Artie Liffiton (continued)

One of the most important matches of his career occurred in March of 1912. The trophy for the league championship would permanently belong to the team which won a third championship, and the Crescents were tied with the New York Athletic Club which had won in 1909 and 1910.  The Crescents were strong, but so was another team known as the Wanderers.  Each team had lost one match during the season with the Wanderers losing theirs to the Crescents in overtime 5 to 4.  It was thought the deciding match would be between the Crescents and the Wanderers on March 1.

	"There was a big crowd in the rink.  Seats were selling as high as ten dollars each.  There was not an unoccupied inch of space in the big building and men climbed into the girders that supported the roof." ". . . the Wanderers seemed to play . . . (the Crescents) off their feet.  One could hear all about him in the audience the remarks that the old veterans, Dobby, Wall and Kennedy, had
From 1900 to 1916, Artie played matches in the St. Nicholas Rink on West 66th Street, a block West of New York City's Central Park.

gone on the ice too often.  They outweighed their opponents, but the lighter men seem to entirely outskate them.  Liffiton was especially disappointing."  The Wanderers beat the Crescents by a score of 4 -1, but the following week the St. Nicks crushed the Wanderers 7-4 and the Crescents beat the New York Athletic Club 6-5.  In that match Liffiton scored four goals, and forced a third and final contest between the Wanderers and the Crescents on March 13th.

The Wanderers, who so many years before had ended the Crescents string of four victories, were heavily favored to win.  The newspapers said the Crescents were too old.  "But when the game was well under way it was seen at once that Liffiton was playing in as good as he ever displayed before."  He scored three goals as the Crescents won 4 - 1 and claimed permanent ownership of the Amateur American Hockey League  trophy.

As many clubs did, the Crescents had a lacrosse team which played in the Spring and Summer months.  Many of the hockey players, including Artie Liffiton, played lacrosse,  and the Crescent team won many amateur national championships and kept in shape for the ice hockey season as well.

Artie Liffiton married Edith Usher of Manhattan Beach, NY, in 1907, and they raised three children, Arthur Edward, Doris, and Donald Usher Liffiton.  Edith actually lost her U.S. citizenship by marrying Artie, a Canadian and English subject, but they both became naturalized U.S. citizens following World War I.  Artie worked for the Behr-Manning Company in Manhattan and Albany, New York, but later settled in New Jersey, where he died in 1954.

Statistics

Sources

Ernie Fitzsimmons, consulting statistician for Total Hockey, The Official Encyclopedia of the National Hockey Leage (1999), provided the majority of Artie Liffiton's statistics from his own collected reference materials. Other references used include the following.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1899 - 1916

The Crescent, 1899 - 1916 (Journal of the Crescent Athletic Club of Brooklyn)

Farrington, Jr., S. Kip  Skates, Sticks, and Men: The Story of Amateur Hockey in the United States (1972, David McKay Co., New York), 240 pages.  (Farrington was associated with The St. Nicholas Hockey Club, and this book focuses on that club with little mention of other early senior level teams.  Artie Liffiton is mentioned on page 5 in a quotation from a Januay 7, 1907 New York Sun article.)

Liffiton, Donald Usher, interview of April 26, 1992.

www.puckerings.com

The Winged Foot, 1899 - 1916 (Journal of the New York Athletic Club)

New York Times, 1899 - 1916

Copyright © 1992 - 2006 Thomas Liffiton