JOHN ‘JACK’ JARDINE GIFFORD (November 25, 1893 – August 5, 1974) New Westminster Salmonbellies (1914-1915; 1919-1923)
Jack Gifford was the youngest of the five lacrosse-playing Gifford brothers (Bill, Tom, Jim, Hugh, and himself) who plied the family name for the New Westminster Salmonbellies in the first two decades of the 20th Century.
His earliest association with the Salmonbellies name came in 1908 when he appeared in the team photograph as the club mascot. He played junior lacrosse in 1909 in the local city league and by 1911 had progressed into the senior ranks. By the time of his final amateur campaign in 1913, he was considered the backbone of the New Westminster senior team and an inevitable signing for the professional squad.
He made a successful transition into the professional game when he made his debut with the New Westminster Salmonbellies in 1914 – filling positions vacated by Cliff Spring and Len Turnbull, who had gone east to play in Toronto. Gifford originally had committed himself to play senior ball but a couple weeks later and the Salmonbellies weakened from signing raids by Eastern teams, he changed his mind. He was expected to replace ‘Doughy’ Spring on the midfield attack but ended up moving into Turnbull’s outside home spot on the enemy crease. It took him a few weeks to find his place and form but he showed notable improvement as the season progressed.
There was talk of him suiting up for a proposed Victoria team in 1915 when it seemed unsure whether New Westminster would field a team, and Con Jones was trying to create some competition for his Vancouver Lacrosse Club. However a few days later the Salmonbellies managed to muster up enough bodies and interest and Victoria was then quietly dropped.
The years of the Great War raging at that time then saw him absent from lacrosse for around three to four years, as he left to go overseas on July 18, 1915. A machinist by trade, Gifford was accepted for war duty in England as a mechanic. Despite his talent, on his departure one Vancouver newspaper criticised his play and attitude, when compared to his older brothers, as being “indifferent”, and he was probably eager to find himself lured away from the playing field. Indifferent or not, his departure created a difficult hole to fill in the Salmonbellies line-up.
Jack Gifford returned home and resumed playing lacrosse in 1919. His best efforts occurred the following season when he led his team – and the league – for goals with 25 scored. He then took on more of a substitute role during the latter half of the 1921 season, while the following year saw him split time both on the attack and deep defense, which explains his lowly 3 goals that season. He returned full time to the attack line in 1923, his final playing season. Construction employment called him to Newfoundland in 1924, and he thus missed out the final dying gasps of professional lacrosse when it suddenly ground to a halt in June 1924.
Jack Gifford played in 90 games over seven seasons, scoring 79 goals and a lone assist – numbers which rank him seventh overall for career scoring during the professional era as well as seventh for penalties (44) and tenth for penalty minutes (228) spent in the sin bin.
Apart from suiting up in the second benefit game held for former Salmonbellies teammate, now ailing invalid Irving ‘Punk’ Wintemute on August 17, 1933, Jack Gifford never returned to active playing once his professional days were over.
With his brother Jim Gifford managing the show, Jack Gifford became the head coach for the defending Mann Cup champions New Westminster Adanacs in 1940. He replaced his older brother, who had threatened to quit the team due to work and family reasons. Around a year later, Jack himself quit the Adanacs on the day prior to the annual organisational meeting when all of the Gifford clan associated with the New Westminster Adanacs stepped away from all but honourary positions.
John ‘Jack’ Gifford passed away on August 5, 1974.
PATRICK ‘PADDY’ McDONOUGH (1883/84 – April 3, 1958) Vancouver Greenshirts (1918) Vancouver Terminals (1919-1920; 1923-1924) Vancouver Lacrosse Club (1921)
Long-forgotten and obscure today, with a couple of blurry newspaper images to his name, Patrick ‘Paddy’ McDonough was a well-regarded journeyman player for Vancouver teams in the immediate years after the First World War and into the early 1920s.
An easterner hailing from the shores of Lake Simcoe in Ontario – with both Orillia and Beaverton mentioned as his hometown – nothing concrete is known of his early years nor where he learnt the game.
McDonough excelled both in ice hockey and lacrosse and in his early years as an athlete he moved about considerably between teams and cities, in both sports, from year to year, until ultimately finding his way out west to Vancouver and calling it home. He seems to have acquired the nickname ‘Paddy’ in Vancouver, while everywhere else tended to call him ‘Pat’.
Pat McDonough was referred to as “the famous lacrosse player” in an article printed in the Toronto Star in 1908. This is a rather surprising and astonishing statement considering the earliest mention of his name in a game report occurred only the year before. He had turned senior in 1904 and had played previously with such small-town teams as Port Hope, Fort William, and Beaverton – the latter location where he seems to have made his ‘famous’ name – but none of these were hardly any sort of world-beaters or powerhouses.
An early practitioner of the money game, McDonough was gaining enough attention around this time to try selling his services. He was slated to sign with the Toronto Tecumsehs of the professional National Lacrosse Union in 1907, but then got lured away the following month by an intermediate team from Peterborough playing two-tiers down in the Canadian Lacrosse Association league (no relation to the modern national governing body).
Toronto was rumoured to be offering him $300 for the entire season – which was expected to work out being $20 per game – while Peterborough upped the ante by offering him $25 per game. He went with the better deal on the table – but it ended up being a poor decision that backfired on him, as he ended up playing less games and Peterborough was always in danger of folding that season, and may have actually done so.
He then signed the following season with the Tecumsehs’ rivals in the National Lacrosse Union, the Toronto Lacrosse Club (the ‘Torontos’) in May 1908, but then much like he did with the Tecumsehs the year before, he soon jumped ship to play for the Chicago Shamrocks in a handful of games.
It is unknown whether any sort of employment had taken him stateside, nor the quality or type of league in which Chicago played, but by the following year he was acting as player-manager for the Shamrocks and had recruited over a dozen Canadians to fill their ranks. Two years later he was reported to be coaching the lacrosse team at Hobart College in upstate New York.
Around this time, he was also playing ice hockey in the winter months. He started out with teams in the Thunder Bay area, such as Fort William Wanderers in 1908 and a Port Arthur team around 1910; there may have also been some confusion which sport he was playing there, as lacrosse was experiencing a sudden boom in that area at this same time.
By 1911 he had moved on to Saskatoon and signed with a hockey team there. When the Great War came along, he was now in Nelson, British Columbia with three seasons of hockey there under his belt. It was likely during this time spent in the West Kootenay that he first came into contact with the Patrick brothers, Lester and Frank, whom would later employ him as an emergency referee and scout for their Pacific Coast Hockey Association.
His arrival in Vancouver, like much of his playing career, was just as murky. He was reported in June 1917 to be suiting up with the Vancouver squad in the patriotic lacrosse series games played for the war effort relief, however his involvement was limited to that of one of the timekeepers.
He then appeared for the ‘Greenshirts’ in the opening and closing matches of the 1918 Mainland Lacrosse Association campaign, picking up a couple of goals in his second appearance.
‘Paddy’ McDonough signed on with the Vancouver Terminals fulltime in 1919, and he could be found top of the midfield line at first home, or on the attack at inside home and occasionally outside home. As the season wore on, however, he started about half the matches as a substitute.
‘Paddy’ McDonough, June 1920
He paired by with ‘Dot’ Crookall on the attack in 1920 and became noted as one of the sharpshooters on the Terminals. This would be by far his most outstanding season, scoring 19 goals in 17 matches and finishing second in scoring for Vancouver, as well as winning much praise in the press in the process.
Returning to his team-jumping ways, he quit the Terminals in 1921 and signed with Con Jones’s upstart Pacific Coast Lacrosse Association. When the league folded in the second week of June, he found himself on the sidelines.
He was signed to referee PCHA pro hockey games in an emergency capacity for the 1921-22 season. After working one game, he was then sent off by the league on a scouting mission across the prairies in early 1922.
After sitting out the 1922 lacrosse season, he returned to the Vancouver Terminals the following year, but the two-year break from the game seems to have impacted and diminished his ability as he was often relegated to substitute duty.
When goaltender Jake Davis suddenly quit the team at the end of August 1923 to move to California for work, the Terminals were left scrambling to find a new backstop. Veteran keeper and future hall-of-famer Dave Gibbons had been out practising with the team, but he refused the role, claiming his eyesight was no longer good enough. Regarded as somewhat of a jack-of-all-trades, ‘Paddy’ McDonough stepped up and filled the hole in the crease.
His lone appearance in goal took place on September 3, 1923 in a close 9-7 loss to the New Westminster Salmonbellies. Despite previous club confidence with McDonough going into the match, he was replaced in the crease five days later by newcomer Andrew Jack.
McDonough’s lacrosse career ended the following year with the demise of the professional game in June 1924. Looking back at his lacrosse career in Vancouver, he scored a total of 36 goals and 2 assists in 48 games – good enough to place him 14th overall for career goals in the league and 5th in Vancouver team scoring. Statistically he is the best Vancouver pro field player from that era not in the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
In 1942, lacrosse beater writer Andy Paull was asked who he thought “was the roughest player that had ever played”, and he replied with McDonough’s name. With ‘Paddy’ in his later years sometimes providing occasional ‘opinion quotes’ to fill space in the papers, it is difficult to tell if Paull was actually serious or just being humourous and witty with a knowing audience, as McDonough’s 7 penalties and 31 minutes made him practically a saint in the old rough and tumble field game.
In the mid-1930s McDonough returned to his ice hockey roots and scouted for NHL teams, notably for Frank Patrick when he was coach of the Boston Bruins for two seasons. Otherwise nothing is known about his employment nor any personal details, apart from living in the Lonsdale area of North Vancouver from 1941 onwards and operating a pool room there until a year before his passing. He seems to have remained a bachelor, as when Patrick McDonough passed away in 1958, his obituary mentioned he was only survived by a sister.
(PHOTO SOURCES: Vancouver Province unknown date; Vancouver Province June 3, 1920)
GEORGE WILLIAM FEENEY (December 28, 1895 – August 21, 1975) New Westminster Salmonbellies (1920-1924)
George Feeney, younger brother of the outstanding Salmonbellies speedster James ‘Pat’ Feeney, was a versatile athlete whose lacrosse career spanned an awkward and transitional era of the game – bridging the twilight years of the professional game, the doldrum years of the amateur field game in the late 1920s and early 1930s, into the nascent days of the indoor box game. Feeney also successfully navigated the contentious divide between professionalism and amateurism in Canadian sports, and the obstacles he faced exposed some of the first cracks of double-standards and hypocrisy in the amateurism debate which dominated all sports in Canada in the early 20th Century.
Born in New Westminster in 1895, he started out in lacrosse as a goaltender with the West End intermediate team in 1911. He played between the posts for two seasons until he found his true talent at the opposite end of the playing field as an attacking midfielder.
Still in his teens, George Feeney moved up to the senior amateur ranks in 1914 when he joined the New Westminster Salmonbellies in the Pacific Coast Amateur Lacrosse Association.
1915 prove to be a very busy year for him, as he helped New Westminster Salmonbellies win their first-ever Mann Cup when the formidable Vancouver Athletic Club dynasty was dethroned after four years’ dominance.
He played baseball in the local church league that year as a shortstop, helping the Electrics team win the championship – in the process being heralded as the team’s ‘star player’ in their title game. He also played soccer in 1915 with Westminster United at inside right wing. Along with lacrosse, baseball, and soccer, he was well-regarded as a bowler, on the athletic track, and in trap-shooting.
However, “one of the most versatile athletics in the Pacific Northwest” ran into problems with the British Columbia Amateur Athletic Union in 1916. Feeney was banned from playing soccer, after the local New Westminster amateur baseball league was disrupted by the war and he was then induced to suit up for few games for a team in a league deemed ‘outlaw’ and semi-pro by the amateur authorities.
George Feeney as soccer player in a newspaper image, circa 1917.
In October 1916 he applied for reinstatement – or “whitewashing”, as it was disparagingly referred to in the parlance of the day. The issue was plagued by poor and murky communication when it ended up going to the national authorities and his case was used by some newspapers as glaring evidence of the inconsistent state of amateur sports at the time in regards to fringe or questionable ‘professionals’ inadvertently caught up in the bureaucracy that was chronic between different athletic endeavours.
Although never explicitly saying outright, it was clear in the minds of some in sporting circles and the press that their thinking was ‘who cares if a pro athlete in one sport partakes as an amateur in a completely different athletic activity?’ This thinking was compounded by the war years, when double-standards arose when those professionals who were serving military personnel, were given a free-pass exemption from the ban on playing against amateurs due to a belief about helping the war effort.
After six months spent on the sidelines, he was finally reinstated by the BCAAU on April 9, 1917, and a month later he resumed his sporting activity when he signed with the National Biscuit team in the local Commercial baseball League. He also signed on with the Vancouver Hearts soccer team. Despite the six months of inactivity, Feeney had not lost any of his form.
George Feeney suited up for some of the Patriotic lacrosse matches held in 1917. These were a series of exhibition matches which saw professionals and amateurs mixed together on the playing field to help raise money in support of the war relief effort.
In November 1917, Feeney enlisted with the Royal Flying Corps but did not leave for overseas until the last week of February 1918.
He arrived in England around April 13, 1918 and was quartered at Seaford Camp, located near the town of Eastbourne on the Sussex coast. During the trip there, he witnessed firsthand the excitement and dangers of a submarine hunt when his transport narrowly missed being torpedoed by a German submarine, by about twenty feet, before it was then sunk by some convoy destroyers.
Stationed in England, he managed to find time to play baseball with the local Seaford team versus convalescing hospital soldiers. While George Fenney had his heart set on becoming a flyer, he did not pass the medical qualifications. He was assigned to the reserves at Seaford and the only wartime action he would experience – apart his journey across the Atlantic – were those battles fought on the playing field, with lacrosse, baseball, and soccer teams in the south of England while wearing the colours of the First British Columbia Reserve Depot.
He returned home from England on July 25, 1919. Within weeks of his return, he was back out playing lacrosse with the senior Salmonbellies.
In April 1920, he was poached from the amateurs to sign with the professional New Westminster Salmonbellies.
George Feeney would play 5 seasons in the professional game, scoring 36 goals in 64 games. He was generally found in the second home position on the midfield wings, although he did play half a season as the centreman in 1920. His 1923 campaign saw him filling mostly a substitute role – although with the tabulation of assists introduced that year, his numbers showed him to be an adept player maker and set-up man. During those two seasons (or 19 games) where assists were officially recorded, George Feeney led with 15 career assists to give him a total 51 career points. He finished tied in 15th for career goals and 11th for career points – impressive numbers for such as short career as his, as well as for being a midfielder.
George Feeney as a member of the Salmonbellies team at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics.
After professional lacrosse died suddenly in June 1924, George Feeney once again applied for reinstatement to the amateur ranks. He ran into problems in 1925 whilst playing soccer for Westminster United and was once again suspended. He was reinstated, for a second time, as an amateur sometime in December 1926.
Feeney travelled with the New Westminster Salmonbellies team to participate in the lacrosse demonstration at the 1928 Amsterdam Summer Olympics, but was disqualified from playing due to strict Olympic regulations thanks to his former professional status. He ended up watching and assisting the team from the sidelines along with his also-banned teammates Harold ‘Haddie’ Stoddart and the Patchell brothers.
George Feeney’s best years as a lacrosse player probably occurred during the mid-1920s and early 1930s when the field game was dying its slow and inevitable death from disorganisation and spectator indifference.
He was at the top of his game during the 1930 season. Paired up with Harold ‘Haddie’ Stoddart, they made for a deadly scoring duo against their hapless Vancouver opponents in provincial play. He fractured a rib during the Western Canada finals against the Edmonton Native Sons and missed the Dominion semi-finals that followed versus Winnipeg Argonauts, but healed enough to return and help lead New Westminster in their losing effort against the Brampton Excelsiors in the Mann Cup finals.
His final season of field lacrosse followed in 1931, when he participated in very the last Mann Cup series played under field rules. The series was memorialised by a 360° spherical panoramic photograph taken of the players of both teams positioned on the playing field (some who devilishly moved about to appear multiple times in the same image) and crowd at Queens Park. The Salmonbellies once again fell to the Excelsiors in three games.
George Feeney travelled to Los Angeles as a spectator at the 1932 Olympic Games and ended up as the judge of play for all three lacrosse demonstration matches played.
He made a comeback in 1933, this time in the box game and scored 8 goals for the Salmonbellies at the age of 38. He broke his wrist (some reports say his arm) playing in the playoffs after being checked into the boards. He returned for the final Mann Cup game in October 1933. He started in the game in bandages (and pain) before leaving and watching the final half of the game in civvies.
There were rumours of him jumping for the rival New Westminster Adanacs in 1934 but he never played any games in the purple and gold; he later became manager of the team. He refereed in the women’s league in 1937. In June 1938 he played in an oldtimers game versus a junior squad.
George Feeney at the time of the 1931 Mann Cup.
In 1938, when some of the former 1908 New Westminster Salmonbellies players were upset and “raised beef” about the re-classification of the Minto Cup, George was one those who voiced his support in favour of the kids getting their hands on the silverware.
In 1952, he attended the first reunion of the 1928 Salmonbellies team, held at the Elks Club in New Westminster.
George Feeney was inducted into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1969, in the field player category.
There is not much information regarding his employment, although a newspaper article from 1915 mentions he worked at New Westminster City Hall in the engineering department, until he was then transferred to the treasurer’s office at reduced wages to replace a resigned staff member. Eleven days after his transfer, Feeney quit his job at city hall and was hired by the Dominion Bank.
He was a life-member of the B.P.O. Elks Lodge in New Westminster.
His only daughter Norma Phillips passed away suddenly on April 10, 1971. George Feeney passed away on August 21, 1975 and was survived by his wife Verna, 2 grand-daughters and 9 great-grandchildren. His funeral took place just two days later and he was interred at St. Peter’s Cemetery in New Westminster. His last place of residence listed was at the Edgewater apartments located at 707 Seventh Avenue in New Westminster.
(PHOTO SOURCES: CLHOF X994.98b; Vancouver Daily Province February 3, 1917; CLHOF X994.16 (excerpt); Vancouver Sun September 5, 1931)
CLIFFORD (CLIFF) CHRISTIE CAO (ca. 1880 – May 21, 1941) Vancouver Lacrosse Club (1902-1905) Mount Pleasant Maple Leafs (1906; 1908-1909)
Although his playing career was a brief span of just seven or eight years, Cliff Cao was one of the more notable and talented players to suit up for the Vancouver-based teams during the first decade of the 20th Century.
Born in Liverpool, England, Clifford Cao was of mixed Italian and Scottish background. His father Angelo Cao was born in 1842 in Venice, Italy and passed away in 1888, while his mother Ada (Christie) Cao was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1846 and passed away in 1924. Young Cliff moved to Canada around the age of 9 or 10 with his mother and family in 1889.
His slight build did not seem to be a detriment although a newspaper article in August 1902 noted that his speed was not fast enough to be an effective midfield player. The following season saw him moving up to the attack line, slotted in at the inside home position, a move which clearly improved his performance. His 1904 and 1905 campaigns were described in the press as playing a ‘star game’.
During the fall of 1905 he was suspended by the British Columbia Amateur Lacrosse Association for being part of a Vancouver line-up that played against professionals, but he was reinstated in May 1906.
He had already retired from the game the previous month and it was during this down time in 1906 when Cliff Cao’s serious interest in yachting began – and once removed from lacrosse, sailing become his life passion which continued into the 1930s.
After his sailing commitments in the Bellingham regatta had come and gone, he was back out practising and playing three months later, when he signed with Mount Pleasant Maple Leafs in mid-July 1906.
When Cao made a return late in the 1906 season, the press noted that his “oldtime speed” and stick-handing ability was badly needed by the Maple Leafs, although confusingly noting that his speed was hampered by his size, compensated by his expert stickhandling and accurate shooting. While it does seem the newspapers were inconsistent and contradictory about the nature and deficiency of his running game, what was always consistently positive was his personal ability and skill with the lacrosse stick.
Cliff Cao (seated) with his mother Ada and two brothers Rico and Chris, ca. 1905-1910.
When 1907 came along, there was talk of him once again leaving lacrosse after becoming injured. Cao was listed on some suggested or potential rosters put into print that year for the Vancouver team, but it is unknown whether he actually suited up for any games due to a chronic absence of game reports and box scores during those years, which include his name. The nature of his injury is unknown, but he did recover to re-sign with Mount Pleasant Maple Leafs in July 1908.
During a meeting held in March 1909 looking into the contentious issue in of professionalism lacrosse, Cliff Cao spoke out how every amateur player was out looking for the money, but in the past there was unfairness between those who got paid and those who played for the love of the game and this created favouritism leading to demoralisation within some teams.
He signed once again with Mount Pleasant in the senior amateur league, so in the short term we can perhaps surmise where Cao may have stood in regards to the pro vs. amateur debate – however any dislike he may have had for the money game disappeared by the time he was invited out by Con Jones to try out for the Vancouver Lacrosse Club in May 1910. He gave it his all during pre-season practises and test matches, but Cliff Cao retired for good after his comeback attempt failed, at age 30 and already feeling the pace of the game to be a struggle.
He did suit up for an old-timers game played at Brockton Point on Empire Day (May 25) 1929 but otherwise his involvement in lacrosse would be relegated to name appearances in “20 years ago in sports today” recollection articles published by the newspapers.
Cliff Cao became a prominent member of Royal Vancouver Yacht Club, with local fame won as the skipper of Spirit I and Swipe. Looking back over his life, his experience and achievements on the water impressively eclipsed his experience on the grass field.
He won races organised by the RVYC in July 1919, beating the second-place finisher by three hours. His boat, Spirit I, was considered to be one of the two best sailing crafts in the RVYC. When the Cao Brothers sold Sprit I in August 1924, the trusty racing yacht had won 46 trophies for the Cao family.
Cliff Cao never married – however both his brother Rico and his wife were also expert coxswains, with Mrs. Rico Cao winning the Julian Cup for women’s sailboat racing in 1912. His employment is reported as a tinsmith. At the time of his passing, Cliff Cao resided at 216 East 27th Avenue in Vancouver. He was survived by his two brothers Chris and Rico Cao, as well as three sisters.
(PHOTO SOURCES: CLHOF X994.204 excerpt; courtesy of Brian Vivian family collection)
Special thanks to Brian Vivian (Cao’s grand-nephew) for providing biographical information and photograph.
Old School Lacrosse 
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