Who He Was
Lionel Conacher was the greatest Canadian athlete of all time. He might have been the greatest athlete in pro sports, ever. He might have been a cyborg, for all we know. He was just that good.
Lionel was the eldest of 10 children in the Conacher family, born in 1900 in Toronto in one of the nicer slums in the city. He left school after the eighth grade to haul sod, helping the family make a little extra money. From an early age he was simply a success at any sport he tried. He played on 14 different sporting teams in his teen years, and won 11 different championships with them.
He had never even laced up a pair of skates till he was 16 years old, mainly because he couldn’t afford the equipment. Hockey was his weakest sport; that’s probably why he was only on two Stanley Cup-winning teams in two consecutive years, the 1934 Blackhawks and the 1935 Montreal Maroons.
But he was a great player in lacrosse (winning a pro championship) and baseball (winning the International League Championship and Little World Series) as well. Oh, and also, he won the Canadian light heavyweight boxing title. So luckily he didn’t have to worry too much about hockey paying his bills.
Conacher wasn’t satisfied with just dominating sports either, by the way. He left his hockey career in 1937, we assume because he was tired of kicking ass at physical pursuits, and felt the need to exercise his political muscles instead. He won his first election as a member of the Ontario legislative assembly in 1937, and served until 1943; he went to federal politics next. He lost his first election in 1945, but won the riding in 1949 and 1953.
In 1954, he was playing in an annual softball game between MPs and members of the press gallery. After hitting a long liner into left field, he sprinted around the bases, stretching a single into a triple. Unfortunately he suffered a coronary thrombosis and died there on the field.
Why He Was Great
Conacher’s favourite sport was football. He was playing in the early years of Canadian football; he started his career while the Grey Cup was still a university trophy. From age 12 to 15, he played for a Toronto team, and won the city championships with them in every one of those years. He continued playing at a higher and higher level until 1921, when he had impressed the Toronto Argonauts enough to sign him.
He was successful right out of the gate. In his first game with the Argos, he scored 23 of the team’s 27 points. The team went undefeated in that whole six-game season, and more than half of the team’s total points in that year (87 out of 165) were personally scored by Conacher. They won the 1921 Grey Cup, the first one between the eastern and western championships.
1922 saw another rout for the Argos, with an undefeated 5-0-1 record. Conacher rushed for 950 yards in those six games. Unfortunately he had a bad playoffs that year, and committed seven fumbles in the eastern final. Toronto lost to Sarnia by a single point.
One Great Moment
1921: the first true Grey Cup, the first meeting between a western and eastern champion. The Edmonton Eskimos would meet the Toronto Argonauts, with Toronto on home turf at Varsity Stadium.
Toronto was heavily favoured in the game, unbeaten in the nine-game season. The Eskimos, meanwhile, had several players from south of the border who had been stars in the American college system; they weren’t adjusting well to the game, and were penalized numerous times for interference.
Toronto was completely in control. Edmonton botched two punt attempts in the first half that resulted in a pair of Toronto touchdowns, including one by Conacher. Conacher also scored a touchdown in the third quarter, as well as a field goal and two rouges — a total of fifteen points on the day, which tied him for the current Grey Cup record.
And then, after the third quarter ended, Lionel Conacher got in a cab. Didn’t even stay to see the end. He had a hockey game scheduled that night–and he scored two goals there.
The Argonauts had destroyed the western champions 23-0. He must have thought they were in good hands. He’d scored 15 of their 23 points, so we figure he was probably right.
Why You Should Stand In Awe
It’s hard to compare athletes today to the athletes of nearly a century ago; the sports change, the way players prepare and train change, the equipment and style and everything else evolve so as to be almost unrecognizable. Canadian football generations ago is not the same as the modern CFL.
But even with that caveat, Lionel Conacher stands alone. He wasn’t just a dominant player; he was almost the only player. In his early 20s, he was the master of the football domain. And try as teams might to contain him, he utterly destroyed the best football opponents in the league. In a team sport–and no disrespect to the other players, here–he was almost the whole team.
There seemed to be no limit to the athletic feats that Conacher pulled off in every sport he played. Maybe he was a genetic freak; maybe he was a Greek demigod who made a short stop in Canada to play some football.
But he stands as one of the greatest athletes ever to play the Canadian football game, and his name endures, not only on the Grey Cup, on the Stanley Cup, and in the four sporting Halls of Fame he’s in. He stands as a true legend whose feats will probably never be surpassed.
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