Frank Ashworth was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, on October 16, 1926. He was the youngest of eleven children and grew up playing hockey on the outdoor rinks of Moose Jaw.

He got a break in 1943-44 at the age of 17 when a semi-pro league in the United States (Eastern Amateur Hockey League) began to recruit young juniors from Western Canada to play for their teams. Ashworth ended up signing with the New York Rovers and split the season with them and the Brooklyn Crescents.

It was quite the transition for Frank as a teenager going from Moose Jaw to living in New York City!

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Long before the Detroit Red Wings became one of the NHL’s most recognizable franchises, Ebbie Goodfellow was helping establish the club as a hockey powerhouse.

Born Ebenezer Robertson Goodfellow in Ottawa on April 9, 1907, Goodfellow carved out a remarkable career as one of the most versatile players of his generation. Known as “Poker Face” for his calm demeanour, he played both centre and defence during a 14-year NHL career, all of it spent with the Detroit franchise.

Goodfellow’s path to the NHL began in Ottawa, where he played senior hockey after initially signing with the Saskatoon Sheiks as a junior. He eventually joined the Detroit Olympics in 1928 before making the jump to the NHL with the Detroit Cougars the following season.

It did not take long for Goodfellow to establish himself.

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A new book is taking readers back to the early days of Boston hockey, telling the story of players, coaches and sports builders whose contributions have largely faded from the history books.

Glass Seats: Walter Brown and the Forgotten Amateur Stars Who Built Hockey in Boston, written by Matthew Gentile, centres on Edward “Red” Mahoney, a working-class ki…

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Jimmy Ward never became one of hockey’s household names, but few players were as consistently productive during the National Hockey League’s rugged, low-scoring years of the 1930s.

A dependable right winger with an accurate shot and a knack for timely goals, Ward spent nearly his entire NHL career with the Montreal Maroons, helping the club capture the Stanley Cup in 1935 before finishing his playing days with the rival Montreal Canadiens. While many stars from his era have faded from memory, Ward’s career remains one of the finest in Maroons history.

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Nels Stewart was one of the most dominant hockey players of the early National Hockey League era, a powerful scorer who helped redefine what it meant to be an elite forward.

Known by the nickname “Old Poison,” Stewart was not remembered for blazing speed or flashy skating. Instead, he built a legendary career through strength, intelligence, a devastating shot and an unmatched ability to score around the net. He became one of the NHL’s greatest goal scorers before the Second World War and was the first player to win the Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player multiple times.

Born Robert Nelson Stewart on Dec. 29, 1899, in Montreal, Que., Stewart moved to Toronto as a child and learned the game on outdoor rinks and in local leagues. He developed a physical style of play that relied on his size, balance and hockey sense rather than pure speed.

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Long before television broadcasts, million-dollar contracts and sold-out NHL arenas became the norm, Reginald Joseph “Hooley” Smith established himself as one of professional hockey’s biggest stars. A gifted playmaker, fearless competitor and natural leader, Smith enjoyed a remarkable career that spanned the 1920s and 1930s, winning Olympic gold, capturing two Stanley Cups and earning recognition as one of the finest forwards of hockey’s formative years.

Despite those accomplishments, Smith’s name is rarely mentioned alongside legends such as Howie Morenz, Eddie Shore or King Clancy. Yet during his playing days, he was regarded as one of the National Hockey League’s elite players and helped shape the game’s evolution during an era when hockey was still finding its identity.

Born in Toronto on Jan. 7, 1903, Smith grew up playing hockey on the city’s outdoor rinks. He developed into one of Ontario’s brightest young talents while playing amateur hockey, eventually joining the Toronto Granites. The Granites were among Canada’s strongest senior teams, and Smith played a key role in helping them capture the Allan Cup, then awarded to Canada’s senior amateur champions.

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In the early years of the Detroit Red Wings, before the franchise became synonymous with legends like Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay and Alex Delvecchio, Larry Aurie was the player who embodied the team’s identity. Small in stature but enormous in determination, Aurie became one of the NHL’s most talented forwards of the 1930s and played a major role in building Detroit into a championship organization.

Born Lawrence Henry Aurie on Feb. 8, 1905, in Sudbury, Ont., Aurie developed a reputation as a skilled and fearless competitor. At just 5-foot-6 and 148 pounds, he was often overlooked because of his size, but his speed, strength and relentless work ethic allowed him to compete against much larger opponents.

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Long before the name Howe became synonymous with hockey greatness in Detroit, another player carrying the surname was already helping establish the Red Wings as one of the NHL’s premier franchises. Syd Howe was a skilled, versatile and durable forward who played through the league’s toughest years, becoming one of the most productive players of his generation while earning a place in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Born in Ottawa on Sept. 18, 1911, Howe developed his hockey skills on the frozen waterways of his hometown, skating on Patterson’s Creek and the Rideau Canal with his brother Lawrence “Pete” Howe. He quickly emerged as a standout player, competing with the Glebe Collegiate high school team before joining the Lansdowne Park Juveniles and later the Ottawa Gunners junior club.

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Sid Abel’s journey to becoming one of the National Hockey League’s greatest players began in the small prairie town of Melville, Saskatchewan, where he was born on February 22, 1918. Like many Canadian children of his generation, he learned the game on outdoor rinks, skating whenever the weather allowed. Hockey quickly became more than a pastime. It was a way of life, teaching him discipline, teamwork, and perseverance long before he reached the professional level.

As a teenager, Abel developed his skills with the Flin Flon Bombers, one of western Canada’s strongest junior hockey clubs. His excellent vision, dependable defensive play, and ability to set up teammates attracted the attention of NHL scouts. In 1938, the Detroit Red Wings signed the young center, believing he had the potential to become an important part of the organization.

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The town of Palmarolle is a small muncipality in Northwestern Quebec, about 400 miles north of Montreal. With only 1,500 inhabitants currently living in the town, Palmarolle doesn’t have the biggest hockey history of towns in Quebec, it is the hometown of one fantastic goaltender that was known as one of the best netminders of his era. The local arena in Palmarolle is named in his honour, and features a mini hall-of-fame full of artifacts just for him.

Rogatien Rosaire Vachon was born in Palmarolle on September 8th 1945. Known for playing with the Montreal Canadiens in the late 1960’s, and then with the Los Angeles Kings throughout the 1970’s, Vachon had himself quite the career. Rogie was well known for his quick reflexes and exceptionally fast glove hand. He was also considered one of the game’s top one one-on-one And here’s a fun fact for you, Rogie never allowed a goal on a penalty shot in his entire career.

For Rogie, it all started in Palmarolle, a small hamlet in Northwestern Quebec. “I could hardly walk when I first started playing hockey. We were on the farm back in Palmarolle and my parents put a little rink in the backyard so I played with my brothers and neighbours all day long,” Rogie said. “My town was a pretty small village, maybe 1,300 people at the time, and they were mostly farmers, as was the case with my parents. The town had a senior team that played against five or so other little towns in that region in a small league. One year they couldn’t find a goalie so they asked me to play. I was only twelve years old at the time. So I was playing senior league hockey at twelve years old which got me going pretty good in net.”

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Walter Arthur Ronald Wiebe—known simply as Art Wiebe to hockey fans—was never the loudest star of his era. He wasn’t a prolific scorer or a player who sought the spotlight. Instead, he built a reputation as a dependable, hard-working defenceman whose career spanned one of hockey’s most colorful periods. Yet for those who knew him best, Art’s greatest le…

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Before Frank Mathers became synonymous with the Hershey Bears and earned a place in the Hockey Hall of Fame, he was a standout Winnipeg athlete whose remarkable versatility and leadership first took shape on Manitoba ice and football fields.

Though Mathers would go on to become one of the most influential figures in American Hockey League history—as a player, coach, executive and president—his roots in Winnipeg remained central to the story of his success.

Born March 29, 1924, Mathers grew up during a golden era of Winnipeg amateur sports and quickly established himself as one of the city’s most gifted young athletes. He played junior hockey with several prominent local clubs, including the Winnipeg Excelsiors and the Winnipeg Rangers, developing the skill and competitive drive that would later define his professional career.

He would win a Memorial Cup in 1943 as a member of the Winnipeg Rangers.

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Selkirk native Nick Wasnie was a hockey trailblazer in more than one way. Most notably, Wasnie was the first player of Ukrainian descent to play in the National Hockey League. A long list of such hockey talent would soon follow - Terry Sawchuk, Johnny Bower, Bill Mosienko, to name a few – as Canada’s prairie provinces had a large Ukrainian population.

Demetrius and Ann Wasnie made the trip across the ocean from Kopychnytsi, Galacia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1902. They made the trek across the sea with their three-year-old son Fred. Demetrius was 28 and Ann was 26 when the family immigrated to Canada from Lvov via Hamburg on the ship Bulgaria. They settled on a farm in the township of Selkirk and had ten children together. Demetrius was known for his culinary talents while Ann’s housekeeping was second to none.

Nick was born on January 28^th, 1903 in Selkirk. The fourth of nine children. The original spelling of his name that was registered at birth was Nickolas Waesne. Wasnie appears to be the spelling more utilized later in his life although Waesne appears on his US Immigration papers.

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Rosario “Lolo” Couture was born in the St. Boniface district of Winnipeg near the Seine River on July 24, 1905, to French parents who ran an inn in their neighbourhood.

French was Rosario’s first language. And it would be the English-speaking guests at the hotel his parents ran that first taught him English.

The hotel had a Chinese cook that spoke English and Chinese, but no French. As a youngster usually grows hungry between meals, Couture would seek out the cook, point towards the bread and jam and utter “Lo.” If the food was not forthcoming immediately, he would deliver a couple of “Lo’s.” Between that and his ultimate efforts to speak English, the nickname of “Lolo” was hung on to the future hockey star.

When he was six years old, young Lolo received his first pair of skates and a hockey stick. Around this time, he began attending Provencher School. Though Lolo’s parents ran a hotel near the school, the Jesuit Fathers insisted that Lolo live at school. The school had two massive outdoor hockey rinks that were packed with hockey players every day during the winter months.

During his youth, Couture’s skating ability was first brought to light during speed-skating events on rivers and ponds. He started on a strict training schedule that was meant to better his speed and time at an early age.

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Long before hockey understood the dangers of concussions and traumatic brain injuries, Johnny Gallagher was living with their consequences.

To many in Kenora, he was remembered as a quiet man who wandered through Central Park, smiling, telling old sports stories and watching children play baseball. To hockey historians, he was a Stanley Cup champion and …

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Born on June 23, 1900, in Port Perry, Ontario, John Ross Roach became one of the most unforgettable goaltenders of hockey’s early era. Standing just 5-foot-3 and weighing roughly 130 pounds, Roach was one of the smallest players ever to tend goal in the NHL. What he lacked in size, however, he made up for with toughness, athleticism, and personality — earning him the nickname “The Port Perry Woodpecker.”

Over the years, Roach collected several colourful nicknames, including “Little Napoleon,” “The Housecleaner,” and “The Port Perry Cucumber,” all reflections of his larger-than-life reputation despite his small stature.

For this story, Roach’s niece, Bonnie Travis, shared memories and family stories passed down through generations.

“John quit playing about five years before I was born,” Travis recalled. “My mother was 14 years younger than him, and he was almost like a father to her. She used to chew the fingers out of her gloves watching him play.”

Known for his acrobatic style in goal, Roach burst onto the NHL scene in dramatic fashion by winning the Stanley Cup as a rookie with the Toronto St. Patricks during the 1921–22 season. He later became one of only a handful of goaltenders in NHL history to serve as team captain, doing so with the St. Patricks during the 1924–25 season.

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As the Stanley Cup playoffs unfold and new heroes emerge each spring, the story of a little-known Manitoba goaltender serves as a reminder that hockey history often turns on unlikely moments.

Paul Goodman, born in 1905 in Selkirk, carved out a modest professional career but secured a lasting legacy with a single game in the 1938 Stanley Cup Finals.

Raised in Selkirk, Goodman developed his skills as a goaltender before moving to Winnipeg in 1924 to enter the electrical trade. Like many players of his era, he balanced hockey with a working career, later becoming a partner in an electrical supply business.

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McVeigh’s NHL breakthrough came in 1926, when the league expanded and the Chicago Black Hawks were formed by acquiring players from the Portland Rosebuds. At age 28—older than many rookies—he entered the NHL as a seasoned but relatively unknown player.

Despite his late arrival, McVeigh made an immediate impression. Playing alongside established professionals, he scored 12 goals in his rookie season, a respectable total in a low-scoring era. His style stood out: he was quick, elusive, and unafraid of physical play, even against much larger opponents.

Standing just 5-foot-6 and weighing around 145 pounds, McVeigh was undersized by hockey standards even then. But what he lacked in size, he compensated for with speed and fearlessness. His nickname, “Rabbit,” reflected both his quickness and his ability to dart through traffic—sometimes even leaping over opponents’ sticks during rushes.

After two seasons in Chicago, McVeigh was traded to the New York Americans in 1928. It was with the Americans that he would spend the prime of his NHL career, playing seven seasons through 1935.

The Americans were not among the league’s strongest teams, often struggling in the standings. But McVeigh provided consistency and effort, becoming a reliable presence in their lineup. He played both center and right wing, adapting to team needs and contributing across multiple roles.

His best offensive season came in 1929–30, when he recorded 14 goals and 28 points in 40 games—a strong performance in an era when scoring was limited and defensive play dominated.

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In the long and rugged history of professional hockey, few players embodied resilience, grit, and adaptability quite like Charles “Rabbit” McVeigh. Though not among the most famous stars of his era, McVeigh’s life tells a compelling story—one that bridges the brutality of the First World War with the rough-and-tumble world of early professional hockey. Small in stature but formidable in spirit, he carved out a career defined by speed, tenacity, and longevity, both as a player and later as an official in the National Hockey League.

Charles Henry McVeigh was born in 1898 and raised in Kenora, Ontario—then known as Rat Portage—a frontier town shaped by railways, resource industries, and a fiercely competitive sporting culture. He was the second oldest of six children born to William McVeigh, an Irish immigrant from Belfast, and Charlotte Maria “Lottie” McGinnis.

His father’s life reflected the entrepreneurial spirit of early Canada. After initially working for the Canadian Pacific Railway, William moved into private business, operating ventures that ranged from a liquor store to a hotel and even a soft drink manufacturing enterprise. The McVeigh household was industrious, busy, and at times marked by hardship, including the death of the youngest child, Robert, from pneumonia in 1906.

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Though his time in the NHL was brief, Winston “Bing” Juckes built a reputation as a skilled, hard-working player and later became an entrepreneur and hockey promoter.

Juckes grew up in Hamiota, Manitoba, on a family mink farm alongside his three sisters. Hockey was a constant presence in his life—the local rink stood just across the road from the family home. His passion for the game was evident early, often at the expense of his siblings.

“I used to do all his chores when he played hockey,” recalled his sister Shirley Angood from Winnipeg. “It wasn’t fair at the time.”

His lifelong nickname, “Bing,” originated from his shooting accuracy. According to his son Brad, Juckes had a knack for striking the crossbar, producing a sharp “bing” sound that quickly became associated with him. The name stuck for the rest of his life.

At just 16 years old, Juckes left home in 1942 to play for the St. James Canadians in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League (MJHL), marking the beginning of a journey that would take him across the continent.

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