Jimmy Gardner (ice hockey)

James Henry Gardner, born May 21, 1881, in Canada, played and coached ice hockey during the sport’s early professional era. He won Stanley Cups with both amateur and professional clubs. After his playing days, Gardner coached professionally, most famously for the Montreal Canadiens in the National Hockey Association (NHA). He also played a key role in creating the NHA—the forerunner of the modern NHL—and in founding the Canadiens franchise, even suggesting its name.

Gardner began his playing career in 1900 with the Montreal Hockey Club’s amateur team in the Canadian Amateur Hockey League, staying until 1903. During that stretch, he was part of two Stanley Cup victories (1902 and 1903) as a member of the “Little Men of Iron.” In 1903, most of that club’s players left to form the Montreal Wanderers in the Federal Amateur Hockey League.

After one season with the Wanderers, Gardner turned professional, spending two years with U.S. teams—the Calumet Miners and the Pittsburgh Professionals—before returning to Canada to play for the Montreal Shamrocks. He rejoined the Wanderers in 1908 and played there until 1911, winning the Stanley Cup in 1908 and again in 1910. He then moved to the new Pacific Coast Hockey Association, playing two seasons for New Westminster, before finishing his playing career with two seasons for the Montreal Canadiens.

After retiring as a player, Gardner coached the Canadiens for two seasons. Later, he coached the Hamilton Tigers, Providence Reds, and teams in the Western Canada Hockey League and Quebec Hockey League. Gardner is credited with helping establish the Montreal Canadiens in 1909. While serving as an official with the Wanderers, he met Ambrose O'Brien during hockey meetings in December 1909, when the Wanderers and O'Brien's teams were excluded from a new professional league.

Together, they developed the idea for the National Hockey Association and proposed a new francophone team for Montreal, to be named “Les Canadiens,” which would rival the English-speaking Wanderers. O'Brien, whose family controlled railway and mining interests, financed both the new league and the Canadiens franchise. A month later, the rival league dissolved, and O'Brien's teams absorbed some of its clubs. O'Brien sold the Canadiens a year later to George Kennedy, owner of Club Athletique Canadien.