Joe Hall (ice hockey)

Hall was born in Milwich in Staffordshire, England. He moved with his family to Canada in 1884, initially going to Winnipeg, Manitoba before settling in Brandon, Manitoba. Details of Hall's life before 1902 are otherwise scarce.[2]

Hall with the Montreal Canadiens in 1917.

Nicknamed "Bad Joe" for his aggressiveness on the ice,[1] he played in the Manitoba Hockey Association (MHA) with the Brandon Wheat City Hockey Club, Winnipeg Rowing Club and Kenora Thistles between 1902 and 1907, and in the first fully professional league, the International Professional Hockey League (IHL), where he was a teammate of Cyclone Taylor on the Portage Lakes Hockey Club during the 1905–06 season. Between 1907 and 1909 he played for the Montreal Shamrocks, Montreal Hockey Club and Montreal Wanderers in the Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association (ECAHA), after having been expelled from the MHA in December 1907 for rough play.[3]

Between 1910 and 1917 Hall played in the National Hockey Association (NHA) as a member of the Quebec Bulldogs. On the Bulldogs he formed a successful defence pairing with Harry Mummery.[4] He played for the Montreal Canadiens in their first two seasons in the National Hockey League from 1917 to 1919, after having been claimed from Quebec in the Dispersal Draft in November 1917.

Hall won the Stanley Cup with the Kenora Thistles in 1907, as a spare player, for which he received a loving cup which is on display in the Hockey Hall of Fame. He won the Stanley Cup with the Quebec Bulldogs in consecutive years in 1912 and 1913.[5][6] He also challenged for the Stanley Cup in 1904 with the Winnipeg Rowing Club, losing over three games to the Ottawa Hockey Club.[7]

Hall, a right-handed shot, started out his playing career as a forward, playing predominantly as a right winger. During the 1905–06 season with the Portage Lakes Hockey Club he scored 33 goals in 20 games in the International Hockey League from the right wing position. During the second half of his career he played as a defenceman. A Brooklyn Daily Eagle article from December 20, 1931 by Harold C. Burr, interviewing former player Lester Patrick, described Hall as a "fast hard-riding forward in the old days of seven-man hockey" and as a "scoring defense man, too, and a hard blocker." The article described further how Hall was "built like a tomcat, with long arms and legs."[9]

Hall in 1905–06 with the Portage Lakes Hockey Club, assigned as a right winger.

Hall had a reputation as one of the roughest and dirtiest players of his era, which earned him the moniker "Bad Joe", and he was involved in several instances of violence where he was reprimanded for attacking either opposing players or officials. On December 19, 1907, at the onset of the 1907–08 season, while playing for the Winnipeg Maple Leafs in an qualifying test game against the Winnipeg Hockey Club, Hall was involved in a contest which was dubbed a "disgraceful exhibition" by the Winnipeg Tribune, and the newspaper singled out Hall as the chief offender regarding violent displays. The game ended when the Winnipeg Hockey Club refused to continue playing, thus defaulting the game.[11] The most blatant act of violence happened when he knocked down Charlie Tobin with his stick.[10] Hall was subsequently expelled from the MHA along with Maple Leafs teammate Harry Smith.[3]

During the inaugural NHA season in 1910, while playing for the Montreal Shamrocks in a game against the Cobalt Silver Kings, Hall attacked referee (and former Montreal Wanderers player) Rod Kennedy which prompted the NHA to expel him from the league, although he was later reinstated. Three years later, during the 1912–13 NHA season, he was again involved in a violent situation with an official as he kicked referee Tom Melville on the shins and later swung his stick against him.[12]

During the inaugural NHL season in 1917–18, while a member of the Montreal Canadiens, Hall was involved in a violent tussle with Alf Skinner, forward of the Toronto Arenas, during a game on January 28, 1918. Both players were arrested for assault and appeared in a Toronto court together on January 29 where both were released after being handed a suspended sentence.[13]

Cy Denneny, a longtime left winger with the Ottawa Senators who played directly against (right defenceman) Hall in the NHA and NHL, claimed in an interview with Bill Westwick of the Ottawa Journal in December 1945 that Hall, despite his reputation as a dirty player, "was a friendly fellow also", off the ice. Denneny claimed that Hall had told him that he did not like opposing players who tried to avoid him by shifting sides, but that he had never been dirty towards Denneny because he came in on Hall's side minding his own business.[4]

• International Professional Hockey League First Team All-Star (1906)
• Stanley Cup Championships (1907 with Kenora, 1912 and 1913 with Quebec)
• Inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1961
• Honoured Member of the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame

• List of ice hockey players who died during their playing careers
• List of National Hockey League players born in the United Kingdom

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Joe Hall.

• Biographical information and career statistics from NHL.com, or Hockey-Reference.com, or Legends of Hockey, or The Internet Hockey Database
• Joe Hall's biography at Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame
• Joe Hall at Find a Grave