Frank Patrick (ice hockey)

Frank Patrick
Hockey Hall of Fame, 1950
Patrick while a member of the Vancouver Millionaires, 1913–1914
Born	(1885-12-21)December 21, 1885 Ottawa, ON, CAN
Died	June 29, 1960(1960-06-29) (aged 74) Vancouver, BC, CAN
Height	5 ft 11 in (180 cm)
Weight	185 lb (84 kg; 13 st 3 lb)
Position	Defence
Played for	Vancouver Maroons (PCHA) Vancouver Millionaires (PCHA) Nelson Hockey Club (WKHL) Renfrew Creamery Kings (NHA) Montreal Victorias (ECAHA)
Playing career	1904–1924

Francis Alexis "Frank" Patrick (December 21, 1885 – June 29, 1960) was an early Canadian professional ice hockey player, NHL head coach and manager. Raised in Montreal, Patrick moved to British Columbia with his family in 1917 to establish a lumber company. The family sold the company in 1910 and used the proceeds to establish the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA), the first major professional hockey league in the West. Patrick, who also served as president of the league, would take 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 uniform numbers, the blue line, the penalty shot, among others. His Millionaires won the Stanley Cup in 1915, the first team west of Manitoba to do so, and played for the Cup again in 1918.

In 1926 the league, which had since been renamed the Western Canada Hockey League and later Western Hockey League due to mergers, 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. His brother Lester Patrick was also a professional ice hockey player, coach and executive.

Patrick was the son of a wealthy lumberman Joseph Patrick, who invented the idea of putting numbers on players' uniforms.

While attending McGill University, Patrick played hockey from 1904 to 1908, winning the Queen's Cup championship in 1905 alongside his brother Lester Patrick. In 1907 Patrick moved with the rest of his family to Nelson, British Columbia, where Joseph established a lumber company. Patrick would spend the next several winters there, except for 1909–10 when he and his brother Lester joined the Renfrew Creamery Kings of the newly formed National Hockey Association (NHA). Well-regarded nationally as one of the top defenders in hockey, Patrick was paid $2,000 for the season, an extravagant amount at the time. He scored 8 goals in 11 games for Renfrew, though the team failed to win the championship despite having some of the biggest names in the sport.