Frederick Wellington "Cyclone" Taylor (June 23, 1884 – June 9, 1979) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player and civil servant. A cover-point and rover, he played professionally from 1906 to 1922, and is acknowledged as one of the first stars of the professional era of hockey. Taylor was recognized as one of the fastest skaters and most prolific scorers, winning five scoring championships in the PCHA. He won the Stanley Cup twice, with Ottawa in 1909 and Vancouver in 1915, and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1947.
Born and raised in Southern Ontario, Taylor moved to Manitoba in 1906 to continue his hockey career. He quickly departed to play in Houghton, Michigan, and spent two years in the International Hockey League, the first openly professional hockey league in the world. He returned to Canada in 1907 and joined the Ottawa Senators, spending two seasons with the team. During those years, Taylor was often spoken of in the same stature as baseball's Ty Cobb, and in 1909, when Taylor signed with the Renfrew Creamery Kings, the pair were the highest paid athletes in their respective sports. Taylor moved to Vancouver in 1912 to play for the Vancouver Millionaires of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA), where he played for the remainder of his career until 1922. In the 1918 Stanley Cup Final, Taylor scored 9 goals in the series, setting an NHL-era Stanley Cup Final record that remains unbroken.
Upon moving to Ottawa in 1907, Taylor was given a position within the federal Interior Department as an immigration clerk and remained an immigration official for the next several decades. In 1914, Taylor was the first Canadian official to board the Komagata Maru, which was involved in a major incident relating to Canadian immigration. Taylor ultimately became the Commissioner of Immigration for British Columbia and the Yukon, the highest position in the region.
In 1946, he was named a Member of the Order of the British Empire for his services as an immigration officer, and he retired in 1950.
Frederick Wellington Taylor was born in Tara, Ontario, the second son and fourth of five children to Archie and Mary Taylor. The exact date of Taylor's birth is uncertain, though most sources give it as June 23, 1884. Archie, the son of Scottish immigrants, was a travelling salesman who sold farm equipment. Taylor was close to his mother, a devout Methodist, and took after her in that he never smoked, drank, or swore. Taylor claimed that he was named Frederick Wellington after a local veterinarian, a friend of his father. At the age of six, Taylor moved with his family to Listowel, a town 80 kilometres (50 mi) south of Tara. The Taylor family was rather poor: Archie initially made around C$50–60 a month, a low wage for the era, especially for a family with five children. To help out, Taylor left school when he was 17 and started working in a local piano factory. His earnings of around $20 a month helped supplement his father's salary, which had risen to $75 monthly.
At age five, Taylor began skating on ponds near Tara and learned to play hockey when he moved to Listowel. He was given his first pair of skates and was taught by a local barber named Jack Riggs, who was known in the community for his speed skating. Taylor first joined an organized team, the Listowel Mintos, in 1897 when he was 13, and spent the next five years with them. Though initially a couple of years younger than the other players, Taylor was able to keep up with them, and by the time he was sixteen, he was one of the top players and leading scorers in the league. The Mintos joined the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA), the governing body of hockey in Ontario, for the 1900–01 season. They entered a local league, winning the championship as Taylor played a major role. The team reached the provincial junior championship in 1904, losing in sudden-death overtime. This greatly enhanced Taylor's name across the province, and several teams were interested in having him join them.
In October 1903, Taylor was reportedly invited by Bill Hewitt, the secretary of the OHA, to play for the Toronto Marlboros. Happy with his life in Listowel, where he had family and a job, Taylor rejected the offer. This angered Hewitt, who had expected Taylor to accept his invitation and change cities. The OHA regulated player transfers between clubs, ostensibly to keep players from moving from team to team and to preserve the ideals of amateurism. As Taylor refused to join the Marlboros, he was not allowed to play anywhere else in Ontario. Hewitt thus banned Taylor from playing hockey in Ontario for the 1903–04 season. Taylor left Listowel in 1904 and tried to join a team in Thessalon, Ontario, but was not sanctioned to play for them. Rather than play anywhere else, he sat out the 1904–05 season.
Portage la Prairie and Portage Lakes (1906–1907)
Frustrated with sitting out a whole hockey season, Taylor looked for other options for the upcoming season. The OHA only had jurisdiction in Ontario and could not ban Taylor from joining teams elsewhere, so in early January 1906 he moved west to Manitoba and joined a team in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, for the 1905–06 season. As hockey was strictly amateur in Canada at the time, Taylor was offered room, board, and $25 a month in spending money to join the team. In his first game with Portage la Prairie, Taylor scored two goals, impressing his opponents with his skilled play. After one match against the Kenora Thistles, the top team in the league, Taylor was offered a chance to join them as they travelled east to challenge for the Stanley Cup, the championship trophy of Canadian hockey. While considering the offer, Taylor was approached by representatives from the Portage Lakes Hockey Club. A professional team based in Houghton, Michigan, Portage Lakes were members of the International Hockey League (IHL), the first openly professional hockey league. Offered US$400 to join the team, plus expenses, Taylor agreed. Taylor had previously played in Houghton in the 1902–03 season when he had been invited to join a few friends studying dentistry there to play a series of exhibition games against local teams.
In early February, having played four games for Portage la Prairie, Taylor left the team for Houghton. Playing cover-point (an early version of a defenceman), Taylor scored eleven goals in six games for Portage Lakes as the team won the 1906 IHL championship. The following season saw Taylor score 14 goals in 23 games as Portage Lakes repeated as league champions. Taylor recalled his time in the IHL, a rough and physical league, with fondness, saying that the "league was a wonderful testing and training ground, and I was a far better player for my experience there." He also found the atmosphere nice, as "there was a different feeling there with the sport seemingly so far from its home and us all down from Canada as sort of paid mercenaries."
Offering high salaries, the IHL brought in many of the top Canadian players, who were happy to play hockey for the first time in their careers (though some had been covertly paid in Canada). In 1907, the Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association (ECAHA), the top league in Canada, decided to allow professional players. Many Canadian players took the opportunity to play in Canada and left the IHL, which folded that summer. Taylor returned to Listowel for the summer of 1907, playing lacrosse and entertaining offers to join various hockey teams for the upcoming season. Representatives from the Quebec Bulldogs, Montreal Victorias, Montreal Wanderers, and Cobalt Silver Kings all met with Taylor. Cobalt's offer was the most interesting to Taylor largely due to their wealthy owner, rail-builder and mine-owner Michael John O'Brien, though he turned Cobalt down as the club did not offer enough money.
Taylor ended up signing with the Ottawa Senators, who played in the ECAHA (the league would drop the word "Amateur" in 1908 and become known as the ECHA). The Senators offered him $500 for the season, a high salary for the time but not extravagant. What attracted Taylor to Ottawa was that the club also promised him a job within the immigration branch of the federal Department of the Interior. Taylor was intrigued by the offer—the ability to have a permanent career was important. A position in the civil service promised job security for Taylor after his hockey career ended. He thus took up a position as a junior clerk for $35 a month.