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Home > Hockey > Hockey Hall of Famers > Irvine Wallace (Ace) Bailey
Irvine Wallace (Ace) Bailey
Irvine Wallace, Ace, Bailey was born on the 3rd of July 1903 in Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada. He played 8 National Hockey League seasons from 1926 to 1934. He died on the 7th of April 1992. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1975.
Irvine, Ace, Bailey grew up in Toronto, where he played minor hockey in the Toronto hockey association. He played the 1924-25 and 1925-26 seasons for the Peterborough Seniors and caught the attention of the Toronto St. Pats, who convinced him to try out. He made the team, with both his speed and his shooting ability. He was one of the league's leading goal scorers and in 1928-29 he won the scoring title with 22 goals and 10 assists in 44 games.
Bailey was one of the most popular players ever to skate for the Maple Leafs in the NHL, but he will forever be linked to one of the worst on-ice accidents in the history of the game in. December 12, 1933. It was clear that Bailey would never play again. On January 24, 1934, the NHL's board of governors decided that a special benefit game featuring the Leafs against the best of the rest of the league would be staged in Toronto and the proceeds would go to Bailey and his family. The Leafs' opposition, an All-Star team, was selected. Prior to the game, held on Valentine's Day 1934, the All-Star players skated onto the ice in their regular team sweaters and had their picture taken as a group. They were then presented with their All-Star uniforms by Ace Bailey as well.
Before the opening faceoff, Ace gave President Calder a special trophy in Bailey's own name. It had been commissioned by the Maple Leafs in the hope that it would be the prize of an annual All-Star Game that would be staged to set up a fund for injured players. Bailey later worked as an off-ice official at Maple Leaf Gardens almost to the day he died, on April 7, 1992.
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