Lionel Conacher

Lionel Conacher
Hockey Hall of Fame , 1994
Date of birth	May 24, 1902
place of birth	Toronto , Ontario , Canada
date of death	May 26, 1954
Place of death	Ottawa , Ontario , Canada
Nickname	The big train
size	188 cm
Weight	88 kg
position	defender
Shot hand	Left
Career stations
1916-1917	Toronto Century Rovers
1917-1918	Toronto Aura Lee
1918-1919	Parkdale Canoe Club
1919-1920	Toronto Canoe Club
1920-1922	Toronto Aura Lee
1922-1923	North Toronto AA
1923-1925	Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets
1925-1926	Pittsburgh Pirates
1926-1930	New York Americans
1930-1933	Montreal Maroons
1933-1934	Chicago Black Hawks
1934-1937	Montreal Maroons

Lionel Joseph Pretoria "The Big Train" Conacher (born May 24, 1902 in Toronto , Ontario ; † May 26, 1954 in Ottawa , Ontario) was a Canadian ice hockey player and coach who worked for the Pittsburgh Pirates , New York from 1923 to 1937 Americans , Montreal Maroons and Chicago Black Hawks played in the National Hockey League on the position of defender . He also played baseball , lacrosse and Canadian football . In 1950 he was voted Canada's Athlete of the First Half of the 20th Century.

Career

At the beginning of the 20th century it was nothing unusual for athletes to be active and successful in different sports. Hardly anyone else can measure their versatility and the variety of successes with Lionel Conacher, who was often referred to as the "Big Train" .

It wasn't until he was 16 that Conacher learned to skate, but he quickly made up for it. He played for the Toronto Century Rovers and the Aura Lee Athletic Club before moving to the Toronto Canoe Club . With this team, which also included Billy Burch and Roy Worters , he first became champions of the Ontario Hockey Association and won the Memorial Cup in 1920 with his team . In the same year he hit the decisive home run with which his team won the baseball championship. After the game, he sat in a taxi to support his lacrosse team. The team were 3-0 behind on arrival and Conacher turned the game around with four goals. 1921 helped the Toronto Argonauts win the Gray Cup with two touchdowns . He was also a Canadian boxing champion .

As a result, he had offers from the Toronto St. Patricks and the Montréal Canadiens from the National Hockey League , but he tried as long as possible to maintain his amateur status. In 1924 he received a scholarship in Pittsburgh. He played for the Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets , with which he twice won the title in the United States Amateur Hockey Association . When the Pittsburgh Pirates moved to the city as an NHL team for the 1925/26 season , attempts were made to use players from the Yellow Jackets as a base. So Conacher made his NHL debut as team captain . It was also reserved for him on November 26, 1926 to score the first goal for the new team. Most of the time he played left back and was known to use his physical strength to gain respect from his opponents. After nine games in his second NHL season, he was sold to the New York Americans for one player and $ 2,000 . Here he worked as a player-coach for the last of his four seasons. From the 1930/31 season he played for the Montreal Maroons .

Lionel Conacher (1933)

After three years in Montreal, he moved to the Chicago Black Hawks for a season . He helped bring the Stanley Cup to Chicago for the first time. After that year, the Montréal Canadiens signed him. Among the players sent to Chicago in exchange were Lorne Chabot and Howie Morenz . However, Conacher was passed on to the Maroons for Herb Cain that same day . He stayed three more seasons with the Maroons and was able to win his second Stanley Cup there. After the 1936/37 season he ended his career. In his final season, he executed the first penalty shot in the history of the NHL in a play-off game.

His son Brian Conacher , born in 1941, made over 150 appearances in the NHL in the 1960s.

Lionel Conacher was politically active and was elected to the Canadian House of Commons for the Liberal Party of Canada in 1949. In 1950 he was voted the Canadian athlete of the first half of the 20th century. In a softball game for charity on May 26, 1954, he collapsed and died.

He was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Canadian Sports in 1955. The Canadian Football Hall of Fame followed in 1963 and the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1966. In 1994 he became a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame . His brother Charlie Conacher had been accepted there many years before him . When the third brother Roy joined in 1998 , they made the only brothers trio to date in the Hall of Fame.

NHL statistics

	Seasons	Games	Gates	Assists	Points	Penalty minutes
Regular season	12	494	80	105	185	862
Play-offs	8th	33	2	2	4th	34

Sporting successes

• Memorial Cup : 1920
• Stanley Cup : 1934 and 1935

Personal awards

• USAHA First All-Star Team: 1924
• NHL First All-Star Team : 1934
• NHL Second All-Star Team : 1933 and 1937
• Participation in the Ace Bailey Benefit Game : 1934

Web links

Commons : Lionel Conacher  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Lionel Conacher in the database of the Hockey Hall of Fame (English)
• Lionel Conacher at hockeydb.com (English)
• Lionel Conacher - biographical information on the website of the Canadian Parliament (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lionel Conacher in the Find a Grave database , accessed on April 3, 2019 (English).