Lionel Conacher

Lionel Conacher (1900 to 1954), nicknamed the Big Train, was a Canadian athlete and politician, voted the country's top athlete of the first half of the twentieth century. Born in Toronto, he starred in many sports: he was a member of the Toronto Argonauts team that won the 1921 Grey Cup, played on the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team that won the 1926 International League championship, won the Memorial Cup in 1920, and won the Stanley Cup with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1934 and the Montreal Maroons in 1935. He also won wrestling, boxing and lacrosse championships during his playing career. He retired as an athlete in 1937 to enter politics, winning a seat in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario that year and a seat in the House of Commons in 1949. He was inducted into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1965, among other honours, and he died after hitting a triple in a softball game on Parliament Hill.