canada Hockey League from 1924 to 1926 after the PCHA was dissolved for financial reasons. By selling six Maroons players, the Patricks managed to raise $ 250,000 to offset the losses. After several years outside the active day-to-day business of professional ice hockey, Frank Patrick became Managing Director of the NHL in 1933. He then worked from 1934 to 1936 as head coach for the Boston Bruins , with whom he failed twice in the first playoff round. From 1939 to 1941 Patrick was responsible for the finances of the Montréal Canadiens , but had to leave the club for health reasons. For his services to ice hockey, he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1950. Two years later, he died of a heart attack at the age of 74 .

Achievements and Awards

• 1915 Stanley Cup win with the Vancouver Millionaires
• 1958 Admission to the Hockey Hall of Fame (as a functionary)

Web links

• Frank Patrick at hockeydb.com (English)
• Frank Patrick in the database of the Hockey Hall of Fame (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Montreal Gazette