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Roy Conacher

Canadian ice hockey player (1916-1984)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ730883
Source-derived summary

Roy Gordon Conacher (October 5, 1916 – December 29, 1984) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who was a left winger for 11 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Black Hawks. He was the NHL's leading goal-scorer in 1938–39, his first season in the league. Conacher was a member of two Stanley Cup winning teams with the Bruins and scored the championship winning goal in 1939. He won the Art Ross Trophy in 1948–49 season as the NHL's leading point scorer and was named a first team All-Star.

Conacher was a member of the Memorial Cup winning West Toronto Nationals in 1935 as Canadian junior champions and was a member of the Ontario Hockey Association senior champion Toronto Dominions in 1937. Playing in the shadow of his more famous brothers Charlie and Lionel, Roy was known as the "forgotten Conacher". He was posthumously inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1998, following his brothers to become the only trio of siblings so enshrined.

Early life

Roy Conacher was born October 5, 1916, along with his twin brother Bert, to Benjamin and Elizabeth Conacher. They were the youngest of ten siblings: five boys and five girls. The family grew up in the Toronto neighbourhood of Davenport, which his brother Charlie described as "one of Toronto's higher class slums".

Editorial summary

“Roy Conacher” enters the record as canadian ice hockey player (1916-1984). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Conacher, Canadian and hockey can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1916, 1984, 1938, 1939—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1916-10-05. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Conacher, Canadian and hockey.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Roy Conacher” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Conacher, Canadian and hockey provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q730883. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1916, 1984, 1938 and 1939.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Roy Conacher”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Roy Conacher primary sources, Roy Conacher archive and Conacher research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Roy Conacher”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Roy Conacher” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.