Percy Quinn

John Purcell Quinn, known as Percy Quinn, was a Canadian athlete, sports executive and politician, born in Montreal on January 9, 1876, who died on October 28, 1944. As an athlete he was a member of the Montreal Shamrocks lacrosse team that won the world championship in 1896, and he later served as president of the Winnipeg Lacrosse Club and of the Dominion Lacrosse Association. He played hockey and lacrosse as a youth, then worked in insurance and turned to hockey administration, owning and managing the first professional ice hockey team in Toronto, which operated from 1906 to 1909. In 1911 he and other investors bought a franchise in the National Hockey Association that became the Toronto Blueshirts, who won the Stanley Cup in 1914. He later sat on Toronto City Council as an alderman from 1927 to 1932 and from 1937 to 1942, and is credited with getting Toronto public libraries opened on Sundays.