Born in Ottawa on this date in 1896 — it was a Monday then, there, too — Art Gagne played the right wing for a parcel of amateur teams in his hometown, Aberdeens, Royal Canadiens, Grand Trunk. That was during the First World War. In 1919, he signed with Quebec in the NHL, though he never turned out for them, heading west, instead, to join the WCHL’s Edmonton Eskimos, where he skated with Joe Simpson, Eddie Shore, and Duke Keats, and played in the Stanley Cup Finals in 1923, when the Eskimos lost to the Ottawa Senators.

As a Canadien in Montreal in the latter ’20s his regular linemates were Howie Morenz and Aurèle Joliat. Morenz was the tallest of the three at 5’9’’, Joliat and Gagne were both 5’7”. “Joliat and I were good skaters,” he recalled in 1965, “but we could never keep up with Howie. He was a man who flew on skates, and he had to be at top speed to shoot. For a couple of little fellows, we did fairly well. Oh, yes, they treated us rough, but they weren’t dirty to us. We didn’t stand still long enough for them to drive us into the boards.” Of Morenz he remembered that he could shoot a puck through a board; he also said that he and Joliat wore a minimum of pads in their effort to keep up with the Stratford Streak. Gagne’s best goal-getting year in the NHL was 1927-28, when he scored 20 in 44 games. Joliat had 28 that year; Morenz led the league with 33. After three seasons with Montreal, Gagne went to Boston for a year; he also had stints with Ottawa and the Detroit Falcons. Art Gagne died in 1988 at the age of 91.