Frank Boucher—The Mountie Who Loved Hockey

When Frank Boucher left his native Ottawa after the First World War to pursue a new life as member of the Northwest Mounted Police stationed in Alberta, he had many heady dreams about the open range. He dreamed of apprehending miscreants and that he would live by the creed "The Mounties always get their man." He dreamed of adventure, of a Wild West filled with rogues, heroes and scores of treasure waiting to be uncovered.

What he wasn’t counting on was to be commissioned the job of being a stable boy. After he arrived in Alberta, the Mounties charged him with the care of horses. Instead of villains and treasure, he got handfuls of feed and manure.

Luckily, Boucher had a more enjoyable hobby; he was quickly recognized as one of the best young hockey talents in the province. A dominating centre with quick feet and great hands (in fact, Boucher got the nickname "Raffles" because of his ability to steal the puck), he quickly became the star attraction for the amateur Lethbridge Vets club. Boucher led the Vets to an Alberta senior amateur championship in 1919, and realized that it would be through hockey, not being a police hero, which would give him the fame and fortune he sought. So, Boucher gathered up $50 (at the time, a rather large sum of money) to buy out his obligation to the Mounties and pursue a new career playing professional hockey.

In 1921, he signed with his hometown Ottawa Senators of the National Hockey League and played there for just a year before the call of the West was too much for him. In 1922, he signed with the free-spending Vancouver Millionaires of the rival Pacific Coast Hockey League. He was one of the star attractions in Vancouver’s lineup through the lean years of pro hockey on the Pacific Coast. The Millionaires changed their name to the Maroons, gave up the PCHL for the Western Canada Hockey League, and eventually folded in 1926, when pro hockey in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan died.

Boucher had earned the admiration of Lester Patrick, the founder of the PCHL who went east to build the New York Rangers after the Maroons folded. One of Patrick’s first moves as Rangers boss was to sign Boucher. The centre played with the Rangers from 1926 to 1938, with a small 15-game comeback attempt in 1943-44. Including the one season he spent with the Senators, Boucher finished with 160 goals and 263 assists in 557 career regular-season games. He helped the Rangers win two Stanley Cups and Boucher claimed his seventh Lady Byng Trophy as the league’s most gentlemanly player in 1935. The NHL was so impressed with Boucher’s clean play, League officials decided to let him keep the Lady Byng for good in 1935 and had a new one made.

Boucher was hired as the Rangers’ coach in 1939. He immediately began innovating the game of hockey. That year, he came up with a new last-second strategy in games that the Rangers trailed by a goal. He pulled the Rangers goalie from the net with about a minute to play in the third, giving the team an extra attacker to try and press for a tying goal. That strategy is commonplace in the modern NHL today. Boucher led the Rangers to the Cup in 1940, and remained coach until 1948, when he took over the Royal Canadian Air Force Flyers club and coached them to Olympic gold. He made a brief comeback at coaching in 1953.

Boucher was also known for inventing the modern centre red line that is still used in NHL play; before the 1940s, defencemen were not allowed to pass the puck across their blue lines, so play did not flow. Boucher’s rule change, adopted by the NHL, allowed defencemen to pass the puck up past the blue lines as long as it did not cross the red line. The invention led to a wide open game.

Boucher passed away in 1977, but not before he was selected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

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