Alcide Laurin
Encyclopedia
Alcide Laurin was an ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

 player, who played for an Ontario based team in Alexandria. On February 24, 1905, Laurin was beaten to death by 24-year-old Allan Loney
Allan Loney
Allan Loney was an ice hockey player from the Ontario town of Maxville. He was the first hockey player to be charged with murder for the death of another player, after he clubbed Alcide Laurin to death during a game on February 24, 1905....

, a player on a rival team from Maxville, Ontario. Laurin took a shot in the chin, followed by a blow to the left temple from Loney's stick. Soon after the incident, Laurin, only 19 at the time, was pronounced dead on the ice. Loney, a player who was infamous for his brutal on-ice violence, was charged with murder, which was later changed to manslaughter.

On March 29, after five hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted Loney after defense witnesses testified and claimed the blow to Laurin was either instinctive or was in self-defense. All charges were dropped and the case was dismissed.

The Maxville-Alexandria rivalry was based around opposing religious beliefs held by both sides. The Alexandria side of the rivalry was made up of Catholic French Canadians, contrary to the anglophone and Protestant beliefs of the Maxville population.

Sources

  • http://www.losthockey.com/odds_murder_in_1905.cfm
  • http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spe/2004/nhlviolence/
  • http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/NASSH_Proceedings/NP1990/NP1990zzq.pdf
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