Joseph Arthur Lesieur (September 13, 1907 – December 31, 1967) was an American professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

defenseman Defence or defense (in American English) in ice hockey is a player position that is primarily responsible for preventing the opposing team from scoring. They are often referred to as defencemen, D, D-men or blueliners (the latter a reference to ...

who played 100 games in the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

with the

Montreal Canadiens The Montreal CanadiensEven in English, the French spelling is always used instead of ''Canadians''. The French spelling of ''Montréal'' is also sometimes used in the English media. (french: link=no, Les Canadiens de Montréal), officially ...

and

Chicago Black Hawks (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Born in

Fall River Fall River is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. The City of Fall River's population was 94,000 at the 2020 United States Census, making it the tenth-largest city in the state. Located along the eastern shore of Mount H ...

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, in 1931 he became the first American-born player to have his name engraved on the Stanley Cup as a member of the Montreal Canadiens. Lesieur played most of his professional hockey career with the Providence Reds of the Canadian-American (CanAm) Hockey League and the American (AHL) Hockey League, where he led the Reds to 3 Fontaine Cup titles and 2 Calder Cup championships as a player, team captain and/or player coach. In 1941, just days after the attack on Pearl Harbor and midway through the hockey season, Art became a national celebrity as the first U.S.-born professional hockey player to be drafted into the armed forces, turning in his team colors for Army drab. He served nearly five years, of which 32 months were in combat overseas commanding artillery batteries in both the European and North African theaters. Lesieur was inducted into the Rhode Island Hockey Hall of fame in 2021.

External links

* 1907 births 1967 deaths American men's ice hockey defensemen Chicago Blackhawks players Ice hockey players from Massachusetts Montreal Canadiens players Pittsburgh Hornets players Sportspeople from Fall River, Massachusetts Stanley Cup champions {{US-icehockey-defenceman-stub