Francis Roy "Minnie" McGiffin, last name sometimes spelt McGiffen, (March 2, 1890 – August 30, 1918) was a Canadian

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skil ...

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. He played for the

Toronto Blueshirts The Toronto Hockey Club, known as the Torontos and the Toronto Blueshirts, was a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto. They were a member of the National Hockey Association (NHA). The club was founded in 1911 and began operations in 1912 ...

of the

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

National Hockey Association The National Hockey Association (NHA), officially the National Hockey Association of Canada Limited, was a professional ice hockey organization with teams in Ontario and Quebec, Canada. It is the direct predecessor of today's National Hockey Lea ...

(NHA) from 1912 to 1915. He was a member of the 1914

Stanley Cup The Stanley Cup (french: La Coupe Stanley) is the championship trophy awarded annually to the National Hockey League (NHL) playoff champion. It is the oldest existing trophy to be awarded to a professional sports franchise in North America, an ...

championship Blueshirts team.

Playing career

Roy McGiffin played amateur hockey from age 15 with the Coldwater Hockey Club, moving from there to Toronto Simcoe, Toronto Amateur Athletic Club and back to Toronto Simcoe for the 1909–10 season. He played the 1911–12 season for

Cleveland Athletic Club The Cleveland Athletic Club (CAC) was a historic organization founded in 1908. Founding members included Mayor Charles A. Otis, Walter Baker, and Elbert Baker; banker William Parmalee Murray was its first president. In 1911 the organization com ...

, before turning professional with the Toronto Blueshirts in 1912–13. He played three seasons with the Blueshirts before retiring after the 1914–15 season. In the 1914 Stanley Cup challenge of

Victoria Aristocrats The Victoria Cougars were a major league professional ice hockey team that played in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA) from 1911 to 1924 under various names, and (after the PCHA's merger with the Western Canada Hockey League) in the W ...

against the Blueshirts, McGiffin scored the game-winning goal of game two. That season, he led the league in penalty fines of $116. In a February 17, 1915 regular-season game against the

Ottawa Senators The Ottawa Senators (french: Sénateurs d'Ottawa), officially the Ottawa Senators Hockey Club and colloquially known as the Sens, are a professional ice hockey team based in Ottawa. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a membe ...

, McGiffin became involved in a fight with

Art Ross Arthur Howe Ross (January 13, 1885 – August 5, 1964) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player and executive from 1905 until 1954. Regarded as one of the best defenders of his era by his peers, he was one of the first to skate with the puck ...

that ended with both players being arrested by Toronto police. After spending the night in jail, both players were fined $1. McGiffin lost a coin toss with Ross and paid both fines. The referee of the match

Cooper Smeaton James Cooper Smeaton (July 22, 1890 – October 3, 1978) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player, referee and head coach. He served as the National Hockey League (NHL)'s referee-in-chief from 1917 until 1937. Smeaton served as a Stanley C ...

wanted McGiffin barred from the league, denouncing him as a rough player. After the 1914–15 season, he quit hockey for business and moved to

Dinuba, California Dinuba is a city in Tulare County, California, United States. The population was 21,453 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Visalia-Porterville metropolitan statistical area. The Alta District Museum is located in Dinuba in a restored rai ...

. He had lived there previously for a year from 1910–11 after his junior hockey days. In June 1917 he married Lillian Schroeder of San Francisco. McGiffin served in the

U.S. Army Air Service The United States Army Air Service (USAAS)Craven and Cate Vol. 1, p. 9 (also known as the ''"Air Service"'', ''"U.S. Air Service"'' and before its legislative establishment in 1920, the ''"Air Service, United States Army"'') was the aerial warf ...

during World War I, and was an instructor of

aerobatics Aerobatics is the practice of flying maneuvers involving aircraft attitudes that are not used in conventional passenger-carrying flights. The term is a portmanteau of "aerial" and "acrobatics". Aerobatics are performed in aeroplanes and glid ...

. On August 30, 1918, Flight-Lieutenant McGiffin was killed in an airplane crash about a mile and a half northeast of Call Field in

Wichita Falls, Texas Wichita Falls ( ) is a city in and the seat of government of Wichita County, Texas, United States. It is the principal city of the Wichita Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Archer, Clay, and Wichita counties. Accordin ...

.McGiffin Francis Roy
1918 US Army Signal Corps/ US Army Air Service Accident Reports He was looping at an altitude of 2,000 feet when his plane crashed.

Playing style

Roy McGiffin was known as a rough player, somewhat in the mold of a modern day

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, and he collected a total amount of 300 penalty minutes over 51 games during his three year long NHA career. But

Jack Marshall Sir John Ross Marshall New Zealand Army Orders 1952/405 (5 March 1912 – 30 August 1988) was a New Zealand politician of the National Party. He entered Parliament in 1946 and was first promoted to Cabinet in 1951. After spending twelve years ...

, a teammate of McGiffin on the Toronto Blueshirts and a subsequent

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 ...

inductee, thought McGiffin's reputation as a violent player was exaggerated and claimed that most of his violent outbursts were for intimidation purposes only: It seemed not everyone agreed on Marshall's assertion of McGiffin as a "good little fellow." According to

Montreal Gazette The ''Montreal Gazette'', formerly titled ''The Gazette'', is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Three other daily English-language newspapers shuttered at various times during the second half of th ...

sports journalist

Dink Carroll Austin "Dink" Carroll (November 12, 1899 – April 8, 1991) was a Canadian sports journalist. A columnist for the '' Montréal Gazette'', he won the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award in 1984 and is a member of the media section of the Hockey Hall o ...

, longtime

NHL 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 ...

referee

Mike Rodden Michael James Rodden (April 24, 1891 – January 11, 1978) was a Canadian sports journalist, National Hockey League referee, and Canadian football coach, and was the first person elected to both the Hockey Hall of Fame (1962) and the Canadian Foo ...

, when asked about McGiffin, claimed " cGiffinwasn't a bad man. He was a mad man.""Playing the Field" – "The Era of 60-minute Men"
Carroll, Dink. ''Montreal Gazette''. March 11, 1952 (pg. 16). Retrieved 2021-05-09.

Career statistics

Champion
Source: ''Society for International Hockey Research''

References

Notes

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:McGiffin, Roy Toronto Blueshirts players Stanley Cup champions 1890 births 1918 deaths Canadian ice hockey left wingers United States Army Air Service pilots of World War I American military personnel killed in World War I