James Creighton (ice hockey)
James George Aylwin Creighton, CMG, KC ( born June 12, 1850 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, † June 27, 1930 in Ottawa, Ontario) was a Canadian lawyer, engineer, journalist, and sports. He is regarded as the organizer of the first hockey game in a hall, which took place in 1875 at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal. He made hockey popular in Montreal and later in Ontario. For this reason he is considered the " father of hockey ." In addition, he was for 48 years working as a legal adviser in the Canadian Senate.
Biography
By the age of 14 years Creighton attended the Halifax Grammar School, then he graduated from the University of King's College in Halifax. After 1868, received a Bachelor of Arts, he studied with Sandford Fleming. The chief engineer of the Intercolonial Railway hired him so that he would assist him in surveying work in Nova Scotia. 1872 Creighton moved to Montreal and was involved as an engineer for the expansion of the Lachine Canal and other public works projects. The British Institution of Civil Engineers in 1876 took him on as a member. In the same year Creighton Common Law began at McGill University to study. In 1880 he completed his studies and received the patent as a lawyer in the province of Quebec. Two years later he became a partner in the Montreal law firm Barnard, Beauchamp, Creighton, and Doucet.
From 1877 to 1881 Creighton also worked as a journalist. He wrote articles for the Montreal Gazette, the Scribner 's Magazine and various other publications. In addition, he was also a correspondent for the Gazette in the press gallery of the Canadian House of Commons. Due to his legal training and his experience with the parliamentary business he was appointed in March 1882 on the legal advisor to the Canadian Senate. He held this position for 48 years. During this time he was instrumental in the drafting of important laws. He also continued to write articles for Scribner 's Magazine. For his services he received the rank of Kronanwalts and 1913 the title of Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George.
Creighton married in 1878 Eleanor Platt from Montreal, the couple remained childless. He died in 1930 at the age of 80 years and was buried in Beechwood Cemetery in an unmarked grave. Among the mourners at his funeral was one of the former Canadian Prime Minister Robert Borden.
Role in the development of hockey
After Creighton had moved from Halifax to Montreal, he worked occasionally as a Figure Skating Judge at the Victoria Skating Rink, the hall of the Victoria Skating Club. In the winter of 1875 he began to organize informal meetings at which club members and his friends played at the University of shinny, the parties were usually played outdoors with a variable number and had no fixed set of rules. On March 3, 1875 at work on his own initiative, the first hockey game in a hall instead. It involved two teams of nine players each. Creighton was captain of the winning team that won against the team of Charles Torrance 2-1. Emanuel M. Orlick, sports director of the McGill University, wrote in 1943 in the Gazette that " it was this demonstration that sparked city-wide interest, led to the formation of other hockey teams as well as the rapid development of the game". Creighton was later captain of the first known organized ice hockey club, McGill University of clubs.
Shinny, which was derived according to some historians of the Scottish game shinty had, Creighton learned in his youth in Halifax. Hockey has its roots but also in the Lacrosse derived from the Native Americans, the English field hockey, Irish hurling and in northern European Bandy. Creighton may be the person who the first ice hockey rules published in the Gazette on February 2, 1877 (even if they deviated only slightly from previously published field hockey rules).
As Creighton lived in Ottawa and worked, he upheld his interest in hockey. With young parliamentarians and government employees, he founded in 1884 a team called the Rideau Hall Rebels, named after the Rideau Hall, the residence of the Governor General of Canada. This team contributed numerous games from in and around the capital, and gained great notoriety. Creighton became friends with William and Arthur Stanley, the sons of the then Governor General Frederick Stanley. The team traveled occasionally in private railroad car of the Governor General in various cities in southern Ontario Hockey there too and made widely known. Lord Stanley donated in 1892 the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup, known as the Stanley Cup today.
Honors
Creighton was inducted into the Nova Scotia Sports Hall of Fame in 1993 and is considered the " father of hockey ," even though he himself never took that honor lay claim. A further assessment Creighton took place on 22 May 2008: At Bell Centre, home of the Canadiens de Montréal, near the former site of the Victoria Skating Rink, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled a commemorative plaque. The Society for International Hockey Research carried out in 2008/ 09 by a public campaign to build a monument to Creighton's grave site. Notable donors included the crew of the warship HMCS Vancouver and Eugene Melnyk and Harley Hotchkiss, the owner of the Ottawa Senators and the Calgary Flames. In the presence of Prime Minister Harper a grave stone and another memorial plaque was unveiled on October 24, 2009 in a ceremony at the Beechwood Cemetery.