HHOF Builders - Two Forgotten Candidates

[Canadiens1958]

Various builders have been inducted into the HHOF including Jim Hendy who published the first NHL GUIDE in 1931 and did most of the seminal work for the basic hockey statistics, format, etc. He also served as a minor league administrator and GM of the Cleveland Barons.

What about Bill Cote with Ken McKenzie, one of the co-founders of The Hockey News and Ron Andrews who started modernization of hockey statistics? Do they deserve enshrinement? As Builders or under the media umbrella.

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[justsomeguy]

Jim Hendy, given the totality of his involvement with the sport, richly deserved his induction.

Have spoken to a fair number of guys who played for him in Cleveland and they're pretty much unanimous in agreeing that he was a great guy and an enlightened employer for the day.

A former Baron, I forget who, told me that at the end of one year he refunded all the fines that had been imposed by the team over the season. He gave the married guys' money back to their wives though.

As to the other men - I figure a posthumous Elmer Ferguson might be the highest aspiration for them. Do not think any others have been enshrined as builders based exclusively on media careers. Might well be a mess of folks lined up ahead of them.

 

[Canadiens Fan]

The "Forgotten" Candidate

Wikipedia

James Creighton is considered the "father of ice hockey," although he never claimed that honour. After moving to Montreal from Halifax to study and to work in engineering, Creighton sometimes acted as a figure skating judge at the Victoria Skating Club's Victoria Skating Rink. As a member of the Club, he organized early morning sessions of informal hockey at the rink with his friends from McGill University and members of the Club. It was here that Creighton captained of one of the two teams that participated in the first recorded indoor game of organized ice hockey on March 3, 1875. His nine-man team won two "games" (goals) to one over the opposition led by Charles Torrance. According to team-mate Henry Joseph, Mr. Creighton also organized the game. "It was this exhibition which aroused city-wide interest and gave rise to the formation of other ice hockey teams and to the rapid development of the game," McGill's physical education director Emanuel M. Orlick would write in The Gazette in 1943. In 1877, Mr. Creighton became the captain of the first known organized ice hockey team, the McGill University club.

Mr. Creighton had played sports during his boyhood in Halifax, where a free-wheeling, stick-ball game called "ricket", "shinny" or occasionally "hockey", was played on ice outdoors with any number of players. It is believed that Creighton developed rules for the organized indoor game from the style of play of those games in Halifax, where (according to some historians) they had developed out of a Scottish game called shinty. However, ice hockey also has its roots in the aboriginal game of lacrosse, the English game of field hockey, the Irish game of hurling and the northern European game of bandy. Mr. Creighton is thought to be the person responsible for publishing the first rules for ice hockey in the February 27, 1877 edition of The Gazette (although the rules were virtually identical to previously published field hockey rules).

While living and working in Ottawa, Creighton continued his interest in ice hockey and joined with young parliamentarians and government 'aides de camp' to form a team called the Rideau Hall Rebels, after the residence of the Governor General of Canada, in Ottawa. That team played games in and around Ottawa and became well known. Creighton befriended teammates William Stanley and Arthur Stanley, sons of then Canadian Governor General Lord Stanley. It was because of these circumstances that Lord Stanley became thrilled with the game and presented a trophy—the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup, known today as the Stanley Cup -- to designate the amateur ice hockey championship of Canada.

Mr. Creighton was inducted into the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame in 1993 as the "father of organized hockey."

On May 22, 2008, Mr. Creighton was honoured with a plaque at Centre Bell in Montreal, Quebec, the home rink of the Montreal Canadiens. The plaque was unveiled by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Centre Bell is located near the site of the old Victoria Skating Rink.

 

[Dreakmur]

James Creighton

I was just coming in to post him. There's no way he should be left out.

 

[Canadiens1958]

James Creighton

James Creighton definitely merits induction. His exclusion underlines a major weakness in the HHOF and to some extent the study of hockey history. Both endeavors tend towards the view of hockey as 1893 going forward mainly due to the lack of hard data beyond the anecdotal. Little statistical or definitive data exists for the pre 1893 era.

Charles L. Coleman in the preface to Volume I of The Trail of the Stanley Cup alludes to the pre 1893 era. He recognizes the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada as going back to 1886 but explains the lack of complete results as being at issue.

 

[seventieslord]

James Creighton definitely merits induction. His exclusion underlines a major weakness in the HHOF and to some extent the study of hockey history. Both endeavors tend towards the view of hockey as 1893 going forward mainly due to the lack of hard data beyond the anecdotal. Little statistical or definitive data exists for the pre 1893 era.

Charles L. Coleman in the preface to Volume I of The Trail of the Stanley Cup alludes to the pre 1893 era. He recognizes the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada as going back to 1886 but explains the lack of complete results as being at issue.

Those results have since been put together, thankfully.

James Creighton should have been a charter member.

I'd also consider inducting Eddie Livingstone.

 

[member 83027]

Almost exactly two years after the Creighton Memorial Fund was established at the 2007 Fall Meeting in Springfield, Massachusetts, the Society for International Hockey Research hosted an unveiling ceremony of a monument and plaque honouring hockey pioneer James George Aylwin Creighton on October 24th, 2009, at Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa.

Creighton played an instrumental role in the formative stages of hockey in Montreal in the late 1800s. He later moved to Ottawa and served as Law Clerk to the Senate for 48 years. Since his death in 1930, Mr. Creighton had rested in an unmarked grave along with his wife Eleanor Platt, who died in 1933.

Members of the Creighton Memorial Committee pose with Prime Minister Stephen Harper The Fund, which was established to collect donations to acquire a grave marker, captured the hearts of hockey fans from all corners of the globe who donated generously. Among the donors were the crew of the Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Vancouver, Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk and Calgary Flames owner Harley Hotchkiss.

The event received national media attention when it was announced that SIHRs highest profile member, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, would be in attendance. Prior to the ceremony, the Prime Minister joined members of the Memorial Fund Committee and descendants of Mr. Creighton at an informal gathering. Also in attendance were Members of Parliament Mauril Bélanger and Royal Galipeau.

With the breathtaking grounds of Canada's National Cemetery as a backdrop, the impressive National Memorial Centre served as the venue for the ceremony. Memorial Fund Chairman Ed Grenda shared the Master of Ceremonies duties for the bilingual event with Roger Boult, Executive Director of the Beechwood Cemetery Foundation.

"Just as lacrosse had appealed to our summer heart, Canada needed a sport that would call to its winter soul. Before anyone else, Creighton heard that call and defined the game that from coast-to-coast transcends French and English, East and West; urban and rural and defines us as Canadians." noted Prime Minister Harper. He went on to commend SIHR and Bill Fitsell for his efforts. "Once too old to play the game, he (Creighton) confined himself to his work on legal and parliamentary affairs and allowed his seminal role In the development of the sport to fade into the mists of history. That fog has been lifted thanks to the work of the Society for International Hockey Research and, in particular, Its founding president, Bill Fitsell, Who is here with us today."
In addition to the address by the Prime Minister, the thirty minute ceremony featured addresses by MP Mauril Bélanger, SIHR President James Milks and SIHR's first President Bill Fitsell, who chronicled Creighton's life. "For 69 years no headstone marked his grave. However, he left an indelible mark as railway surveyor, canal engineer, parliamentary reporter, magazine writer, book collector and author, consolidator and translator of Canadian laws and peerless pioneer of Canada's National Winter Sport. Today, hockey lovers say "We Remember You --Thank You,"-etched in stone." commented Fitsell.

Praising contributors, President James Milks said "A cross-section of everyday people, history buffs, parliamentarians, philanthropists and hockey fans from Canada, the United States and Sweden have generously supported the Memorial Fund. It is thanks to every one of them that our society has the privilege of hosting you today".

The unveiling of the grave marker was performed by the Prime Minister and Bill Fitsell while Paul Kitchen and MP Mauril Bélanger unveiled the plaque after which Canon Catherine Ascah delivered the consecration. A reception attended by the Prime Minister followed the ceremony.

Yes. I am a member of SIHR.

http://www.sihrhockey.org/main.cfm