Frederick Charles Albert "Old Wag" Waghorne Sr. (October 16, 1865 – June 19, 1956) was an

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 hock ...

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other titl ...

and organizer in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. He also made significant contributions to

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensively ...

in that country. He is a member of both the

Hockey Hall of Fame , logo = Hockey Hall of Fame Logo.svg , logo_upright = 0.5 , image = Hockey Hall of Fame, Toronto.jpg , caption = The Hall's present location on Yonge Street since 1992 , map_type = , former_name = , established = 1943 , location = 30 Y ...

and the

Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame The Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame is a Canadian lacrosse hall of fame, located in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada. The Hall was chartered in 1965 by the Canadian Lacrosse Association, and inducted its first class of hall of famers in t ...

in the "Builder" category.

League organization

Waghorne was born in Tunbridge Wells, England and then moved to Canada. While mainly interested in

rugby Rugby may refer to: Sport * Rugby football in many forms: ** Rugby league: 13 players per side *** Masters Rugby League *** Mod league *** Rugby league nines *** Rugby league sevens *** Touch (sport) *** Wheelchair rugby league ** Rugby union: 1 ...

as a youth, he became interested in lacrosse and ice hockey and eventually started the Toronto Lacrosse Hockey League. This league started out fielding lacrosse teams in the summer and hockey teams in the winter, but as the popularity of hockey grew the league became simply the Toronto Hockey League. When the Toronto Hockey League disbanded, Waghorne continued to work to provide opportunities for hockey players at all levels. In 1911, he formed the Beaches Hockey League which eventually became the

Greater Toronto Hockey League The Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL), formerly known as the Metro Toronto Hockey League, is a minor level ice hockey organization based in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario. The league was founded in 1911 as the Beaches Hockey League by ...

, the largest

minor league hockey Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in Nor ...

organization in the world.

Officiating

Waghorne is best known for his prolific career as a referee. He is known to have officiated 2,400 hockey games and 1,500 lacrosse matches. Many of the decisions he made on the ice rink became long-term rules in both amateur and professional ice hockey. Waghorne is credited with several changes and innovations to ice hockey rules, such as: * The use of a

whistle A whistle is an instrument which produces sound from a stream of gas, most commonly air. It may be mouth-operated, or powered by air pressure, steam, or other means. Whistles vary in size from a small slide whistle or nose flute type to a larg ...

instead of the customary

cow bell A cowbell (or cow bell) is a bell worn around the neck of free-roaming livestock so herders can keep track of an animal via the sound of the bell when the animal is grazing out of view in hilly landscapes or vast plains. Although they are t ...

to stop play when fans started bringing their own cowbells to disrupt game play. * The acceptance of professional referees in amateur hockey games. * The practice of dropping the puck from a few feet up at

faceoff A face-off is the method used to begin and restart play after goals in some sports using sticks, primarily ice hockey, bandy, floorball, broomball, rinkball, and lacrosse. During a face-off, two teams line up in opposition to each other, and the ...

rather than placing it directly on the ice, which limited player contact with the referee's shins and ankles during faceoffs. * The ruling that if a half of a broken

hockey puck A hockey puck is either an open or closed disk used in a variety of sports and games. There are designs made for use on an ice surface, such as in ice hockey, and others for the different variants of floor hockey which includes the wheeled skate ...

entered the net, no goal was counted - a rule that led to the development of one-piece pucks.

Honors

Waghorne was involved with ice hockey and lacrosse until his death in 1956 at the age of 90. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1961, and to the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1965.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Waghorne, Fred Sr. Hockey Hall of Fame inductees People from Royal Tunbridge Wells Canadian ice hockey officials 1865 births 1956 deaths