Alf Skinner

Playing career

Alf Skinner’s hockey career started in the junior ranks, suiting up for the Toronto Argonauts from 1911 to 1912 and the Parkdale Canoe Club the following season. He then moved up to senior hockey with the Toronto Rowing Club for 1913–14. In 1914, he turned pro with the Toronto Shamrocks of the National Hockey Association. After one year, that team became the Toronto Blueshirts. When the league shut down the Blueshirts partway through the 1916–17 season, Skinner finished the year with the Montreal Wanderers.

The NHL was founded in 1917, and Skinner came back to Toronto to join the Arenas, a squad made up mostly of former Blueshirts. He was the offensive star of the 1918 Stanley Cup run, netting eight goals over five games in the final series. During a January 28, 1918 game, he got into a nasty fight with Montreal Canadiens defenceman Joe Hall. Both players were arrested for assault and appeared together in a Toronto court the next day, where they received suspended sentences and were let go.

In 1919, Skinner headed west to play for Vancouver in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association. The club made two unsuccessful Stanley Cup bids, in 1921 and 1922. His finest season came in 1920–21, when he scored 20 goals in 24 games. After the PCHA merged with the Western Canada Hockey League in 1924, Skinner returned to the NHL with the Boston Bruins. He was traded mid-season to the Montreal Maroons and ended the year with just one goal in 27 games. He signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates for the 1925–26 season but played only seven games, bringing his NHL career to a close.

For 1926–27, Skinner played in the minor American Hockey Association for the Duluth Hornets. Over the next two seasons, he served as player-coach for Kitchener in the Canadian Professional Hockey League. When that league became the International Hockey League in 1929, he took on the same role for the Guelph Maple Leafs in the newly formed Canadian Professional Hockey League, leading the team to a championship in the league’s only season. He retired as a player in 1930.

Away from the rink, Skinner worked for the City of Toronto and spent a term as president of the Spadina Men’s Progressive Conservative Association. He died at his Toronto home in April 1961 at age 67 and was buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery.