Frank McGee (ice hockey)

Frank McGee came from a prominent Canadian family. His uncle, Thomas D'Arcy McGee, had been a Father of Confederation and had been assassinated in 1868.[1] His father, John Joseph McGee, was clerk of the Privy Council (considered the top civil servant position).[2]

Frank was born on November 4, 1882, in Ottawa.[3] He was one of nine children born to John Joseph McGee and Elizabeth Helen (née Crotty). Frank had five brothers and three sisters: Thomas D'Arcy, James, John Joseph, Walter, Charles Edward, Kathleen Gertrude, Mary and Lillian.[4] His brother Jim was also a noted athlete in football and ice hockey, playing the latter with McGee in the 1903–04 season before dying in a horse-riding accident in May 1904.[1][5] Charles, like Frank, also died in the First World War.[6]

After his education in Ottawa, McGee worked for the Canadian government Department of Indian Affairs, but he had a passion for sports and played lacrosse and rugby and excelled at ice hockey. While playing half-back for his rugby team, Ottawa City, he was a member of the team that won the Canadian championship in 1898.[7]

McGee (standing, far right) as a member of the 1905 Ottawa Silver Seven

McGee first came to attention for his hockey ability during the 1899–00 season. He split the season with the Ottawa Aberdeens, who won the Quebec intermediate championship, and the Ottawa CPR team, who won the Canadian Railway Hockey Union championship.[8] During the season, on March 21, 1900, McGee lost use of his left eye during an amateur game for a local Canadian Pacific Railway team from a "lifted puck."[lower-alpha 1][9] Unable to see out of the eye, he sat out the next two seasons, and instead worked as a referee.[10][11]

He missed playing the sport though, and by 1903 decided to return to play, despite risking permanent blindness. Highly sought out, he joined the Ottawa Hockey Club, who played in the senior Canadian Amateur Hockey League.[10][11] McGee was the youngest member of the team and stood five feet six inches tall, small for hockey players of the era; regardless, he excelled and was known to be strong and muscular, and was considered to have an ideal body-type for the sport.[12]

In his first game with Ottawa, McGee scored two goals and he finished the 1903 season with 14 goals in 6 games, second overall in the league.[13] He helped Ottawa keep the Stanley Cup from 1903 to 1906.[14][lower-alpha 2]

On a number of occasions, McGee scored several goals in a single game, the most famous being his 14-goal effort in a 23–2 victory over the Dawson City Nuggets on January 16, 1905. Those 14 goals, which included eight consecutive goals scored in less than nine minutes,[15] remain to this day the most goals scored by a single player in a Stanley Cup hockey game, and has not been surpassed in any professional match.[16] It was the most lopsided playoff game in Stanley Cup history. He scored five or more goals in eight other senior matches;[17] his highest single-game total in regular season play was eight on March 3, 1906, against the Montreal Hockey Club.[18]

McGee's linemates included future Hall of Famers Alf Smith, Harry Westwick, Billy Gilmour and Tommy Smith. McGee was considered an outstanding playmaker and deadly scorer. Frank Patrick, a contemporary of McGee's and like him a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, described McGee: "He was even better than they say he was. He had everything – speed, stickhandling, scoring ability and was a punishing checker. He was strongly built but beautifully proportioned and he had an almost animal rhythm."[19]

After Ottawa lost the Stanley Cup to the Montreal Wanderers in 1906, McGee retired at 23 years old. His retirement is attributed to his government position not allowing him to travel. After his brother Jim's death in 1904 his family wanted McGee to quit playing hockey, though he decided to keep playing.[20] During his career, McGee scored 135 goals in only 45 games (both league and challenge).[21] Only Russell Bowie rivals his average of three goals per game.[22]

McGee was one of the original nine players inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame at its founding in 1945.[19] Five years later, a poll of sports editors of Canadian newspapers selected the Silver Seven as the country's outstanding team in the first half of the 20th century.[3] In 1966, he was inducted into the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame.[23]

McGee's health form

McGee enlisted in the military and fought in the First World War for the 43rd Regiment (Duke of Cornwall's Own Rifles) as a lieutenant in the 21st Infantry Battalion, starting in May 1915. That December he was wounded when the armoured car he was driving was blown into a ditch from a shell, injuring his knee. McGee spent several months recuperating.[25]

In August 1916 he returned to active duty, and was given the choice of a posting in Le Havre away from the action, but chose to return to his battalion at the front, and took part in the Battle of the Somme. McGee was killed in action on September 16, 1916, near Courcelette, France. His body was never recovered.[26] His brother Charles had previously died in action in May 1915 at the Battle of Festubert.[6] Both of their names were later added to the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, along with all other Canadian soldiers killed in France with no known grave.[27]

It is not known how McGee was allowed into the army with sight in only one eye. In his certificate of examination, the medical officer wrote that McGee could "see the required distance with either eye." According to McGee's nephew, Frank Charles McGee, his uncle tricked the doctor. When he was asked to cover one eye and read the chart he covered his blind eye, and when required to cover the other eye he switched hands instead of eyes.[3] His medical history only lists "good" for his vision.

• Biographical information and career statistics from Hockey-Reference.com, or Legends of Hockey
• Obituary, as reproduced on the Library and Archives Canada web site