Left winger George Faulkner was Newfoundland’s first pro hockey player
George Faulkner, left, with Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard in the mid-1950s.Courtesy of family
The tireless George Faulkner was the first athlete from Newfoundland to sign a professional hockey contract.
Mr. Faulkner, who has died at 91, played minor pro hockey in Quebec for four seasons, during which he was unable to crack a supremely talented Montreal Canadiens lineup. It would fall to a younger brother, Alex Faulkner, to be the first player from Canada’s easternmost province to play in the National Hockey League.
Though the NHL proved elusive, Mr. Faulkner returned to his native province where he earned a reputation as the best player of his generation. The left winger also had late-career success as a member of Canada’s national hockey team, winning a bronze medal at the 1966 world championships.
His career was all the more remarkable for his unlikely introduction to the sport. He had learned to skate on the frozen Exploits River as a boy, using crushed tin cans as makeshift skates.
Robert George Faulkner was born on Dec. 27, 1933, in Bishop’s Falls, a mill town and railway centre in central Newfoundland, which was then an independent dominion. He was the second of seven children born to the former Olive Carpenter and Lester Faulkner, a former cook who, at the time of the 1945 census, worked on fire patrol in the newsprint industry.
The blond-haired schoolboy was just 15 when he began playing against men in the Grand Falls senior league with the Bishop’s Falls Woodsmen. He left the island for the first time to play junior-B hockey in Quebec City for the Citadelles under coach “Fiery Phil” Watson, a former NHLer. The team won the Eastern Canadian championship in 1952 after defeating a team from Rockingham, Que. The young winger scored a goal in the deciding game, won 7-2 by the Citadelles.
A year later, playing for Grand Falls, Mr. Faulkner was a key player as the team won the Herder Memorial Trophy as senior provincial hockey champions. He would win the trophy another eight times over his career.
The 5-foot-10, 175-pound (1.78-metre, 79-kilogram) winger also continued playing junior hockey in Quebec City. He was invited to the Canadiens’ training camp at the Verdun Auditorium in 1954, where his fast skating and clever playmaking earned a minor-league contract offer.
“I sat down and signed a contract with Shawinigan for a salary of $137 a week,” he later told biographer Tom Rossiter. “I would’ve signed for 10.”
Mr. Faulkner, right, with Jackie Macleod, coach of Canada’s National team, in 1965. Mr. Faulkner won a bronze medal with the team at the 1966 world championships.Courtesy of family
“Faulkner has big time look,” the Hockey News stated in a headline. He scored 18 goals in 59 games for the Shawinigan Falls Cataractes in 1954-55 while playing alongside Connie Broden and Claude Provost, a unit dubbed the Kid Line. The Cataractes won the league championship before knocking off the Edmonton Flyers to claim the Edinburgh Trophy as Canada’s top minor-league pro team.
He skated for four seasons with the Cataractes, though he never got the anticipated call-up to the parent Canadiens. In those years, the likes of Dickie Moore, Bert Olmstead, Don Marshall and Marcel Bonin patrolled left wing, leaving little opportunity for the prospect to break in. While Mr. Provost went on to a long and distinguished career with Montreal, winning nine Stanley Cups, his Kid Line teammate Mr. Broden only got to play six regular-season and one playoff game for the Canadiens over two seasons.
Mr. Faulkner met a nurse from Newfoundland who would become his wife when Mr. Broden went to the hospital for stitches.
After returning to Newfoundland, he was hired by Frank Moores, a future premier, to be a manager and recreational director at the new arena in Harbour Grace. He was also made the playing coach of the Conception Bay CeeBees. Mr. Faulkner sometimes skated a full 60 minutes. The roster over the years accommodated Faulkner brothers, including Jack, Lindy and Alex, who once scored 103 goals in 25 games. Alex went on to play 101 NHL games – a one-game debut with the Toronto Maple Leafs and the rest with the Detroit Red Wings.
Mr. Faulkner was invited by Rev. David Bauer to join Canada’s national hockey team, made up mostly of amateur university students. The Faulkner family temporarily relocated to Winnipeg, where the team was based.
In Canada’s opening game of the world championships in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia, in March, 1966, the left winger scored two goals in defeating the United States by 7-2. His heroics were witnessed by the Yugoslav Communist leader, Josip Broz Tito, who was watching his first game, after which he pronounced it to be “a wonderful, manly sport.”
Canada went on to defeat Poland (6-0), Finland (9-1), and East Germany (6-0) before losing 2-1 to Czechoslovakia in a game in which two Canadian goals were disallowed.
“I just hope the people at home don’t think the Czechs beat us,” said Mr. Faulkner, who had an assist and scored one of the disputed goals. “It was the officiating.”
The assist came on a goal by 23-year-old law student Roger Bourbonnais.
“He made a perfect pass, one of those floating, saucer passes over all the sticks and right onto my blade,” Mr. Bourbonnais said recently. “I was able to cut behind the defence and I put the shot along the ice just inside the post.”
Canada then lost 3-0 to the Soviet Union before defeating Sweden 4-2 to claim a bronze medal.
Mr. Faulkner completed the tournament as Canada’s top goal scorer with six goals. His two assists tied him with Fran Huck (four goals, four assists) as Canada’s top point-getter.
“George was a joy to be around,” Mr. Bourbonnais said. “He was great in the dressing room, and he always had a nice thing to say about everybody.”
Mr. Faulkner with his grandson, George, at Mile One Centre in St. John’s in 2011. Mr. Faulkner was inducted into the Hockey Newfoundland and Labrador Hall of Fame in 2014.Brian Tuck
He also received bundles of supportive letters from proud Newfoundlanders, as well as a congratulatory telegram from premier Joey Smallwood.
After his season with the national team, he coached the CeeBees to a provincial championship in 1967, earning the team the right to be the first Newfoundland and Labrador club to compete for the Allan Cup as top senior team in Canada. Minutes after winning the provincial title and only days before the start of an Allan Cup playoff series, Mr. Faulkner flew to Vienna to rejoin his old teammates at the world championships. This time, he was asked to leave his hockey stick behind in favour of his guitar. He was needed as a morale booster, entertaining the players with rousing renditions of Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land with the Canadian lyrics made popular by the folk group the Travellers, including the line “from Bonavista to Vancouver Island.” Canada went on to once again win a bronze.
He also skated for the senior Gander Flyers, the Corner Brook Royals, the St. John’s Capitals and St. John’s Mike’s Shamrocks before hanging up his skates as a competitive player at age 41.
An odd sojourn in his career included a brief, seven-game return to the professional ranks, when he played for the Jacksonville Rockets in the brawl-filled Eastern Hockey League. He recorded only two minor penalties for the Florida team before returning home.
In 1982, he was inducted into the Newfoundland and Labrador Sports Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Hockey Newfoundland and Labrador Hall of Fame in 2014. The Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame has inducted all members of the national team based in Winnipeg from 1965 to 1970.
He took part in the torch relay for the 2010 Winter Olympics held in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C. On a day in which the torch began its journey at dawn at Cape Spear, the easternmost part of the continent, he was given the honour of passing the torch in front of the Confederation Building in St. John’s to premier Danny Williams.
Mr. Faulkner received an honorary degree from Memorial University in St. John’s in 2010.
Mr. Faulkner, who died on Jan. 19, was predeceased by his wife of 54 years, the former Marjorie (Midge) Vardy, who died in 2010. He was also predeceased by a brother, Lindy Faulkner, who died in 2009, aged 78.
He leaves his sons, Bob and Peter Faulkner, along with a grandson, three brothers and two sisters.
He also leaves his second wife, Barbara Jean Paddock, whom he married in April, 2023. They met by bumping into one another while turning a corner at a retirement home in Grand Falls-Windsor. A few months later, the smitten, 89-year-old suitor dropped to one knee to propose. She said yes, but his knee said no. An old hockey injury prevented him from getting back up without assistance.
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Mr. Faulkner outside of Cee Bee Stars dressing room at Mile One Centre in St. John’s in 2009. Mr. Faulkner coached the CeeBees to a provincial championship in 1967, earning the team the right to be the first Newfoundland and Labrador club to compete for the Allan Cup.Brian Tuck