Another look at Cyclone Taylor’s nickname

A previous post raised concerns about discrepancies in Eric Whitehead’s book, The Patricks: Hockey’s Royal Family (1980), including some apparent fabrications of newspaper stories. Whitehead’s earlier book was Cyclone Taylor: A Hockey Legend (1977), in which it appears he invented a critical quote concerning how Taylor got his nickname.

On p. 70, Whitehead wrote that Taylor scored four times for Ottawa in a 12-2 win over Montreal early in 1908. Supposedly, Governor-General Earl Grey was in the crowd along with his daughter, Lady Sybil, and Ottawa Free Press reporter Malcolm Brice heard Grey say: “That new No. 4, Taylor, he’s a cyclone if I ever saw one.”

According to Whitehead, Brice wrote in the Free Press the next day: “In Portage La Prairie they called him a tornado, in Houghton, Michigan, he was known as a whirlwind. From now on he’ll be known as Cyclone Taylor.”

Whitehead added: “This is one of those stories that has been so often repeated that it has become suspect as just another of those little fables that grow around a legendary figure, but this one was exactly true to the facts.” Not exactly, although Whitehead didn’t invent the whole story.

The game took place on Jan. 11, 1908. Ottawa did beat the Montreal Wanderers 12-2. Taylor had two goals, not four. There is no sign that Earl Grey was in the crowd, although it’s not impossible, since Grey was a hockey fan. More on that in a minute.

Despite the notion that famous sports nicknames were coined on the spot and immediately accepted by all, more often they took hold over time, perhaps first vying with alternatives. That appears to be the case here.

The first known mention of Taylor’s nickname was in a headline in the Ottawa Free Press of Nov. 6, 1907: “Fred Taylor the International Cyclone Signs with the Ottawa Hockey Club For This Season.”

Meanwhile, the lead paragraph said “Fred Taylor, of Listowel, Ont., known as the ‘whirlwind of the International Hockey League,’ was signed to play one of the defence positions for the local team.”

So the comparison of Taylor being as quick as the wind was definitely around before he played his first game for Ottawa, although I haven’t found any instances of him being called “the whirlwind of the International” prior to this.

We can watch his nickname evolve on the pages of the same newspaper, along with a few other weather-related names. Although Malcolm Brice (or Bryce) did not have a byline on these stories, he probably was the first to call Taylor “Cyclone,” or at least was responsible for popularizing the name.

Ottawa Free Press, Nov. 6, 1907

• Dec. 17, 1907: “Once Smith brought up from the right side and shot. It was blocked and bounced out to Taylor who came in on the left like a cyclone, Fred driving it home.”

• Jan. 13, 1908: Following the key game described by Whitehead, the Free Press did not liken Taylor to a cyclone, but did note that he “came here with the appellation of ‘the whirlwind of the International’ tagged to him. On his performance Saturday he can well be styled ‘the tornado of the ECHL.’” (Whitehead quotes this line in his book.)

• Jan. 18, 1908, headline: “Called Fred Taylor ’The Human Streak of Lightning.’” The story devoted a paragraph to nicknames invented by American sportswriters that emphasized “an individuals’ good work or defects by characterizing him as something outlandish and impossible.” For instance, boxer Tom Sharkey was the “Human Boiler Explosion.” Fellow fighter Ed Dunkorst was the “Human Freight Car.” And Fred Taylor “was featured in Pittsburgh as the ‘Human Streak of Lightning.’” (This was attributed to Spalding’s Hockey Guide.)

• Feb. 11, 1908, regarding an amateur match in the Lower Ottawa Valley League: “Hand posters were circulated on which was announced ‘Cyclone Alfred [sic] Taylor, the famous Ottawa player’ would referee.”

• March 6, 1908: “‘Cyclone Fred Taylor, the famous Ottawa cover-point referee,’ was one of the main inscriptions in the posters of the Buckingham-Hawkesbury game on Wednesday night. It is evident that not quite all the attraction for the spectators was centred in the teams.”

• May 19, 1908, regarding Taylor in a lacrosse match: “Fred Taylor gets through the centre like a cyclone through a Kansas village. Taylor breaks away very quickly and shows about as much speed on turf as he does on ice.”

(Other newspapers also got in on the act. The Ottawa Citizen of Jan. 27, 1908, for example, called Taylor “the cyclone defence man.”)

Where did the notion that Earl Grey had something to do with the nickname originate? From Taylor himself, it appears.

The earliest version of the story I can find is in Jack Kinsella’s column in the Ottawa Citizen of Feb. 19, 1959. In this telling, Taylor said he scored five times to help Ottawa beat Montreal 8-3. He said Earl Grey was present, making the game even more memorable, but he credited Malcolm Brice alone with the nickname when he wrote: “As of now, he can only be called ‘Cyclone.’”

In the Ottawa Citizen of Sept. 12, 1975, Bob Mellor quoted Taylor thusly:

I got ‘Cyclone’ pinned on me by Earl Gray, who was the Governor-General of Canada. Ed Dey had just built a new arena here in Ottawa to start the 1907-08 season … I rushed the puck a lot that night and scored four goals. When Earl Grey left the arena afterwards, somebody overheard him say ‘That No. 4 skates like a whirlwind — in fact he’s a cyclone.’ It came out in the papers the next day, and that’s what I’ve been ever since.”

Earl Grey did attend at least one Ottawa-Montreal game, but it was before Taylor was on the roster. According to the Free Press of Jan. 15, 1906:

His Excellency the Governor General and Lady Grey were present and apparently relished the strenuous sport. Earl Grey walked to the centre of the ice, and after chatting to the steel-shod boys for a minute or two, faced the puck between Harry Smith’s and Russell’s sticks … His Excellency returned to his seat before the whistle blew. The vice-regal party sat right through the game, and is interesting to note that considerable of the hardest play took place directly in front of Their Excellencies’ seats.

Grey also dropped the puck in a December 1907 match between Renfrew and the Ottawa Victorias to decide a berth in a Stanley Cup challenge against the Montreal Wanderers. (Taylor was ruled ineligible to play because he was under contract to the Ottawa Senators.) Grey did another face-off in an Allan Cup game of March 1909.

There is no sign of Grey at the January 1908 Ottawa-Montreal match and I can’t find any other game that Grey attended with Taylor in the line-up that Taylor might have conflated it with.

But Taylor told Whitehead that the game stuck in his head for another reason. After seeing him in action, Grey’s daughter, Lady Sybil, asked for one of his sticks. Taylor only had one stick and had to buy a replacement, but decided he couldn’t refuse her. “I hadn’t gotten to meet many Governor-General’s daughters up to that point, and this young lady was exceedingly nice,” he said.

Back to the statement Whitehead attributed to Brice: “In Portage La Prairie they called him a tornado, in Houghton, Michigan, he was known as a whirlwind. From now on he’ll be known as Cyclone Taylor.”

Hockey historians have searched in vain for the original quote. Eric Zweig, who wrote a book about Taylor for young readers (Star Power), explained in the 2006 edition of the Society for International Hockey Research journal that he thought he would start with the story of Taylor’s nickname. He asked Paul Kitchen, who had written a book about early Ottawa hockey history, if he had a copy of Brice’s newspaper article.

“Paul informed me that he had searched long and hard for this article, but had never found it,” Zweig wrote. “I later learned that SIHR member Morey Holzman had made a similarly fruitless search.” In his book, Zweig added: “No one has ever been able to find that article. It may never have been written.”

Now that the Ottawa Free Press, Ottawa Citizen, and Ottawa Journal have all been digitized, I feel confident suggesting the quote couldn’t be found because it didn’t exist. Whitehead made it up.

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While it is almost certainly just coincidence, I was surprised to find that Fred Taylor wasn’t the first Cyclone Taylor to make waves in Ottawa during the first decade of the 20th century.

In July 1906, a travelling evangelist named Cyclone Taylor appeared at a religious revival meeting at Ottawa’s Harmony Hall. He was actually the Rev. Bushrod Shedden Taylor, but he went by Cyclone Taylor — and also the “Tornado Evangelist” — no later than March 1901, on account of his fire-and-brimstone oratory.

The Ottawa Free Press said Taylor told his Ottawa audience that their city was just 18 miles from hell. Wherever he went, this Cyclone Taylor always found something worthy of condemnation. The last sign of him using that nickname is in 1908, right about the time the other Cyclone Taylor came to the fore.  

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Cyclone Taylor in a 1919 caricature. (City of Vancouver Archives AM1535-:CVA 99-769)

One other colourful story in Whitehead’s book about Taylor defies fact-checking, although Whitehead didn’t invent it.

On p. 147, he writes that in December 1912, Taylor went to bed after turning in a fine performance with the Vancouver Millionaires. The hotel he was staying at with teammate and roommate Carl Kendall caught fire and they were trapped. Thankfully, a fire ladder came to their rescue, and they escaped wearing overcoats over flannel pajamas. Kendall had taken his watch and wallet, but Taylor realized he’d left his wallet behind.

So he started climbing back up the ladder, and got to the window ledge before the fire chief ordered him back down. While Whitehead indicates Taylor told this story himself in later years, it appears Whitehead’s source was the Victoria Daily Times of Dec. 30, 1912. The newspaper stated the fire had occurred the previous week, but didn’t say where. Nor did it specify that it was at a hotel.  

The rest of the details were the same. The Times had Kendall and Taylor “clambering down a fire ladder from their bedroom window before the horror stricken crowds below,” and then Taylor trying to go back to collect his money before a firefighter barked at him to stop. The newspaper contained an additional postscript: the firefighter said he would try to rescue Taylor’s money. But rather than produce a bankroll, the firefighter “appeared in the window, heroically waving a collar and necktie.”

If this actually happened — people narrowly escaping a hotel fire large enough to attract gawkers — you’d think there would have been a news story about it. So far I’ve been unable to find any other mention of such an event in the Vancouver or Victoria press.

The Times story was bookended by a couple of other strange things. It began with “Hush fellows, it’s a secret, but the fire fiend was after the Vancouver hockey players last week with a vengeance.” Why was it a secret?

The story concluded by revealing a second fire in which Frank Patrick and referee MIckey Ion awoke to thick smoke and escaped in their pajamas. The fire “reduced to cinders the better part of the furniture before it was extinguished.” No word where this took place either. Both incidents were described in overwrought language and played for laughs, making me wonder if they only occurred in someone’s imagination.