Dictionary sources make the claim that a loafer, while in human form, is an idle person, or someone who does nothing.
The Vancouver Sun, while reporting on an offside infraction committed by star forward Fred “Cyclone” Taylor during a February 21, 1919 game in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association between the Vancouver Millionaires and the Victoria Aristocrats, instead used the euphemism “over-anxiety to score” to describe a similar type of behaviour.[1]
A more modern hockey terminology would probably refer to the same type of action as either “floating” or “cherry picking.”
But no matter how over-anxious someone was to score around the time when Cyclone Taylor was an active puck chaser, loafing offside was a punishable offense, much like cross-checking, slashing or tripping, and carried a standard minor sanction of either two or three minutes in the penalty box.
Fred “Cyclone” Taylor
American hockey player Trafford Hicks, in his 1912 Boston Globe column “Hints for Young Hockey Players”, described the offside loafing infraction in the following words:
“An infraction of the rules called “loafing offside” should draw a suspension penalty. A player who is offside and waiting for some one to skate up to him with the puck and cause him to become onside is termed to be loafing offside.”
and added further:
“Likewise, waiting in front of the opponent’s net to score on a rebound from a shot farther back in the rink is a case of “loafing.” A player must always start to skate back on side.”[2]
Some leagues at the time also held a specific penalty for so-called “offside interference,” which was the practice of obstructing opponent players by skating in front of a teammate in possession of the puck.
Loafing offside was a quite commonplace on-ice sin among the forwards during the first few decades of the 1900s, but some of the worst culprits included Newsy Lalonde, Cyclone Taylor, Barney Stanley and brothers Harry and Tommy Smith. All of whom were also prolific in the goal scoring department.
Montreal Daily Mail, Feb. 15, 1915
During the 1910s, the two highest competing hockey leagues in the world were the National Hockey Association (NHA) in eastern Canada and the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA) in the Pacific Northwest. The two leagues didn’t only compete with each other over hockey players and the coveted Stanley Cup, but they also, at various points in time, applied slightly different rules to the game. Not only regarding the six (NHA) or seven (PCHA) man game, but also regarding the offside loafing rule. And for the 1913–14 season, the PCHA came to apply a “no-offside-in-center-ice” rule, where a player could loaf freely in the neutral zone before moving into offensive zone territory, and with forward passing allowed within the same mid-ice area.[3]
The main goal of freeing up the 70 feet center ice area from the offside loafing rule, as stated by PCHA president Frank Patrick, was to hurry up the speed of the game, and also to cut down on the many delays caused by offside infractions in the neutral zone.
After a pre-season game on November 28, 1913 between the Vancouver Millionaires and the Victoria Aristocrats, referees Hugh Lehman and Frank Kavanagh weren’t much impressed by how the forward pass could improve the game. Lehman, also a netminder with the New Westminster Royals, claimed that it broke up combination plays and gave players too much of a chance to loaf offside. Also Si Griffis, a defenseman with the Millionaires, was unimpressed by the change:
Lester Patrick, alongside his brother Frank the chief architect behind the PCHA, hoped that the new rule change would work by implementing stricter officiating, and he was quite satisfied with the result after the first game of the 1913–14 season between the Vancouver Millionaires and the New Westminster Royals:
Despite some initial displeasure voiced by the players, the new offside rule was deemed successful enough to stick around, and after the 1913–14 season the NHA followed suit of the PCHA and adopted a moderated offside rule allowing mid-ice loafing, while importing the lines separating the three zones, but without the forward pass.[3]
Lester and Frank Patrick
One prominent instance where the offside loafing rule came to play a crucial role occurred during the 1918 Stanley Cup Finals between the Toronto Arenas and the Vancouver Millionaires. The two teams were tied at two games each, and the fifth and deciding game at the Arena Gardens in Toronto on March 30, 1918 turned out a closely contested battle. Vancouver forward Cyclone Taylor tied the game at 1-1 in the third period, but his penchant for committing offside loafing infractions became costly for his team. When the referee ruled Taylor off the ice for his third loafing penalty of the game, the fast skating puck virtuoso had to sit helplessly between the timekeepers and watch Toronto forward Corbett Denneny waltz through the Vancouver defense and score the Stanley Cup clinching goal.[6]
Rather than an over-anxiety to score, it was the strenuous pace of the game that caught up with the 33-year old player, causing him to loaf just a little too much. Cyclone Taylor led the whole Millionaires team in penalty minutes in the Toronto series, and it wasn’t because of his rough play.
The National Hockey League, successor to the National Hockey Association, inherited the offside loafing rule from its predecessor league. But with the introduction of the forward pass at mid-ice for the 1918–19 NHL season the practice of loafing offside among the players became a bit less frequent going into the 1920s, although it was still regularly called both in the NHL and out west in the PCHA and the Western Canada Hockey League.
Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 25, 1918
At the tail end of the 1920s the loafing penalty became obsolete on the biggest hockey stage when the NHL briefly abandoned the offside rule for its 1929–30 season, allowing players to enter the offensive zone before the puck, in a desperate attempt to increase scoring. When the rule was changed back mid-season due to too much loafing and parking in front of the nets, with the blue lines instead working as the new offside standard, it didn’t any longer make much sense to penalize loafing and the penalty fell into obscurity.
Sources:
[1] Vancouver Sun, Feb. 23, 1919
[2] Boston Globe, Jan. 27, 1912
[3] The Province (Vancouver), Apr. 6, 1914
[4] The Province (Vancouver), Dec. 1, 1913
[5] Victoria Daily Times, Dec. 6, 1913
[6] Ottawa Citizen, Apr. 1, 1918
Posted on Behind the Boards (SIHR Blog)
The Vancouver Sun, while reporting on an offside infraction committed by star forward Fred “Cyclone” Taylor during a February 21, 1919 game in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association between the Vancouver Millionaires and the Victoria Aristocrats, instead used the euphemism “over-anxiety to score” to describe a similar type of behaviour.[1]
A more modern hockey terminology would probably refer to the same type of action as either “floating” or “cherry picking.”
But no matter how over-anxious someone was to score around the time when Cyclone Taylor was an active puck chaser, loafing offside was a punishable offense, much like cross-checking, slashing or tripping, and carried a standard minor sanction of either two or three minutes in the penalty box.
Fred “Cyclone” Taylor
American hockey player Trafford Hicks, in his 1912 Boston Globe column “Hints for Young Hockey Players”, described the offside loafing infraction in the following words:
“An infraction of the rules called “loafing offside” should draw a suspension penalty. A player who is offside and waiting for some one to skate up to him with the puck and cause him to become onside is termed to be loafing offside.”
and added further:
“Likewise, waiting in front of the opponent’s net to score on a rebound from a shot farther back in the rink is a case of “loafing.” A player must always start to skate back on side.”[2]
Some leagues at the time also held a specific penalty for so-called “offside interference,” which was the practice of obstructing opponent players by skating in front of a teammate in possession of the puck.
Loafing offside was a quite commonplace on-ice sin among the forwards during the first few decades of the 1900s, but some of the worst culprits included Newsy Lalonde, Cyclone Taylor, Barney Stanley and brothers Harry and Tommy Smith. All of whom were also prolific in the goal scoring department.
Montreal Daily Mail, Feb. 15, 1915
During the 1910s, the two highest competing hockey leagues in the world were the National Hockey Association (NHA) in eastern Canada and the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA) in the Pacific Northwest. The two leagues didn’t only compete with each other over hockey players and the coveted Stanley Cup, but they also, at various points in time, applied slightly different rules to the game. Not only regarding the six (NHA) or seven (PCHA) man game, but also regarding the offside loafing rule. And for the 1913–14 season, the PCHA came to apply a “no-offside-in-center-ice” rule, where a player could loaf freely in the neutral zone before moving into offensive zone territory, and with forward passing allowed within the same mid-ice area.[3]
The main goal of freeing up the 70 feet center ice area from the offside loafing rule, as stated by PCHA president Frank Patrick, was to hurry up the speed of the game, and also to cut down on the many delays caused by offside infractions in the neutral zone.
After a pre-season game on November 28, 1913 between the Vancouver Millionaires and the Victoria Aristocrats, referees Hugh Lehman and Frank Kavanagh weren’t much impressed by how the forward pass could improve the game. Lehman, also a netminder with the New Westminster Royals, claimed that it broke up combination plays and gave players too much of a chance to loaf offside. Also Si Griffis, a defenseman with the Millionaires, was unimpressed by the change:
“There is too much bunching of the players, less team work and the greater tendency to loaf offside.”[4]
– Si Griffis voicing his displeasure with Frank Patrick’s new offside rule prior to the 1913–14 PCHA season
– Si Griffis voicing his displeasure with Frank Patrick’s new offside rule prior to the 1913–14 PCHA season
Lester Patrick, alongside his brother Frank the chief architect behind the PCHA, hoped that the new rule change would work by implementing stricter officiating, and he was quite satisfied with the result after the first game of the 1913–14 season between the Vancouver Millionaires and the New Westminster Royals:
“With stricter refereeing, the offside rule worked to perfection, and I think that after a trial or two, that the ruling will be officially adopted by the Coast League.”[5]
– Lester Patrick on December 5, 1913 after the first game of the 1913–14 PCHA season
– Lester Patrick on December 5, 1913 after the first game of the 1913–14 PCHA season
Despite some initial displeasure voiced by the players, the new offside rule was deemed successful enough to stick around, and after the 1913–14 season the NHA followed suit of the PCHA and adopted a moderated offside rule allowing mid-ice loafing, while importing the lines separating the three zones, but without the forward pass.[3]
Lester and Frank Patrick
One prominent instance where the offside loafing rule came to play a crucial role occurred during the 1918 Stanley Cup Finals between the Toronto Arenas and the Vancouver Millionaires. The two teams were tied at two games each, and the fifth and deciding game at the Arena Gardens in Toronto on March 30, 1918 turned out a closely contested battle. Vancouver forward Cyclone Taylor tied the game at 1-1 in the third period, but his penchant for committing offside loafing infractions became costly for his team. When the referee ruled Taylor off the ice for his third loafing penalty of the game, the fast skating puck virtuoso had to sit helplessly between the timekeepers and watch Toronto forward Corbett Denneny waltz through the Vancouver defense and score the Stanley Cup clinching goal.[6]
Rather than an over-anxiety to score, it was the strenuous pace of the game that caught up with the 33-year old player, causing him to loaf just a little too much. Cyclone Taylor led the whole Millionaires team in penalty minutes in the Toronto series, and it wasn’t because of his rough play.
The National Hockey League, successor to the National Hockey Association, inherited the offside loafing rule from its predecessor league. But with the introduction of the forward pass at mid-ice for the 1918–19 NHL season the practice of loafing offside among the players became a bit less frequent going into the 1920s, although it was still regularly called both in the NHL and out west in the PCHA and the Western Canada Hockey League.
Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 25, 1918
At the tail end of the 1920s the loafing penalty became obsolete on the biggest hockey stage when the NHL briefly abandoned the offside rule for its 1929–30 season, allowing players to enter the offensive zone before the puck, in a desperate attempt to increase scoring. When the rule was changed back mid-season due to too much loafing and parking in front of the nets, with the blue lines instead working as the new offside standard, it didn’t any longer make much sense to penalize loafing and the penalty fell into obscurity.
Sources:
[1] Vancouver Sun, Feb. 23, 1919
[2] Boston Globe, Jan. 27, 1912
[3] The Province (Vancouver), Apr. 6, 1914
[4] The Province (Vancouver), Dec. 1, 1913
[5] Victoria Daily Times, Dec. 6, 1913
[6] Ottawa Citizen, Apr. 1, 1918
Posted on Behind the Boards (SIHR Blog)
