John Liddell MacDonald "Jack" Gibson (September 10, 1880 – November 4, 1954) was a Canadian-born

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 ...

player and executive. Known as the "father of professional hockey", Gibson founded the

International Professional Hockey League The International Professional Hockey League (IPHL) was the first fully professional ice hockey, professional ice hockey leagues, ice hockey league, operating from 1904 to 1907. It was formed by Jack Gibson (ice hockey born 1880), Jack "Doc" Gi ...

in 1904, the first fully professional hockey league in history. He was elected to 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 ...

as a builder in 1976.

Biography

Jack Gibson was born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, which later became Kitchener. As a youth, he excelled in academics and athletics, playing a number of sports well, including

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 ...

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

, rowing, running, cycling, tennis, and skating. Gibson received an offer to play in the developmental system of

Everton Football Club Everton Football Club () is an English professional association football club based in Liverpool that competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club was a founder member of the Football League in 1888 and has compe ...

. He considered the move, but decided to stay in North America to continue his studies. He graduated from Berlin High School in 1896. Gibson was a gifted hockey player who played throughout Ontario and helped the Berlin Hockey Club win the provincial intermediate championship team in 1897. Gibson and his teammates were expelled from the

Ontario Hockey Association The Ontario Hockey Association (OHA) is the governing body for the majority of junior and senior level ice hockey teams in the Province of Ontario. The OHA is sanctioned by the Ontario Hockey Federation along with the Northern Ontario Hockey As ...

(OHA) in 1898 after being accused of accepting payment. The OHA was militantly opposed to professionalism and banned the team after Berlin's mayor presented each player with a $10 gold coin in celebration of a win over the rival team from Waterloo. Gibson had offered to return the coin, to no avail. He attended

Pickering College Pickering College is an independent, co-educational school for children in grades from Junior Kindergarten through grade 12. It is located in Newmarket, Ontario, Newmarket, Ontario in Canada on a 17-hectare (42 acre) property on Bayview Avenue. The ...

to pursue a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

. He was also a member of the Pickering football team. Later, he moved to the

University of Detroit The University of Detroit Mercy is a private Roman Catholic university in Detroit, Michigan. It is sponsored by both the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and the Sisters of Mercy. The university was founded in 1877 and is the largest Catholic universi ...

Dental School. PortageLakeHC1904

After graduation, he moved to the northern Michigan community of Houghton to set up a dental practice. Still a gifted hockey player, he recruited other talented individuals and established the

Portage Lakes Hockey Club The Portage Lakes Hockey Club was one of the first professional ice hockey clubs. Based in Houghton, Michigan, the club played at the Amphidrome from 1904 until 1906. While members of the International Professional Hockey League, the team won th ...

in 1902–03. Portage Lakes was an openly professional team, and Gibson captained the squad and was its leading scorer. After defeating 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 ...

in 2 exhibition contests in the 1903–04 season in front of 5,000 fans at the Houghton Amphidrome, it became obvious to Gibson that Northern Michigan was a hockey hotbed and could sustain a league and the

, the first professional hockey league in the world, opened for business in 1904. Gibson retired from playing after 1904, but remained active in recruiting players to the league, while also serving as a

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 ...

. Gibson attracted the likes of Hod and

Bruce Stuart Charles Bruce Stuart (November 30, 1881 – October 28, 1961) was a Canadian amateur and professional ice hockey forward who played for the Quebec Bulldogs, Ottawa Senators, Montreal Wanderers, Portage Lakes Hockey Club, Pittsburgh Victorias ...

Riley Hern William Milton "Riley" Hern (December 5, 1878 – June 24, 1929) was a Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender. He was the first professional goaltender to play on a Stanley Cup-winning team. Biography Hern began playing ice hockey at an earl ...

, and

Cyclone Taylor Frederick Wellington "Cyclone" Taylor, MBE (June 23, 1884 – June 9, 1979) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player and civil servant. A cover-point and rover, he played professionally from 1906 to 1922 for several teams, and is most well ...

to play in the league. In addition to Houghton Portage Lakes, the

Calumet Miners The Calumet Miners, also known as the Calumet-Laurium Miners and the Calumet Wanderers, was a professional ice hockey team from Calumet & Laurium, Michigan. The team played for three seasons in the International Professional Hockey League, the fi ...

Michigan Soo Indians The Michigan Soo Indians, also known as the American Soo Indians, was a professional ice hockey team from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, United States. The team played for three seasons in the International Professional Hockey League, the first full ...

, the Pittsburgh Pro Hockey Club and the

Canadian Soo The Sault Ste. Marie Marlboros, also known as the Canadian Soo and Soo Algonquins, was a professional ice hockey team from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. It was the lone Canadian entry in the International Hockey League of 1904–1907, and ...

team rounded out the league. The league folded after only three years when professional hockey became a reality in Canada in 1907 and many of the star players returned home. 15 of the 97 players who played in the IPHL from 1904 to 1907, including Gibson, are members of the

. After practising dentistry and refereeing local games in Houghton for a few years, Gibson also returned to Canada and set up a dental practice in

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

, Alberta, where he resided until he died in 1954. In 1976 Gibson was inducted into the

as a builder. Beginning in 1939, a trophy, named the Gibson Cup, was awarded to the champion of the Michigan-Ontario Pro Hockey League. Today, the Gibson Cup is given to the winner of an annual challenge series between the Portage Lake Pioneers and the Calumet Wolverines. The Gibson Cup is the third-oldest hockey cup in North America, behind only the Stanley Cup (1893) and the MacNaughton Cup (1913). The MacNaughton Cup goes to the regular-season champion of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association.

References

Bibliography

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gibson, Jack 1880 births 1954 deaths 20th-century dentists Canadian dentists Canadian ice hockey defencemen Hockey Hall of Fame inductees Ice hockey people from Ontario International Professional Hockey League Portage Lakes Hockey Club players Sportspeople from Kitchener, Ontario University of Michigan alumni University of Detroit Mercy alumni