James Creighton

James Creighton

James George Aylwin Creighton , CMG , KC ( June 12, 1850 in Halifax , Nova Scotia , † June 27, 1930 in Ottawa , Ontario ) was a Canadian lawyer, engineer, journalist and athlete. He is considered to be the organizer of the first indoor ice hockey game , which took place at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal in 1875 . He popularized ice hockey in Montreal and later in Ontario. For this reason he is known as the "father of ice hockey". He also served as a legal advisor to the Canadian Senate for 48 years .

biography

Creighton attended Halifax Grammar School until the age of 14, then graduated from the University of King's College in Halifax. After earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1868 , he studied with Sandford Fleming . The chief engineer of the Intercolonial Railway hired him to help with surveying work in Nova Scotia. In 1872 Creighton moved to Montreal and was involved as an engineer in the expansion of the Lachine Canal and other public works. The British Institution of Civil Engineers accepted him as a member in 1876. In the same year Creighton began studying Common Law at McGill University . In 1880 he graduated and received his patent as a lawyer in the province of Québec . Two years later he became a partner in the Montreal law firm of Barnard, Beauchamp, Creighton, and Doucet .

From 1877 to 1881 Creighton was also active as a journalist. He has written articles for the Montreal Gazette , Scribner's Magazine, and various other publications. He was also the correspondent for the Gazette in the Press Gallery of the Canadian House of Commons . Because of his legal training and his experience with parliamentary operations, he was appointed legal advisor to the Canadian Senate in March 1882 . He held this position for 48 years. During this time he was instrumental in drafting important laws. He also continued to write articles for Scribner's Magazine. For his services he received the rank of Crown Attorney and in 1913 the title Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George .

Creighton married Eleanor Platt from Montreal in 1878, the couple remained childless. He died in 1930 at the age of 80 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Beechwood Cemetery. Former Canadian Prime Minister Robert Borden was among the mourners at his funeral .

Role in the development of ice hockey

After Creighton moved from Halifax to Montreal, he occasionally acted as a figure skating referee at the Victoria Skating Rink , the hall of the Victoria Skating Club . In the winter of 1875 he began organizing informal meetings where club members and his friends from the University of Shinny played, which were usually played outdoors with a variable number of participants and had no set of rules. On March 3, 1875, the first ice hockey game in a hall took place here on his initiative . Two teams with nine players each were involved. Creighton was the captain of the victorious team that beat Charles Torrance's team 2-1. Emanuel M. Orlick, sports director of McGill University, wrote in the Gazette in 1943 that "it was this demonstration that sparked interest throughout the city, led to the formation of more ice hockey teams and the rapid development of the game." Creighton was later also the captain of the first known organized ice hockey club, the McGill University Club .

Shinny, which some historians believe was derived from the Scottish game Shinty , Creighton had met in Halifax when he was young. Ice hockey also has its roots in lacrosse , which originates from the North American natives, in English field hockey , in Irish hurling and in northern European bandy . Creighton may be the person who published the first ice hockey rules in the Gazette on February 2, 1877 (even if they differed only slightly from previously published field hockey rules).

When Creighton lived and worked in Ottawa, he kept an interest in ice hockey. With young MPs and government employees, he founded a team called Rideau Hall Rebels in 1884 , named after Rideau Hall , the residence of the Governor General of Canada . This team played numerous games in and around the capital and achieved great fame. Creighton befriended William and Arthur Stanley, the sons of then Governor General Frederick Stanley . The team occasionally traveled in the Governor General's private railroad car to various cities in southern Ontario, where ice hockey was widely known. Lord Stanley founded the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup in 1892 , now known as the Stanley Cup .

Honors

Creighton was inducted into the Nova Scotia Sports Hall of Fame in 1993 and is considered the "father of ice hockey", even if he never claimed that honor for himself. Another award for Creighton took place on May 22, 2008: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled a plaque at the Center Bell , the home stadium of the Canadiens de Montréal near the former location of the Victoria Skating Rink . The Society for International Hockey Research ran a public campaign in 2008-09 to erect a memorial at Creighton's grave site. Well-known donors included the crew of the warship HMCS Vancouver and Eugene Melnyk and Harley Hotchkiss, the owners of the Ottawa Senators and the Calgary Flames, respectively . A gravestone and plaque were unveiled in a ceremony in Beechwood Cemetery on October 24, 2009, in the presence of Prime Minister Harper.

Web links

Commons : James Creighton  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• James Creighton . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ James Creighton. Nova Scotia Sports Hall of Fame, accessed August 31, 2013 . 
2. ↑ 'Father' of ice hockey honored. Toronto Star , May 23, 2008, accessed August 31, 2013 . 
3. ↑ Hockey's 'founding father' honored at gravesite. (No longer available online.) Calgary Herald, October 25, 2009, archived from the original on September 28, 2013 ; accessed on August 31, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ^ Creighton Monument Unveiling. Society for International Hockey Research, October 24, 2009, accessed August 31, 2013 .