Francis Alexis "Frank" Patrick - Born December 21, 1885 in Ottawa, Ontario - Died June 29, 1960 in Vancouver, British Columbia was a Canadian ice Hockey cover-point (defenseman), winger, referee, owner, coach, general manager, president and pioneer.

- Queen's Cup Champion 1905 with McGill Redmen.

- British Columbia Champion 1909 with Nelson Hockey Club.
- Daily News Cup Champion 1909.
- Rossland Winter Carnival Hockey Champion 1909.

- Stanley Cup Champion 1915 with Vancouver Hockey Club (Millionaires).
Stanley Cup finalist 1918, 1921, 1922.

- Pacific Coast Hockey Association Champion 1915, 1918, 1921, 1922 with Vancouver Millionaires, 1923, 1924 with Vancouver Maroons.

- Banff Winter Carnival Alpine Cup Champion 1922 with Vancouver Amazons (manager/sponsor).

- Pacific Coast Hockey League Champion 1929, 1930, 1931 with Vancouver Lions (coach).

- Prince of Wales Trophy Champion 1935 with Boston Bruins (coach).

Frank Patrick and his brother Lester learned the game of ice Hockey in the Westmount area of Montreal, first playing in 1895.

Frank became a member of the Westmount Hockey Club in 1901, playing with them until 1905.

Frank also attended Stanstead College, then later McGill University, playing Hockey for them both. In 1904 Patrick played his first senior games, with the Montreal Victorias of the Canadian Amateur Hockey League / CAHL. He also started refereeing games.

Patrick helped McGill University win the 1904-05 Queen's Cup. Before graduating in 1908 .... he was team captain.

Patrick also played for the Montreal Victorias in the Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association / ECAHA, and played in the Hod Stuart Memorial Game (1st All-Star Game) for the ECAHA All-Star Team on January 2, 1908 before heading to British Columbia, where his father Joe had established a lumber mill in the Kootenays.

Frank played for the Nelson Hockey Club on and off from 1908 to 1911, helping them win the British Columbia championship and Rossland Winter Carnival in 1909.

Frank was offered $2000 and lured back east to play for the Renfrew Creamery Kings / Renfrew Hockey Club in 1909, playing 1 season for them. He returned to Nelson for the 1910-11 season.

Joe Patrick decided to sell the lumber business in January 1911, and the Patricks decided then to form a new professional ice Hockey league. The decision was made to put new rinks in Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia, locations which necessitated the use of artificial ice, as the locations' climate prevented natural ice. Three teams: the New Westminster Royals, the Victoria Senators, and the Vancouver Hockey Club (Vancouver Terminals) would be formed. The Patricks moved quickly, buying property for the arenas in February. Ground was broken for the arenas in April and the arenas were completed in December. Victoria's arena seated 4,000, and cost $110,000 and the flagship arena in Vancouver had 10,500 seats and cost $210,000 to build

The Pacific Coast Hockey Association / PCHA was formally organized on December 7, 1911 to be run by Frank and Lester, who would also play for and manage the Vancouver and Victoria teams. Frank would also be PCHA founding president, serving nearly its entire existence, and in this role introduced many rules that helped modernize the game, making it both faster and more entertaining.

The Victoria arena would open to the public on Christmas Day 1911, and the 1st game of the PCHA was played there on January 3, 1912. The Denman Arena had their 1st game on January 5th, only a year after the Patricks decided to form the new league.

The Patricks and the PCHA became famous for their raids of players in the National Hockey Association / NHA, offering higher salaries to play in the PCHA.

During the 1913–14 season, the PCHA and the NHA started to act together, coming to agreements to recognize each other's player suspensions and contracts, and instituting a controlled "draft" process to facilitate the transfer of players. In a further agreement, the champions of each league would face each other for the Stanley Cup. After the 1914 season, league champion Victoria came east to play the first "World Series of Hockey" challenge series with the Toronto Blueshirts for the Stanley Cup. After the series, the Stanley Cup trustees came to agreement with the NHA and PCHA and the challenge era of the Stanley Cup came to an end. Yearly playoffs between the leagues would become the new manner of deciding the Stanley Cup champion.

For the 1914–15 season, Vancouver changed it's name from the Terminals to the Millionaires, winning their 1st PCHA championship, then defeated the Ottawa Senators in a best-of-five series to become the PCHA's 1st Stanley Cup champions. Frank played all 3 games of the series and had 2 goals and 1 assist, as Vancouver won 3 in a row. This would be the only Stanley Cup championship for Frank.

The Patricks, who had seen the how popular the Rossland Ladies Hockey Team were in the Kootenays, were interested in establishing women's Hockey on the west coast. A handful of women’s teams in Vancouver, Victoria, and New Westminster began playing one another as early as 1914. Frank would later sponsor the Vancouver Amazons team, who won the famous Banff Winter Carnival Alpine Cup in 1922.

The PCHA would start to experience financial troubles in the early 1920s and in 1924 would merge with the Western Canada Hockey League, which was renamed the Western Hockey League / WHL.

Lester Patrick's team, the Victoria Cougars would win the WHL championship in 1925, then defeat the Montreal Canadiens for the 1925 Stanley Cup championship. The WHL continued until 1926, though with continued financial difficulties.

There were expansion plans by the now National Hockey League / NHL (which would add three teams between 1924 and 1926, growing to ten teams overall) it was clear the WHL would not be sustainable. With the consent of five of the six WHL teams Patrick met with the NHL and offered to sell the rights to WHL players to the league for a lump sum, allowing the NHL to quickly stock the expansion teams being set up. This was agreed to, and for $100,000 the Victoria team was transferred to Detroit, who named themselves the Detroit Cougars in recognition. The Chicago team, later named the Black Hawks, also paid $100,000 for players, receiving the Portland Rosebuds. The Boston Bruins, whose owner Charles Adams and manager Art Ross had helped facilitate the sale, also purchased Fredrickson, Shore, Keats and others, while the Rangers took Frank Boucher. In total, the player's contracts purchased that day totalled $267,000 for Patrick to take back to the WHL.. Patrick was offered positions with both the Chicago Black Hawks and Detroit Cougars, but he refused their offers.

Patrick became the coach and manager of the Vancouver Lions of the Pacific Coast Hockey League from 1928 to 1931.
In April of 1929, the Montreal Canadiens and New York Americans travelled to Vancouver to play exhibition games vs the Lions.

Patrick then became the managing director of the NHL in 1933.

Art Ross, who had been a friend of the Patricks since childhood in the Westmount area of Montreal, was coach and manager of the Boston Bruins, asked Frank to become coach of the Bruins for the 1934-35 season. He led Boston to the American Division regular season championship, winning the Prince of Wales Trophy. Patrick coached for another season with Boston, but there were also allegations that Frank was drunk during the Bruins' series vs the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1936 playoffs and he was let go after the season.

Patrick returned to Vancouver, as he had always been the manager of the Denman Arena, which had many events. However the Denman Arena burned down the night of August 19, 1936.

The Montreal Canadiens hired Patrick in April 1940 to work as the business manager of the team, also helping Tommy Gorman who was the general manager, but Frank left the Canadiens after just 1 year.

Frank A. Patrick was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1958.

Frank Patrick was inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame in 1966.

Frank Patrick was inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in 1975.

Frank Patrick was inducted into the McGill University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2004.

NOTE
The NHL rulebook carries 22 pieces of legislation originated by Frank Patrick, including the introduction of the blue line, forward pass, penalty shot and playoff system earning him a place in history as one of the most visionary and influential figures in Hockey.