Boucher, Frank
Hockey
b. Oct. 7, 1901, Ottawa, ONT
d. Dec. 12, 1977
A very clever center who became an innovative coach, Boucher joined the Northwest Mounted Police at seventeen, then paid $50 to buy his way out so he could play professional hockey. He began his career with Ottawa in 1921. After one season there, he played for the Vancouver Millionaires in the Pacific Coast Hockey League from 1922-23 through 1926-27, then joined the New York Rangers of the NHL.
He was nicknamed "Raffles" after the gentleman thief in E. W. Hornung's stories because of his puck-stealing ability and his consistently clean play. Boucher won the Lady Byng Trophy, for combining sportsmanship with a high level of play, seven times in eight years, so the NHL finally gave it to him to keep in 1935 and had a new one made.
For much of his time with the Rangers, he centered Bill Cook at right wing and Bill's brother Bun at left wing. Boucher led the NHL's American Division with 35 points in 1927-28 and was among the top ten scorers six other times. He retired after the 1937-38 season and became the Rangers' coach in 1939.
Boucher was the first coach to pull his goaltender for an extra skater late in the game, and he developed the box defense for killing penalties. He also taught his teams to attack when short-handed; in 1939-40, when the Rangers won the Stanley Cup, they scored almost twice as many goals on opponents' power plays as the opposition did.
In 1942, Boucher proposed adding the red line to the hockey to speed up play. He later explained, "My thought was that hockey had become a see-saw affair. Defending teams were jammed in their own end for minutes because they couldn't pass their way out against the new five-man attack." At that time, teams weren't allowed to pass the puck out of the defensive zone; when the red line was added for the 1943-44 season, the rule was changed to allow passing from behind the blue line up to the red line.
Boucher made a brief comeback as a player in 1944, but gave it up after fifteen games. He was replaced as the Rangers' coach during the 1948-49 season, returned to the job in 1953, and retired for good before the season was over.