HOCKEY: Charlie Liffiton (continued)

In 1904, the Portgage Lakes Hockey Club of Hougton, Michigan, hired him away from the Wanderers to play the remainder of the season for the then huge sum of $1350. He was reported to be the highest paid player in the International Hockey League that year. The Portgage Lakes of the previous season had been the first hockey club to go professional, and had won the IHL championship. Even with Charlie Liffiton's help, however, in 1904-05, the Portgage Lakes never caught up to the first place Calumets. Charlie's contribution to the effort was to play fourteen games and score six goals.

Books on the Stanley Cup always list Charlie with the 1902 MAAA team, however the cup itself does not list his name. That year only the team name and the date were engraved on the cup.  As most hockey players of Charlie's level also played lacrosse, there is an entire area of Charlie's life that needs to be researched.

A little is known about his life away from ice hockey.  He worked in his father's jewelry and confection store in Montreal, but that store did not continue after the death of Charlie's father in 1916.   Charlie married Lena Margaret Clark, who had born in Moncton, New Brunswick in 1887, and raised in Levis, Quebec.  When and where they married is yet unknown, but Lena worked as a bookkeeper in Montreal.  Their first child Audrey Margaret Jessie Liffiton was born in either 1917 or 1918 in Montreal, but died in 1921.  Charlie and Lena subsequently had four more children, Charles Albert (born 1919); Kenneth Clark (born 1921); Ruth Constance (born 1921)*; and Harold Keith Liffiton (born 1927).   Charlie Liffiton died in Montreal in 1941.

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*Note:  Chalie Liffiton's great grandson, Michael (Mike) Kneeland of Calgary, Alberta, was recently named to the 2006 First Team All-NCHA (Northern Collegiate Hockey Association) as a Freshman.  Mike plays for Lake Forest College, which is near Chicago in Lake Forest, Illinois.   For the 2006 season he had a total of 40 points including a league high of 15 goals and 25 assists.  He tied for the most points for his conference with 19 total, including 14 assists.  Prior to playing for the Foresters, Mike, who is 21, played for the Calgary Royals.  This information came from Mike's aunt, Andrea Kneeland, the daughter of Ruth Constance Liffiton.   Andrea also provided a link to the Lake Forest press release and a photograph of Mike at http://www.lakeforest.edu/foresters/hockey/feb232006mh.htm.

Charlie Liffiton's Statistics

SOURCES:

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

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 4, 1899, page 14.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Feb. 10, 1901, page 10.

Diamond, Dan, editor The Official National League Stanley Cup Centennial Book (1992 Firefly Books, New York) 278 pages.

Clark, John H. E., letter of 7 February, 1994, to Tom Liffiton.

Coleman, Charles L., The Trail of the Stanley Cup Vol. 1, 1893 - 1926 (1954, National Hockey League) 816 pages.  (Note:  Coleman describes each season in detail.  Page 75 contains the photograph of the 1902 MAAA, while page 720 has his statistics for 1897, 1900-1905.)

Kneeland, Andrea, email of 21 March 2006, to Tom Liffiton.

Liffiton, Clark, undated letter to Tom Liffiton, written about 1992. 

Liffiton, Clark, letter of 21 January, 1993, to Tom Liffiton.

Mason,Daniel Scott, A History of the International Hockey League (1994, University of British Columbia), 337 pages.

                                                                                                                        (revised 4/2/06)

 Copyright © 1992 - 2006 Thomas Liffiton