Francis Alexis Patrick (December 21, 1885 – June 29, 1960) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player, head coach, manager, and executive. Along with his brother Lester, he founded the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA), the first major professional hockey league in Western Canada. Patrick, who also served as president of the league, took control of the Vancouver Millionaires, serving as a player, coach, and manager of the team. It was in the PCHA that Patrick would introduce many innovations to hockey that remain today, including the blue line, the penalty shot, and tracking assists, among others.
Born in Ottawa and raised in Montreal, Patrick first played hockey there along with his brother Lester. In 1904 he made his debut in the top Canadian league, though was limited as he attended McGill University and then moved west to British Columbia with his family in 1907 to establish a lumber company. The Patrick brothers returned to Central Canada in 1909 when they signed with the Renfrew Creamery Kings for one season. The Patrick family sold their lumber company in 1910 and used the proceeds to establish the PCHA, setting up teams in Vancouver, Victoria, and New Westminster. The league soon established itself as a legitimate enterprise, and their champions played for the Stanley Cup starting in 1915. Patrick played for, coached, and managed the Vancouver Millionaires, which won the Cup in 1915, the first team west of Manitoba to do so, and played for the Cup again in 1918, 1921, and 1922, losing each time. Patrick also served as president of the PCHA for nearly its entire existence, and in this role introduced many rules that helped modernize the game, making it both faster and more entertaining.
In 1926 the PCHA, which had since merged with the Western Canada Hockey League and was later renamed the Western Hockey League, was sold to the eastern-based National Hockey League (NHL). Patrick would later join the NHL in 1933, serving first in an executive role for the league and then as coach for the Boston Bruins from 1934 to 1936, and worked with the Montreal Canadiens from 1940 to 1941 in a business management role. Outside of hockey he faced financial difficulties, and died in 1960, four weeks after Lester. In recognition of his role in establishing modern hockey, Patrick was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder in 1950.
Early life
Patrick's father, Joe, was the son of Irish immigrants: Thomas Patrick had emigrated from County Tyrone in Ireland to Canada in 1848 and settled in Quebec. Joe was born in 1857 and in 1883 married Grace Nelson. They moved to Drummondville, Quebec, where Joe worked as a general store clerk and Grace was a schoolmarm. Drummondville was predominantly French-speaking and Catholic at the time, making the Anglophone and Methodist Patrick family a minority in the town. Patrick was born on December 21, 1885, in Ottawa, Ontario, the second son of Joe and Grace Patrick. It is not clear why he was born in Ottawa, which was roughly a five-hour train ride from Drummondville at the time; biographer Eric Whitehead suggested Grace likely needed some specialized care for the birth as the reason for the relocation. In 1887 the family moved to Carmell Hill, where Joe bought a half-interest in a general store with William Mitchell. As in Drummondville the town was mainly Francophone, leading the family to learn French. Joe and his partners sold their store in 1892, earning a substantial profit of $10,000; Joe used his $5,000 to establish a lumber company and built a mill in Daveluyville, which was west of Quebec City. That winter Patrick and his older brother Lester received their first pair of skates. In 1893 the family moved again, this time to Montreal, as Joe expanded his lumber company. They first lived in Pointe-Saint-Charles, a rail district, before moving to the more prosperous suburb of Westmount in 1895. While in Montreal the two older Patrick brothers were first introduced to ice hockey. Patrick attended Stanstead College, a prep school, where he played both hockey and football. They also met Art Ross at this time, who became a close friend of both brothers and had an extensive career in hockey.
In 1904 Patrick played his first senior games, with the Montreal Victorias of the Canadian Amateur Hockey League, then the top league in Canada; he recorded four goals in the five games played for the team. While back from school during a break in 1905, he briefly joined the Montreal Westmount club and played two games. Lester was also on the team, and this marked the first time the brothers played together.
Patrick enrolled at McGill University in Montreal in 1906, and joined their hockey team. The next year Joe purchased a tract of land in the Slocan Valley in southeastern British Columbia (BC), and moved the family west to Nelson, British Columbia, a town near the land, to start a new lumber company there. Patrick remained in Montreal to complete his studies, as he had one year remaining. He played with the Victorias as well during the season, recording eight goals in eight games (he missed the final two games due to a shoulder injury). While professionalism had been allowed in the Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association (ECAHA) at that time, Patrick remained an amateur. He also worked as a referee in league matches, and while he was the youngest official he was considered to be one of the best, the league president at one point calling him the "most competent referee [they'd] seen all winter".
Nelson and Renfrew
In April 1908 Patrick graduated from McGill with a Bachelor of Arts degree and was planning to travel west immediately to join his family and work for the new company. However he injured his leg in a baseball game that spring, which forced him to stay in Montreal until September 1908. On arrival he took up a position as a "timer", overseeing the 200 labourers who fell trees. He also joined Lester on the local Nelson Hockey Club, which competed in a regional league. Patrick scored nine goals in the five games he played.
The following year a new top-level league, the National Hockey Association (NHA), was established; unlike the ECHA, the NHA was openly professional. Several teams began to send offers to both Patrick brothers, who had decided to return east for the winter and play hockey there. Among the teams making offers were the Renfrew Creamery Kings, owned by J. Ambrose O'Brien, a wealthy mining magnate, and when Lester received the offer he replied saying he would join the team for $3,000, an exorbitant salary for the era. Surprised by the offer, Lester asked for his brother as well, and Patrick was offered $2,000 to join the team.
Along with other high-profile players, most famously Cyclone Taylor, who signed for a reported $5,250, the team was nicknamed the "Millionaires". Along with several teammates, the Patricks lived in a boarding house in Renfrew during the season, and players were often seen together about town. While Lester was more out-spoken, Patrick was quiet and reserved, though that changed when the topic of hockey came up. He became quite lively and was open about his ideas on how to improve the game, and what type of tactics could be used. Taylor would later recall he was quite impressed by the brothers knowledge and views, stating that "Frank in particular had an amazing grasp of the science of hockey, and they were both already dreaming about changes that would improve the game".
During the 1909–10 season, Patrick scored 8 goals in 11 games, though the team failed to win the championship. After the season the Creamery Kings went to New York City for an exhibition series against other NHA teams. Patrick was impressed by both the diversity of people living in the city and Madison Square Garden. While it did not have an ice-making plant at the time, Patrick was interested enough to make sketches of the arena, and studied it in detail while he was in New York.
The outlandish salaries offered by Renfrew and other teams were unsustainable, and in response the NHA instituted a salary cap of $8,000 per team for the 1910–11 season. Both Patricks had already returned to Nelson, certain their hockey careers were over anyway. They did help build a rink in Nelson, largely financed by their father. Patrick played a few games for Nelson that winter, but was not seriously committed.
PCHA
Joe sold his lumber company in January 1911, making a profit of around $440,000, of which he gave both Lester and Frank $25,000. In a separate transaction Joe also sold a private interest he had, earning a further $35,000. With this money Joe solicited ideas from his family on what to invest in, and Patrick suggested they establish their own hockey league, one based in BC and that they controlled. It was put to a vote, with both Joe and Frank voting in favour and Lester against, so they agreed to move forward. They incorporated the new league, the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA), on December 7, 1911.
The initial plan was to place teams in large cities in Western Canada, with one each in Vancouver and Victoria (both in BC), and one in Edmonton and Calgary (both in Alberta). Issues in finding support for the Alberta-based teams meant that the new league would only be based in BC initially. The mild weather on the West Coast meant that unlike Central and Eastern Canada natural ice could not be used for games, and so the Patrick family built two arenas: the Denman Arena in Vancouver and the Patrick Arena in Victoria. While the arenas were being built Patrick went east to recruit players, offering up to twice the salary they were making in the NHA to join the new league, and was able to recruit several high-profile names. Patrick managed and played for the Vancouver team, while Lester would do the same for the Victoria team. Patrick played all 15 games for Vancouver during the 1912 season, and recorded 23 goals, placing him second on Vancouver for scoring and fourth in the league. The league itself did well and demonstrated it could be a serious challenger to the supremacy of the NHA.
To help bolster attendance and improve his team for the 1912–13 season, Patrick signed his former teammate in Renfrew, Cyclone Taylor, who was considered one of the biggest names in hockey at the time. The signing of Taylor to the PCHA gave the league legitimacy. While the first games of the PCHA's inaugural season only had half the tickets sold, the Millionaires sold out their home opener for the 1912–13 season, Taylor's debut in the league. It was the first sell-out for the PCHA. However even with Taylor on the team, Vancouver (who had now began to be known as the "Millionaires") did not win the league title, finishing second; Patrick again placed fourth overall in league scoring, and third on Vancouver, with 20 points in 16 games.
Though the PCHA was effectively a syndicate controlled by the Patrick brothers, initially they had a figurehead president, William Pickering Irving, until 1913 when Patrick assumed the role; he would keep the title for the rest of the league's existence. The PCHA and NHA also came to an agreement that would see an end to player raiding: the PCHA would hold the professional rights to all players west of Port Arthur, Ontario, while the NHA did so for players between Port Arthur and Montreal (players east of that were subject to the Maritime Professional Hockey League). The leagues also agreed to a yearly challenge series between the two teams that won each league for the right to hold the Stanley Cup, effectively ending the challenge era for the Cup. For a third year in a row Vancouver finished second in the league, with Patrick sixth overall in scoring (second on the team), recording 20 points while playing all 16 games in the 1913–14 season.