Lionel Hitchman: An Often Overlooked Major Player in Sports History

Back in the early, stick-swinging, ref-punching days of the National Hockey League, long before television and even radio broadcasts, there was a player with the Boston Bruins that made some serious history. Lionel Hitchman was not just the first player to have his jersey number retired by the Boston Bruins. He was not just the first player in the NHL to have his number retired. Lionel Hitchman was the first professional athlete in North America to have his number taken out of circulation by a team.

Yet, this is a name that goes unheard in the hockey world and is just slightly honoured in the world of hockey cards. The Lionel Hitchman rookie card appears as number 34 in the World Wide Gum V357 Ice Kings set from 1933-34. The hockey card is worth $200 today, double the value of a common card. The set consists of 72 cards and a complete collection is valued at $15,000. Value leaders include Howie Morenz ($2000) and King Clancy ($1000). Hitchman also appears in the 1933-34 O-Pee-Chee V304A set on card number 5. This card is also designated as a rookie card but is rated as a common and valued at $100.

Lionel played in the NHL from 1922-23 to 1933-34. His first days were spent with the Ottawa Senators and he switched to the Bruins midway through the 1924-25 season, Boston’s first year in the NHL. He became the first team captain in Bruins history. With the Senators, Hitchman got his name inscribed on the Stanley Cup in his first season as Ottawa took out the Edmonton Eskimos. He would be a member of one other Stanley Cup winning team in 1928-29. It was Boston’s first of six Stanley Cup championships, to date.

The Bruins advanced to the Stanley Cup finals two more times during Hitchman’s ten years with the club. In 1926-27, Boston fell to Lionel’s old club, the Ottawa Senators. In 1929-30, it was the Montreal Canadiens that grabbed the Stanley Cup from the reigning champs.

In the end, Hitchman played in 414 NHL regular season games and 31 more in the playoffs. The stay-at-home defenseman, a quality that complimented his high-flying partner, Eddie Shore, totalled just a combined 63 points over those 445 games.

Not a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, Hitchman did have his number 3 retired by the Bruins in 1934. It was the first time in North American professional sports history that a player’s jersey number was officially and permanently retired.