Frank McGee (ice hockey)

Francis Clarence "One-Eyed Frank" McGee (November 4, 1882 – September 16, 1916) was a Canadian ice hockey player who played centre and rover for the Ottawa Hockey Club, known as the Silver Seven, from 1903 to 1906. He also worked as a civil servant for the Canadian government and later served as a lieutenant in the Canadian Army. McGee earned the nickname "One-Eyed Frank" after losing vision in one eye from a hockey injury. He missed two seasons because of it, then joined Ottawa's senior team in 1903. Despite a short senior career of just 45 games over four seasons, he was known for his remarkable scoring, once netting 14 goals in a Stanley Cup game and scoring five or more goals in a game on eight other occasions. He helped Ottawa win and keep the Stanley Cup from 1903 to 1906. After hockey, he worked for the Department of Indian Affairs. During the First World War, he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force and died in battle in France in 1916. When the Hockey Hall of Fame was founded in 1945, McGee was part of its first induction class.

McGee was born in Ottawa, Ontario, one of nine children of John Joseph McGee and Elizabeth Helen Crotty McGee. His father was clerk of the Privy Council, Canada's top civil servant. His uncle, Thomas D'Arcy McGee, attended two Confederation conferences and was considered a Father of Confederation before being assassinated in 1868. His brother Jim was a noted rugby and hockey player, playing alongside McGee in the 1903–04 season before dying in a horse-riding accident in May 1904. Another brother, Charles, served in the Boer War and died in the First World War, while brother Walter also served in that war and received the Military Cross. After finishing school in Ottawa, McGee joined the Department of Indian Affairs and later moved to the Department of the Interior. A promotion in 1904 led him to briefly retire from hockey. Historian Paul Kitchen suggested that McGee's civil service rise was helped by his father's connections and by William Foran, a hockey executive who worked at the Board of Civil Service Examiners. McGee was passionate about sports, playing hockey, rugby football, lacrosse, and rowing. He played half-back for the Ottawa City rugby team, winning the Canadian championship in 1898, and later played quarterback before giving up football in 1900.