Tommy Phillips
He was one of the best defensive forwards of his time. Known for his strong shot and endurance, he became one of the greatest hockey players of the pre-NHL era.
Tommy Philips had an illustrious career but a too short life.
Born in Rat Portage, now Kenora, Ontario on May 22, 1883, he was the youngest of three children born to James, a Scottish father and Marcelline, a French-Canadian mother.
When he was a child, Phillips began to play hockey and quickly excelled at it. In 1895, despite only being 13, he was playing for the Rat Portage Thistles junior club against players a few years older than him.
In 1899, he graduated to the senior Thistles team and was named captain in 1900 at the age of 17.
During that era of hockey, players were on the ice the entire game. To conserve energy, they often coasted on the ice but Phillips was known for having a fast pace throughout the entire game. He would go end to end for 60 minutes straight almost without a break.
But he wasn’t a huge player. Standin at five-foot-nine, he weighed 168 pounds, which was slightly below average for the time.
Despite any size disadvantage, he made up for it with sheer skill. The Rat Portage Miner wrote of him,
“He is one of the best cover-points in the west, being a swift shot, a high lifter and a heavy check.”
He was also the originators of the “shooting the knot-hole” exercise in Kenora. At the time, at one end of the Kenora rink, there was a knothole in the boards. Phillips would line the players up in a semi-circle in front of the knothole and each player took turns shooting at the knothole to practice their accuracy.
In September 1902, he left for Montreal to study electrical engineering at McGill. It wasn’t long before he joined the hockey team at the university and was immediately named captain.
He played his one and only match for McGill on Jan. 23, 1903, which McGill lost 7-0 to Queen’s University.
Only a few days later he was asked to joint he Montreal Hockey Club in their Stanley Cup challenge against the Winnipeg Victorias. The only way he was allowed to do this was if he stopped playing for McGill, which he did.
It turned out to be a fortunate decision because it was with the Montreal Hockey Club that he won his first Stanley Cup in that challenge. In four games in the challenge, he scored six goals and was excellent shutting down the other players on Winnipeg.
Near the end of 1902, Phillips moved to Toronto to attend the Central Business School. While in the city, he began to play for the Toronto Marlboros, helping the team win the city and Ontario Hockey Association senior championships. The team challenged the Ottawa Hockey Club for the Stanley Cup but did not win. Nonetheless, Phillips was once again stellar in the series.
Now regarded as one of the best players in Ontario, and the Ottawa Hockey Club was very impressed with him.
In 1904, Phillips moved to Rat Portage and began working for a lumber company. In August 1904, while working for the lumber company, he badly cut his hand on a saw. It was believed that the injury was not too serious and he should be wielding a stick in hockey by the winter.
In truth, the cut was extremely serious and Phillips lost three fingers on his right hand just below the first joints. In some team pictures that feature Phillips after this point, you can see he is wearing a special glove that covers his hand and provides him with a bit more accessibility from his missing digits.
Despite the injury, he was offered $1,000 to play for the Kenora Thistles, which he agreed to.
With Phillips on the team, the Thistles, now called the Kenora Thistles, became one of the best teams in the Manitoba Hockey League and Phillips typically finished at the top of the league in scoring.
By this point, many considered Phillips to be the equal of the legendary Frank McGee.
In 1905, the Kenora Thistles challenged for the Stanley Cup. While the Thistles lost, Phillips had eight goals in only three games.
In 1905-06, the Thistles once again won the Stirling Cup as Manitoba Hockey League champions. With another championship, the Thistles challenged for the Stanley Cup once more. This time, it was against the Montreal Hockey Wanderers.
In the first game of the two-game total-goal challenge, Phillips had seven goals. His seven goals made up the majority of the 12 goals scored by the Thistles as they won the challenge.
Phillips had his second Stanley Cup.
Many teams were trying to get Phillips to play for them now. In 1907-08, the Montreal Wanderers offered him $1,500 and then $1,800 to play for them. He chose instead to sign with Ottawa for $1,500. With that contract, he became the highest paid hockey player in Canada.
The signing was huge news in the hockey world. After he signed with Ottawa in December 1907, the Ottawa Journal reported,
“With the signing of Tommy Phillips, the Senators presented a lightning fast team., every man game to the core.”
Phillips said of his signing, for which there was some controversy over not signing with the Wanderers,
“In the first place, both the Wanderers and the Ottawas were in negotiation with me but neither club in the first instance made an offer which I saw fit to accept. I finally named a figure for which I would play with the Wanderers…and they wired stating they would accept my terms.”
While waiting for the contract, a member of the Ottawa Hockey Club then approached Phillips. Phillips said,
“On Saturday, a member of the executive of the Ottawa Hockey Club came to town and made me an offer very much more to my advantage than that I received from the Wanderers.”
Phillips stated he was honor bound to accept the Wanderers contract when it arrived but as soon as it did arrive, it was not satisfactory at all. He said,
“It was not a contract for the whole season, such as was stipulated in my telegrams, and moreover merely was merely signed by two of the officers of the Wanderers club and was therefore not worth the paper it was written on.”
In his one season with Ottawa, he had 26 goals, finishing second in the league.
Phillips was then offered $2,000 to play for Ottawa again but he made the decision to retire from hockey.
After the season, he moved to Vancouver to work in the lumber industry.
But hockey was always there calling to him.
In 1908-09, he took an offer to play for the Edmonton Hockey Club. He was paid $600 to play for the team in their two-game Stanley Cup challenge. He only played in one game as he broke his ankle and couldn’t play in the second game.
The Vancouver Province wrote,
“Tommy was the dangerous man on the Edmonton attacking division and the Wanderers accounted for him in the first half of the game, Smaill breaking the ankle in his right ankle. That put Phillips out of commission for the rest of the game, though he pluckily played out time despite the excruciating pain.”
In December 1909, Phillips was offered $4,000 to play for two months with the Renfrew Hockey Club. This, at the time, was the largest contract ever awarded to a hockey player in Canada.
The Daily News Advertiser wrote,
“He passed the offer up as he said he wished to stick to the lumber business which he is now engaged.”
Today, that $4,000 is worth $125,000.
He briefly played for a team in Nelson but began to spend more time building his lumber company. In 1912, he played for the Vancouver Millionaires.
The Victoria Daily Times reported,
“Owing to the fact that they are older and have been out of the game for a few years, it is taking Tommy Phillips and Griffis longer to round into shape than it has the younger Victoria and Westminster players. But it looks as if they are coming and if Tommy Phillips ever reaches anything like his old time form, he will, in the opinion of Vancouver fans at least, have any forward in the Pacific Coast league backed off the boards.”
Phillips finished fourth on the team in goals and seventh in the league with 17 goals in 14 games.
Feeling as though his skills had fallen, he decided to retire for good.
The Winnipeg Tribune wrote,
“It will be a long time before there is another Tommy Phillips. He could outskate nine out of every ten of the speed merchants and for spectacular rushes up the ice and for hard and true shooting from any angle he never had any equal.”
During his career from 1899 to 1912 in four different leagues and with various teams, he recorded 117 points in 54 regular season games. In Stanley Cup challenge games, he had 24 points in 13 games.
His best season was 26 points in eight games with the Rat Portage Thistles in 1904-05. He equalled that point total in 1907-08 with the Ottawa Hockey Club but that was in 10 games.
He continued to build his lumber company up in retirement and in 1920, he moved to Toronto.
Sadly, after getting an ulcerated tooth removed, he died of blood poisoning on Nov. 30, 1923 at the age of only 40. He left behind his wife Ella and their three children.
The Winnipeg Tribune wrote,
“Tommy Phillips is dead. This was the news flashed over the wires at an early hour this morning that startled the hockey world. For Tom Phillips up until a comparatively short time ago, who so prominent in the hockey world that his name was a household word.”
Billy McGimsie, who played with Phillips on the Kenora Thistles stated,
“The death of Phillips marks the passing of one whom I think was the greatest forward hockey has ever known. When he was going right, I don’t think he ever met his equal. His speed was terrific, his stick-handling was beautiful to watch and his shooting struck terror into the hearts of opposing goal tenders.”
His close friend Frank Patrick said,
“Phillips, twelve or 15 years ago, was Canada’s greatest hockey player. He was a left winger with a wonderful shot. He was the personification of grace in action and he had a heart of oak.”
In 1945, he became one of the first nine inductees into the Hockey Hall of Fame. The Kingston Whig-Standard wrote of Phillips induction,
“Tommy Phillips, who hailed from Toronto, was the darling of the hockey gods when he was a member of the colorful Rat Portage team who later became the Kenora Thistles.”
When the players of the half-century were being decided in 1950, there were many analysts who put Tommy Phillips, the hockey star who had been dead for nearly three decades, was one of the most popular choices.
