Cecil William Blachford (June 24, 1880 – May 10, 1965) was a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

forward player who played for the

Montreal Hockey Club The Montreal Hockey Club of Montreal, Quebec, Canada was a senior-level men's amateur ice hockey club, organized in 1884. They were affiliated with the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association (MAAA) and used the MAAA 'winged wheel' logo. The team ...

and the

Montreal Wanderers The Montreal Wanderers were an amateur, and later professional, ice hockey team based in Montreal. The team played in the Federal Amateur Hockey League (FAHL), the Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association (ECAHA), the National Hockey Association ...

. He was a member of

Stanley Cup The Stanley Cup () is the championship trophy awarded annually to the National Hockey League (NHL) playoff champion. It is the oldest existing trophy to be awarded to a professional sports franchise in North America, and the International Ic ...

-winning teams in 1903, 1906, 1907, 1908 and 1910, and captain of the 1906 to 1908 teams.

Playing career

Born in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, Blachford played junior hockey for Montreal Mintos in 1898–99, before graduating to senior-level hockey the following season with Montreal Stirling, for which he played until 1902. He joined the

's intermediate squad, and played one game with the Montreal HC senior team (also known as the "Little Men of Iron") in the regular season, and two games of Stanley Cup challenge play, helping to defeat the

Winnipeg Victorias The Winnipeg Victorias were an amateur senior-level men's amateur ice hockey team in Winnipeg, Manitoba, organized in 1889. They played in the Manitoba Hockey Association (MHA) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Victorias won the ...

. He left Montreal HC with several other Montreal HC players in the off-season to join the new

for whom he played continuously until the end of the 1907–08 season. He was captain of the 1906 through 1908 squads.Coleman, p. 574 In the 1906 season, he was sidelined for most of the season with blood poisoning. In 1907 he was the victim of a blow to the head from Charlie Spittal of the

Ottawa Hockey Club Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core of the Ottawa–Gatinea ...

for which Spittal was convicted in criminal court. Blachford served as a coach for the Wanderers in 1906 and 1907 while he was recovering from his illnesses. After the 1908 season, he retired, but returned for the 1909–10 season for the Wanderers in the new

National Hockey Association The National Hockey Association (NHA), initially the National Hockey Association of Canada Limited, was a professional ice hockey organization with teams in Ontario and Quebec, Canada. It is the direct predecessor of today's National Hockey Leagu ...

, helping to win another Stanley Cup title before retiring for good. Blachford died at Lachine Hospital in Montreal, Quebec in 1965.

Playing style

Outside of the

rover Rover may refer to: People Name * Constance Rover (1910–2005), English historian * Jolanda de Rover (born 1963), Dutch swimmer * Rover Thomas (c. 1920–1998), Indigenous Australian artist Stage name * Rover (musician), French singer-songw ...

position, the more free-roaming position in the seven man game between defence and the forward line, Blachford also played as a winger. The March 21, 1908 issue of the

Ottawa Citizen The ''Ottawa Citizen'' is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. History Established as the Bytown ''Packet'' in 1845 by William Harris (journalist), William Harris, it was renamed the ''Ci ...

, in a review of the players on the Montreal Wanderers, listed Blachford as a right winger and claimed that the late defenceman

Hod Stuart William Hodgson "Hod" Stuart (February 20, 1879 – June 23, 1907) was a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman (ice hockey), cover-point (now known as a defenceman) who played nine seasons for several teams in different leagues from 1899 ...

, a teammate of Blachford on the 1906–07 Wanderers prior to his death in June 1907, had rated him as the best winger in the

ECAHA The Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association (ECAHA) was a men's amateur – later professional – ice hockey league in Canada that played four seasons. It was founded on December 11, 1905 with the top clubs from two other leagues: four ...

that season. The newspaper claimed that Blachford was "easily the most finished player on the forward line" on the Montreal team, and that he was "speedy, aggressive and a beautiful stick-handler.""Who Wanderers Are"
''Ottawa Citizen''. March 21, 1908 (pg. 17). Retrieved 2021-05-13.

Statistics

CAHL-I = CAHL-Intermediate ''Statistics per Society for International Hockey Research at sihrhockey.org''

References

Notes

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Blachford, Cecil 1880 births 1965 deaths Anglophone Quebec people Canadian ice hockey forwards Montreal Hockey Club players Montreal Wanderers (NHA) players Ice hockey people from Montreal Stanley Cup champions 20th-century Canadian sportsmen