Faulker made NHL history in 1961 thanks to outdoor rinks in Newfoundland

The NHL and conservation non-profit Ducks Unlimited Canada are teaming up to tell stories of current and former NHL players and how access to community ponds and the outdoors helped shape their love for the sport. Today, a look at how Alex Faulkner, the first native of Newfoundland and Labrador to play in the NHL, got his start in the game skating on ponds and a river near home in Bishop’s Falls:

If Alex Faulkner turns back the clock 75 or so years and listens very carefully, he can almost hear the wind whistling on Exploits Rivers, a few rink lengths from where he grew up in tiny Bishop’s Falls, Newfoundland and Labrador.

It’s on this river that slices through the central part of Canada’s eastern-most province that Faulkner played his endless boyhood games in the late 1940s and early 1950s, a half-dozen to more than 30 rosy-cheeked players chasing a puck at any given time.

Never did Faulkner imagine that from these frostbitten forays, and pond hockey before that, he would become the first native of Newfoundland and Labrador to make it to the NHL, playing a single regular-season game for the Toronto Maple Leafs then 100 more for the Detroit Red Wings between 1962-64.

Alex Faulkner, two of his four brothers and members of a 1946-47 high-school team in a clipping from the family’s scrapbook.

“We played all day without coaches or any kind of real game. We just figured it all out ourselves,” Faulkner says today.

He and Doris, his wife of 61 years, live in a seniors residence in Grand Falls-Windsor, about 10 miles southwest of their Bishop’s Falls hometown.

Twenty-nine natives of Newfoundland and Labrador have played at least one game in the NHL. Three of them have won the Stanley Cup -- Daniel Cleary with the Red Wings in 2008; Michael Ryder with the Boston Bruins in 2011; and Alex Newhook with the Colorado Avalanche in 2022.

Faulkner, 88, has a unique place in hockey history as the first from the province to graduate to the NHL. Of significant family note is that his older brother, George, 91, was the first from Newfoundland and Labrador to sign a professional hockey contract, playing four seasons for the Montreal Canadiens-owned Shawinigan Falls Cataracts in the Quebec Senior league between 1954-58.

Windsor Star report of Alex Faulkner’s heroics in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final between his Detroit Red Wings and the ultimately victorious Toronto Maple Leafs.

Alex Faulkner is a remarkable Canadiana tale, a gifted 22-year-old scouted almost by accident while tearing up the Newfoundland Senior league for the Conception Bay CeeBees in Harbour Grace. He and George co-founded the team owned by Frank Moores, a future premier of the province.

A decade before that, he and four brothers were fixtures on Exploits River, but not before their father gave them the green light.

The boys played their hockey on Diamond Pond in Bishop’s Falls, a town of then about 2,500 that was founded in 1909 to service a pulp mill and hydroelectric generating station. It would grow modestly in the 1920s, a service center for the Newfoundland Railway Company and its legendary Caribou passenger train, popularly called the Newfie Bullet.

Detroit’s Alex Faulkner with Bobby Hull of the Chicago Black Hawks in an early 1960s photo, and Faulkner with his wife, Doris, in 2023.

As Faulkner remembers it, the pond was about twice the size of a hockey rink, a body of water three or four feet at its deepest.

“We’d play for six or eight weeks on the pond before Dad would let us on the river,” he said.

Horse-drawn sleighs hauling firewood would cross frozen Exploits River and it wasn’t until then that Lester Faulkner, a railroad engineer, would allow his sons on what was a much larger rink.

With their friends, they most enjoyed their pick-up games beneath the iconic Bishop’s Falls railway trestle, a historic span crossing nearly 1,000 feet of the river that is the longest bridge of its kind in Canada east of Quebec. No longer used for trains, the 1901-built trestle now is a boardwalk and all-terrain vehicle trail.

Alex Faulkner and goalie Don Simmons during a 1961-62 practice at Maple Leaf Gardens.

Back in the day, the boys noticed that a spot beneath the trestle seemed to naturally clear the ice of most of its snow, allowing for nearly endless games.

“We spent a lot of time under the trestle because we didn’t have to shovel very much,” Faulkner recalled, cherishing memories of games played before and after school and throughout the weekend.

The young players were both tireless and resourceful. With axes, they’d cut holes in the ice on a Friday night and dip buckets to pull up the water they needed for a low-tech flood. By Saturday at 7 a.m., they had nearly arena-quality ice, a smooth sheet for the day’s game.

“Everybody could stickhandle back then,” said Faulkner, a fantastic puck-handler. “If you couldn’t, you’d not be able to hold onto the puck playing games of 15 on 15.”

While Faulkner never much minded the bone-chilling cold, a couple of his younger brothers have spoken about the half-mile skate into the bitter wind at day’s end to get back home.

From left: Toronto’s Kent Douglas, Don Simmons and Eddie Shack and Detroit’s Alex Faulkner in 1963 action at Maple Leaf Gardens.

Off the rink, hockey was an important part of the Faulkner household. The family would gather around the hot stove on Saturday to listen to radio broadcaster Foster Hewitt call Maple Leafs games on “Hockey Night in Canada.”

From very early on, Alex Faulkner was a huge Toronto fan -- never of a single player, but of the team as a whole.

In 1958, having played four years for Shawinigan, never going to crack the loaded Canadiens dynasty of the late 1950s, George was hired by Harbour Grace to serve as the town’s recreation director. He and Alex immediately set up a senior team at the new Conception Bay complex, George skating on defense as the playing coach with Alex shredding the opposition up front.

Alex’s life would soon change with the visit to Conception Bay of King Clancy; the Maple Leafs assistant general manager had come east on the invitation of former Toronto forward and coach Howie Meeker, who had settled in the area and was coaching a senior team.

Faulkner had burned up the league in 1958-59, scoring 103 goals with 49 assists in 25 games. Clancy was dazzled by what he saw, inviting the swift center to a 1960 regular-season practice.

Alex Faulkner in a 1961-62 Toronto Maple Leafs portrait, and on Maple Leaf Gardens ice with goalie Don Simmons and Toronto coach and GM Punch Imlach.

From a game in Harbour Grace on a Saturday night to downtown Toronto on Monday, Faulkner was on the brink of making NHL history. He arrived at Maple Leaf Gardens, his anxiety eased when the first person he met at the famous arena was a security guard with the same surname.

“No relation, but for some reason it settled my nerves,” Faulkner recalled.

Now he was practicing with players he knew only from radio broadcasts and newspaper stories.

Maple Leafs coach and GM Punch Imlach liked what he saw, notably Faulkner zipping around star Toronto defenseman Tim Horton a couple of times, telling the newcomer that he had NHL potential which needed some minor-pro seasoning.

Faulkner was assigned to Rochester, the Maple Leafs’ American league affiliate, his playmaking touch clearly evident.

Alex Faulkner in a Detroit Red Wings portrait, and a Toronto Star report of Faulkner’s key performance in Game 3 of the 1963 Stanley Cup Final against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Then came Imlach’s call on Dec. 6, 1961, the NHL team’s roster depleted by injuries. Faulkner and goalie Don Simmons were called up to Montreal for Toronto’s Dec. 7 game at the Forum, a hockey shrine that was 1,300 miles west of Bishop’s Fall but seemingly a solar system away.

Faulkner saw just two shifts in what would be his only game for the Maple Leafs, but he made history in his team’s 4-1 loss by becoming the first native of his province to make the NHL.

Imlach praised him to a Canadian Press reporter as being one the best “benchmen” he’d ever had.

“He hollered throughout the game,” Imlach said. “First, we couldn’t understand him, but finally we got it. He was waving and yelling, ‘Hello, Newfoundland!’ to the TV camera.”

From left: Detroit's Bruce MacGregor, Toronto's Allan Stanley and Tim Horton, Detroit's Alex Faulkner and Toronto goalie Johnny Bower during a 1962 game at Maple Leaf Gardens.

With excellent depth and one Stanley Cup into their run of three consecutive championships, the Maple Leafs left Faulkner unprotected in the 1962 intraleague draft and he was claimed by the Red Wings.

But there was no bitterness. To this day, Faulkner is profoundly grateful for the welcome he was given and kindness shown by the Maple Leafs, from their superstars down to trainer Bob Haggart while he was with Toronto and then with Detroit.

He played 70 games with the Red Wings in 1962-63 and 30 more the following season, scoring a respective 20 points (10 goals, 10 assists) and 12 points (five goals, seven assists).

But if Faulkner’s postseason performance in 1963 thrilled Detroit, it totally shut down Newfoundland and Labrador.

Windsor Star report of Alex Faulkner’s heroics in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final between his Detroit Red Wings and the ultimately victorious Toronto Maple Leafs.

The 5-foot-8, 165-pound center scored three times in a six-game semifinal against Chicago, his second game-winner that series eliminating the Black Hawks on April 7, then two more in a five-game loss to Toronto in the Final, scoring another game-winner on April 14.

“Alex’s success is amazing,” Meeker said following Faulkner’s two-goal performance in Game 3 against Toronto, a 3-2 Red Wings victory. “He has moved from the worst hockey league in the world to the best in two and a half years and scored the winning goal in three Stanley Cup playoff games. It’s almost unbelievable.

“They’ll be dancing in the streets of Newfoundland tonight. Alex is to hockey fans there what Babe Ruth was to baseball.”

Detroit Red Wings’ Alex Faulkner is interviewed by Hockey Night in Canada’s Ward Cornell and Frank Selke Jr., along with Chicago Black Hawks’ Pierre Pilote and Bobby Hull, following Detroit’s 3-2 win in Game 3 of the 1963 Stanley Cup Final.

Overwhelmed by reporters and well-wishers, interviewed on “Hockey Night in Canada’s” TV telecast by hosts Ward Cornell and Frank Selke Jr. and Chicago’s Bobby Hull and Pierre Pilote, Faulkner thanked Toronto for having charted his path to the NHL. Hull and Pilote chose him first star that night.

“Let’s face it, I can never thank King Clancy enough for getting me a break in pro hockey,” he said.

That Detroit came up short meant nothing to Faulkner’s fans at home. A month married to Doris Reid, he returned to a hero’s welcome on May 27, premier Joey Smallwood essentially closing the province for a civic reception to honour the “ambassador of goodwill,” followed by a private dinner and dance.

The celebration began on a grand scale with a convertible-sedan parade that included 1,000 cars in happy pursuit and thousands of school children waving along the route, schools closed for the day after a bill was passed in the legislature.

Alex Faulkner and his wife, Doris, ride in a convertible during his homecoming parade in May 1963.

Faulkner played one more season in the NHL, torn ankle ligaments following a broken hand ending his big-league career, then returned to play senior in Newfoundland and Labrador. He would skate with Memphis in the Central Pro league and San Diego in the Western Hockey League before one more senior spin at home.

Playing old-timers’ hockey into his 70s, Faulkner worked in the insurance business and operated a senior citizens’ home and care facility in Bishop’s Falls as well.

In 2009, his dear friend and former Red Wings teammate Gordie Howe came east for a visit to be honored by the town. It was low-key until “Mr. Hockey” arrived at the Beothuck Family Park campground in Grand Falls-Windsor and asked for a stick to join a youngsters’ ball-hockey game.

Howe and Faulkner joked about many things that visit, probably even the latter’s role in Howe’s historic 545th regular-season NHL goal to pass Maurice Richard as the League’s greatest scorer.

It came shorthanded on Nov. 10, 1963, at Olympia Stadium against the Canadiens, Faulkner serving a high-sticking major after earlier having scored for Detroit.

Detroit Red Wings legend Gordie Howe with his former teammate, Alex Faulkner, the latter’s wife, Doris, and Howe’s grandson, Travis, during Mr. Hockey’s 2009 visit to Newfoundland and Labrador.

“The referee said I cut Ralph Backstrom for a couple of stitches but my stick never touched him,” Faulkner said with a laugh. “I think Ralph bit his lip.”

Howe would remain the NHL’s scoring king for more than 30 years, until Wayne Gretzky passed him with goal No. 802 on March 23 1994.

Today, more than 60 years after his final NHL game, Faulkner considers his body of hockey work and the roots of his trailblazing career, skating on small ponds and a river that set him on his path to hockey’s grandest stage.

“Playing outdoors was everything,” he said. “It was the only place we had to play. We just played because we loved the game. It never crossed my mind that I’d make it to the NHL.”

But make it he did. From Diamond Pond and Exploits River, on pure, natural ice, Alex Faulkner made hockey history that is celebrated to this day in Newfoundland and Labrador, and far beyond.

“Life is luck and hard work,” he said. “Mine has been both.”

Top photo: Alex Faulkner’s 1963 Detroit Red Wings Parkhurst rookie card, and a Moncton Transcript report of his May 1963 homecoming following his remarkable Stanley Cup Playoff run.