Improbable
as it may seem, one of the most respected hockey players in Canada before
World War I was Hobey Baker, an American who never played professionally
and never played for a Canadian team. Born in 1892 to a wealthy Pennsylvania
family, the gifted skater and stickhandler became known in the U.S. as the
King of Hockey, and legend attached itself to him as naturally as he attached
himself to the game.
The Princeton team he captained was known as "Hobey Baker and the Tigers" and it was said that as soon as the puck was on his stick he never needed to look at it again. Once, after being checked up and over the boards, he ran along the bench, leapt into the play, picked up the loose puck and scored. An old Princetonian's memoirs recalled him "as near being what every male would like to think himself in looks and actions as it is possible for one man to be. Everything about him was out of a storybook. He was the perfect college hero."
In this heroic tradition, Baker won the Croix de Guerre for valor under fire while flying his black and orange plane - Princeton's colors - with the fabled Escadrille Lafayette in World War I. The award was made posthumously as Baker crashed and died on Dcember 21, 1918, while taking one last flight before being shipped home.
He was among the first group of players to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame when it was established in 1945.
Copiled from The Great Book of Hockey (Fischler 1991) and Hockey Hall of Fame Legends (McKinley 1993)
