Patrick Joseph Alexander Moran was born on March 11, 1877 in Quebec City.
Moran didn’t start playing hockey until he was 15, when he started to suit up for his local team. Before long, he found he had an intense love for the game and was a very good goalie.
When he was 17, he changed schools since his school did not have a hockey team.
By the age of 19, he had helped his club, the Crescents, become the Intermediate Champions.
In 1901, Moran began his hockey career with the Quebec Hockey Club of the Canadian Amateur Hockey League.
The club was not very good, and over the next four years, he won 11 of the 38 games he appeared in. In his best season, his goals against average was 6.79, not a stellar debut by any means. Despite the poor records, no one put the blame on Moran.
The Quebec Chronicle wrote on Feb. 4, 1904,
“Moran in goal was really wonderful. Time and again he stopped what seemed impossible shots, and not only stopped the shots, but stopped those terrible rushes for which the Victoria players are noted…The way Moran met some of the individual rushes of a maroon shirted player, with one of his own rushes, was a caution and Paddy wasn’t always underneath.”
On Feb. 14, 1908, the newspaper again praised him, stating,
“For Quebec, Moran gave an exception exhibition of goal-keeping. He was steady and sure, and he saved many a possible score. On one occasion, he gave a really sensational display, when he ran out and blocked two Shamrock men who had got inside the defence and were apparently bound to deliver the goods.”
In 1909-10, Moran joined the All-Montreal Hockey Club in the Canadian Hockey Association after Art Ross offered him $800 to play for him, while Quebec was only offering $500. Paddy said,
“Three times I told Quinn I was going but $500 was his top offer, so finally I went. We came back to beat Quebec here. They had Brophy in goal.”
Within two weeks, the Montreal team and the CHA folded so Paddy believed he had to go back to Quebec. Ross told him that was not going to happen. Instead, he joined the Haileybury Comets of the National Hockey Association. He played only one season with the club, finishing with a 3-8 record and letting in 79 goals.
In 1910-11, Moran joined the Quebec Hockey Club. The club finished last in the league and Moran won only four games and let in 97 goals against.
At this point, efforts were put in place to build a proper team around Moran, getting rid of several players who did not measure up. The Montreal Star wrote,
“Picturesque Paddy Moran, the goaltender remained. They built a team around him.”
In 1911, Moran’s teammates voted him to be the new captain of the Quebec Hockey Club, replacing Rocket Power who had ended his career. With Moran in charge, the team almost immediately began to turn its fortunes around.
The next season, his record began to improve and he won 10 of 18 games with a 4.26 goals against average. The team won the O’Brien Cup and the Stanley Cup that year. When the Moncton Victorias challenged for the cup soon after, Moran and Quebec won the first game 9-3 and the second game 8-0. In the two game series, Moran had a goals against average of 1.5.
A standup goaltender, he was large for his era standing at five-foot-11. Not allowed to drop to his knees due to the rules of the era, that did not hinder him at all. He was also known for being aggressive in front of the net, often slashing opposing players constantly if they approached too closely.
Known as The Wandering Goalie, he often went up the ice to get the puck away from opposing players. Sometimes it worked, but sometimes it didn’t, like on Jan. 7, 1909 when the Quebec Chronicle wrote,
“In endeavoring to save a score Moran made a spectacular rush out of goals and fell on the puck, necessitating a face right in front of Quebec’s poles, Ward batting the rubber in and giving the visitors their second tally.”
It was said that he would slash the heads of players with a lightning stroke from his blade.
A lover of chewing tobacco, he chewed it while he was playing goal. He usually wore larger sweaters, stating that they kept him warm. In truth, the extra fabric helped him stop pucks.
In 1912-13, Moran won 16 of 20 games, recording a shutout and a 3.70 goals against average. The club once again won the O’Brien Cup and retained the Stanley Cup in a challenge against the Sydney Miners.
Moran continued to play for the Quebec Hockey Club, also known as the Quebec Bulldogs, for four more seasons. He won 34 of 69 games during that stretch but was never able to take them back to the Stanley Cup.
In 1913-14, he finished with 12 wins, which fell to 11 wins in 1914-15 and 10 wins in 1915-16. That second-last season, he had his best goals-against-average at 3.54. It was the last bit of glory for Moran.
In his last season, his stats began to slip somewhat and he was replaced by Samm Hebert out of Ottawa for the last part of the season. In the seven games he played that season, he recorded only one win, but was on the ice for five losses.
He finished his career in 1917. In his career, nearly always with the Quebec Hockey Club, he recorded 135 wins and 102 losses.
The Montreal Star wrote of his retirement,
“Goodbye, Paddy Moran. It will be noticed that the celebrated old goalkeeper of the Quebec club was not drawn by any of the clubs in the National League. Mike Quinn announced that Moran was through and Paddy’s name was thus rubbed off the list.”
On Dec. 5, 1917, Art Ross, Moran’s old friend, stated he had made no definite offer to Moran, but if he left his employment and made his residence in Montreal, he would happily offer him a contract.
Paddy Moran decided to stay retired.
While most of his seasons were on teams with losing records, many of the players from his era consider him to be the best goaltender of that time period. They believe that if not for Moran, the clubs he was on would have had even worse records.
From 1901-02 to 1911-12, Moran never had a Goals-Against-Average below 4.00. His lowest was in 1904-05 when he registered 4.16, while his highest was in 1906-07 when he had 9.69. In the last years of his career on a vastly improved team from 1912-13 to 1916-17, he never had a goals-against-average above 4.00 except in his last year, when it was 6.84. In Stanley Cup play, he was stellar, registering 1.50 in 1911-12 in two games and 2.50 in 1912-13 in two games.
Using his earnings from his career, he built his own house at a cost of $4,000.
He said years later,
“I was a professional from 1910 to 1916. In my entire career, my total earnings were around $4,000. It wasn’t the big industry then that it is today.”
In 1919, he began a three-decade long career as a home builder. While working as a home builder, he also spent decades working for the government as a postal worker until he retired in 1947.
But Moran wasn’t totally out of the net. In 1926, he joined the Montreal Maroon substitutes for a game at the Montreal Forum against a team made up of Montreal Canadiens substitutes. The game took place on Feb. 5, 1926 in front of 4,000 fans. The Montreal Gazette wrote,
“It was Paddy Moran, the former Quebec Bulldogs’ goalkeeper who provided the tense moments for the fans through his work in the Maroon net. Paddy gave a perfect demonstration of how the net guardians of old used to tend the citadels…Moran found it hard to stay in his goal last night. Frequently, he brought the crowd to its feet cheering as he rushed out ten or 15 feet and batted the puck out of harm’s way.”
In 1937, readers of the Montreal Star compiled a list of the best players in hockey to that point. The newspaper wrote,
“Paddy Moran, Quebec’s colorful netminder, who had a playful habit of kicking the goals into the corner of the rink when under pressure, received an almost unanimous vote for the goaltending job.”
Despite the fact he wasn’t paid a lot as a hockey player, Moran was able to save his money and put it to good use. By 1944, he lived in a well-furnished and comfortable home and could employ a maid. That year, he was asked about the hockey of the 1940s. He stated he didn’t watch much hockey, but he did go to the odd game. One thing he didn’t like, and found confusing, were all the lines involved in the more modern game.
In 1956, Moran was inducted into the Quebec Hockey Hall of Fame. He said of the honour,
“Hockey may be faster now, but it was a lot rougher and tougher in the old days.”
In 1958, through the help of his former teammate Chubby Power, Moran was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. He is the earliest goaltender to get into the Hall of Fame, with his career starting in 1901.
In 1961, when hockey great Newsy Lalonde compiled his list to create the All-Time Meanest, Toughest Team in hockey history, the man he chose to put in goal was Paddy Moran. He said,
“Paddy was in a class by himself when it came to chopping toes of opposing forwards who came within range, and in those days, the skate toes weren’t so well padded. But his pet skill was squirting tobacco in your eye.”
On Jan. 14, 1966, Moran died.
