Marty Walsh

Martin Joseph Walsh (October 16, 1884 – March 27, 1915) was a Canadian amateur, later professional, ice hockey player. Walsh played for the Ottawa Senators, winning three Stanley Cups in 1909, 1910 and 1911 and is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame. He retired from ice hockey in 1912 and moved west to Edmonton to work. In 1914, Walsh contracted tuberculosis, succumbing to the disease in March 1915.

Early life Walsh was born in Kingston, Ontario, the son of Michael and Catherine Walsh. Martin had an older sister Loretta and an older brother William. Walsh played junior hockey for the local Kingston Frontenacs. At seventeen, Walsh entered Queen's University.

Walsh played hockey for the Queen's senior hockey team from 1902 to 1906, where he was a teammate of George Richardson, and the team won the intercollegiate title in 1904 and 1906. The 1906 squad challenged for the Stanley Cup in 1906 against the Ottawa Senators. Walsh scored four goals in the two games of the series which was won by Ottawa. Walsh also played rugby football for Queen's,

Walsh was sought after by several clubs, including the Montreal Shamrocks and Montreal Wanderers, but he decided to sign with Ottawa. He joined the Ottawa Hockey Club in 1907 and played for the club for five seasons, winning Stanley Cups in 1909, 1910 and 1911. He was a high-scoring forward and in 1909, Marty scored 42 goals in 12 games, and in his career playoffs, he averaged over three points per game, an extraordinary feat.

When the National Hockey Association was formed late in 1909, Renfrew attempted to sign Ottawa's star players including Walsh, but Walsh re-signed with Ottawa. When Walsh re-signed with Ottawa, players Fred Lake and Albert Kerr decided to turn down their Renfrew offers. Commenting on the financial aspects of the game in December 1909, Walsh stated that even though some player salaries could seem high-priced from an outside perspective, the game did not come without a sacrificial price of its own in the form of injuries:

In 1911, Walsh scored ten goals in a Stanley Cup challenge match against Port Arthur, second only to Frank McGee's 14 in one game. After the 1911 season, Bruce Stuart retired and Walsh was named captain of the team. Walsh played his last professional game with the Senators in 1912, finishing with 11 goals in 12 games for the 1911–12 season.

Walsh was recognized for his talent in 1962 when he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Playing style

Like many other centre forwards during the earlier years of professional hockey, Marty Walsh had his strongest suit in close proximity to the opponent net, where he would often park himself for redirections or deflections. The Ottawa Citizen, in its January 26, 1911 issue, described a goal against the Montreal Canadiens on January 21 during the 1910–11 NHA season, where Walsh had positioned himself right in front of Georges Vézina for the game-winning goal in overtime, and the puck had caromed off of Walsh and into the net after first having left teammate Jack Darragh's stick. The newspaper pointed out that that was how Walsh got most of his goals, and that he usually wasn't a "showy" player. Their plans changed when Kerr was lured out of retirement to play in the new Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA). There were reports that the PCHA had signed Walsh as well, but he remained retired. In 1913, Walsh moved west to the Edmonton area, where he worked as a paymaster for the Grand Trunk Railway.