Lionel Conacher biography
Lionel Conacher, in full Lionel Pretoria Conacher, (born May 24, 1901, Toronto, Ont., Can.—died May 26, 1954, Ottawa), athlete and politician who was voted Canada’s Athlete of the Half Century (1900–50) and was a Liberal Party member of Parliament.
Conacher dropped out of faculty after the eighth grade to work. His athletic profession stemmed from a prize he received in 1916 for promoting essentially the most newspapers—a membership card in a YMCA gymnasium. He received the Ontario 125-pound wrestling championship at age 16 and the Canadian light-heavyweight boxing championship at 20. He performed on the championship Ontario lacrosse workforce in 1922 and on the Toronto American Athletic Association championship baseball workforce in 1926. He additionally performed rugby for Toronto within the Ontario Football Rugby Union (1920) and for the Toronto Argonauts (1921–22). His most sustained skilled sport was ice hockey; he performed as a defenseman within the National Hockey League (1925–37) with the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Chicago Black Hawks, the New York Americans, and the Montreal Maroons and was a member of Stanley Cup profitable groups in 1934 (Chicago) and 1935 (Montreal).
Conacher was elected to the Ontario legislature in 1937. During World War II he was leisure director for the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was elected to Parliament in 1949 and 1953. He died of a coronary heart assault after hitting a triple in a softball sport between members of Parliament and the parliamentary press gallery. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, posthumously, in 1994.