Skinner Poulin
Introduction A cigarette pack hockey card showing Poulin in the original Canadiens uniform of 1910. '''George Vincent "Skinner" Poulin''' (September 17, 1887 – May 3, 1971) was a professional ice hockey player who played for the Montreal Canadiens in the National Hockey Association and the Victoria Aristocrats in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association. He was part of the original Montreal Canadiens team in the 1909–10 season and played in the team's first game on January 5, 1910.Poulin won a Stanley Cup with the Canadiens in 1916.During the tail-end of his playing career, while playing in Saskatoon, Poulin became engaged as a referee, and for the 1922–23 WCHL season he was appointed referee-in-chief for the league.
Playing style Poulin, standing at five feet and six inches, was a fairly small forward among his contemporaries, but he deployed a physically engaging style of play to compensate for his lack of height and weight. In the local Victoria newspapers, while playing for the Victoria Aristocrats in the PCHA, he was often referred to as the "pepper box", in reference to his aggressive and peppery playing style.When the PCHA, prior to the 1914–15 season, lay forward a rule change that would prevent body-checking from within ten feet of the fence, Poulin voiced his displeasure and claimed that ice hockey was the only sport where a light man like himself could use his body to his advantage. Poulin claimed that hard checking and Victoria's "get the man" tactics had played a large part in the club winning two consecutive PCHA championships in 1913 and 1914.Despite Poulin's fears of a less hard-hitting league in 1914–15 he continued to deploy a physically engaging style of hockey which led to him leading the PCHA in penalty minutes that season, something he had also done the season prior, earning him the "bad man" moniker of Pacific coast hockey for a second consecutive year.
Career statistics      Regular Season   Playoffs Season Team League GP G A Pts PIM GP G A Pts PIM 1904–05  Smiths Falls Mic-Macs     OHA Jr  ''data not available'' 1905–06  Smiths Falls Mic-Macs     OHA     ''data not available''  1906–07  Smiths Falls Mic-Macs     OHA           4  19  0  19  –   3   4   0   4   0 1907–08  Portage la Prairie        Man-Pro      15  14  0  14  –  –  –  –  –  – 1908–09  Winnipeg Maple Leafs  Man-Pro       4   7  3  10  18  –  –  –  –  –          Winnipeg Maple Leafs      Man-Pro       4   5  1   6   0  –  –  –  –  – 1909–10  Galt Professionals    OPHL     2  2  0  2   3  –  –  –  –  –          Montreal Canadiens    NHA            12  8  0  8  53  –  –  –  –  – 1910–11  Montreal Canadiens        NHA          15   3  0   3  61  –  –  –  –  – 1911–12  Victoria Aristocrats  PCHA      16  9  0  9  50  –  –  –  –  –  1912–13  Victoria Aristocrats      PCHA         15   6  4  10  63   3   2   0   2   0  1913–14  Victoria Aristocrats      PCHA         15   9  7  16  40  –  –  –  –  – 1914  Victoria Aristocrats         Stanley Cup  –   –  –  –   –   3   1   0   1   0  1914–15  Victoria Aristocrats      PCHA         16   4  4   8  52  –  –  –  –  –  1915–16  Montreal Canadiens        NHA          16   5  1   6  43   3   1   0   1   9  1916–17  Montreal Canadiens        NHA           4   0  0   0   0  –  –  –  –  –          Montreal Wanderers    NHA           6   3  0   3   0  –  –  –  –  – 1917–18      ''did not play'' 1918–19  Victoria Aristocrats      PCHA          1   0  0   0   0  –  –  –  –  –  1919–20  Saskatoon Crescents   N-SSHL       12   4  2   6  31  –  –  –  –  –  1920–21  Saskatoon Crescents       N-SSHL        4   1  1   2  11   4   0   0   0   3 1921–22  Saskatoon Sheiks      WCHL  2  0  1  1  0  –  –  –  –  – PCHA totals  63  28  15  43  205  3  2  0  2  0 NHA totals  53  19  1  20  157  3  1  0  1  9 WCHL totals  2  0  1  1  0  –   –  –  –  –Sources:
References ===Notes======General===*
External links ** Official Montreal Canadiens biography (ourhistory.canadiens.com)* (slam.canoe.ca)