Conacher, Lionel V.
Hockey
b. May 24, 1901, Toronto, ONT
d. May 26, 1954
It would be hard to find a sport that Conacher didn't excel at, if he tried. He could run the 100-yard dash in 10.0 seconds when the world record was 9.8. He was the Canadian heavyweight boxing champion and the wrestling champion of Ontario. He played professional baseball in the International League, one step below the majors. He scored 15 points in the 1921 Grey Cup championship, when his Toronto Argonauts beat the Edmonton Eskimos 23-0 for the Canadian football championship.
But his greatest fame was as a hockey player. He may not have been as skilled as his brother Charlie, but he was certainly rougher and tougher. In 1936, he and Charlie had a fight that started on the ice and moved up a ramp into the lobby of the rink, when Charlie finally gave up.
Lionel, known as "Big Train," a kind of reverse pun on his name, entered the NHL with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1925. He was traded to the New York Americans during the 1926/27 season, then went to the Montreal Maroons. After three seasons with them, he played for the Chicago Black Hawks for one season and returned to the Maroons for three more, retiring in 1937.
He scored 80 goals and had 105 assists, with 882 penalty minutes in 500 regular season games, and he added 2 goals, 2 assists and 34 penalty minutes in 35 playoff games.
After retiring from hockey, Conacher became a member of the Canadian Parliament. He died of a heart attack after hitting a triple in a sandlot baseball game.