Billy Mosienko, eat my dust.
Bob Miller

Conrad (Connie) MacNeil was physical education instructor at Oxford Regional High School and at Pugwash District High School for a period of nine years starting in the mid 1950s. Now living in retirement in Wolfville, MacNeil holds what is undoubtedly a world’s record for the fastest three goals in an organized hockey game -- but one that remains unrecognized by the hockey gods. The unassuming MacNeil did not want this story to make him appear immodest but here, in his own words, although mostly from the descriptions of others, is what happened the night Connie scored three goals in six seconds.

Mosienko, the pint-sized right winger on Chicago Blackhawks famed Pony Line, turned on the red light three times in a scant 21 seconds in a 1952 National Hockey League game against New York Rangers, setting what has come to be considered the gold standard for natural hat tricks. Compared to Connie MacNeil, Mosienko could be accused of foot-dragging. Come back, to Feb. 27, 1950.

To the drafty old barn that served as the home rink for Acadia University Axemen of the Annapolis Valley Senior B Hockey League. That’s the night the man who was to become “Conrad MacNeil,” distinguished Western District supervisor of schools for Kings County, Nova Scotia was to set a scoring record that is unlikely to be broken. On that night, however, he was still just “Connie MacNeil,” a quick-stepping Acadia left winger, a rookie with a reputation for coming through in the clutch.

The stage was set just before the midway point in the first period of the clinching game of the best-of-seven semi-finals between Axemen and Kentville Wildcats. The winner of the game would go on to the league finals against Wolfville Falcons.

With the old Export A scoreboard reading 1-1, MacNeil, born two days after Valentine’s Day in 1929, gave himself a belated birthday gift … and, as it turned out, one for the ages. Although the modest MacNeil didn’t see it that way then, nor does he yet, that’s what he did. Ping, ping, ping.

Faster than you could say “one, two, three, red-light,” the product of the Glace Bay area (Reserve Mines) athlete factory made the scoreboard read Acadia 4- Kentville 1.

In six seconds MacNeil had done what seemed to be impossible…he had snapped three goals past Kentville goaltender Al Tomori, a well-traveled goaltender who had once attended training camp with the fabled Cleveland Barons of the American Hockey League. The achievement almost boggled the mind and, as expected, there were some questions and controversy about the accuracy of the clock.

How could anyone score three goals in six seconds? Even the British United Press (BUP) got into the act, quoting then NHL president Clarence Campbell as saying such a possibility was “fantastic”. But Major Fred Kelly, the highly-respected Acadia coach, a man of recognized integrity, (“very much so,” MacNeil says) squelched the controversy when he told reporters, “I’m not surprised by Campbell’s disbelief. I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t seen it.” But he had total confidence in the integrity of the clock and official timer. (As an aside Major Kelly was a devout Roman Catholic coaching at a university founded and controlled by the Baptist Church.) League timers and reporters echoed the Major’s comments.

The thought of anyone scoring three goals in six seconds IS “fantastic,” but, by the same token, the NHL record for the two fastest goals by one player is only four seconds… set by legendary lamplighter Nels (Old Poison) Stewart and tied by defenseman Deron Quint in the 1995-96 season. (Minnesota Wild scored two goals in three seconds in 2004 but with different shooters.)

As a matter of fact, just up the road from Wolfville, Truro Bearcats goaltender Dutch Mumford also knew the sting of “rapid red lights”

Bobby Newton, a 20-year-old forward with Saint John Beavers of the Maritime Big Four Hockey League, two years earlier had matched Stewart’s scoring rapidity by potting two goals against Mumford in only four seconds. So, theoretically, as fast as a player can shoot, a scoring play is possible. Back in Wolfville, MacNeil, at 5’9” and about 165 pounds, wasn’t the biggest player on the Axemen but he had developed a reputation as a competitor.

A member of the class of “52 (with a B.ED in 1953), he entered Acadia in September of 1949 and made the team as a freshman, something that was nearly unheard of. Modestly, he says that it was a “rebuilding year” so there were some openings for a few young guys on a club that also featured several returning Second World War veterans.

Fleet of foot, MacNeil says he was an “opportunist” around the net. Time and again he mentioned the “good fortune” he had to play with excellent centre men who set him up for some “easy goals.” His speed also helped him pot a few short-handed breakaway goals. A graduate of Glace Bay High School (he served a year in the Royal Canadian Air Force before finishing his schooling), MacNeil was in the engineering program…but his future, as it turned out, was in teaching. Before he took his first teaching assignment at Oxford Regional High School, however, there was that matter of the “hat-trick.” He remembers Feb. 27, 1950 like it was yesterday. “It was a fine day,” he recalls, “and I remember going to the infirmary to visit John MacAskill, one of our best players, who would miss the game because of the flu.” Between injuries and influenza the Acadia club was a patch-work outfit that night. Even the goaltender was making his first start of the season, pressed into action because of the unavailability of the starting and backup net minders.

When MacNeil got to the rink there was a line-up of fans waiting to get inside. “They were hanging from the rafters,” he says now in reference to the estimated 1,400 spectators at the game. The artificial ice surface (one of the few in the Valley then) in the old rink was 180 feet long by 80 feet wide; dimensions that MacNeil hints might have been a factor in his record-setting achievement. Hockey was big news in the Valley in 1950 and noted sportscaster Bob Huggins did the play by play for Evangeline Radio (Kentville).

At the 7:35 mark of the first period, and playing four skaters aside, (Lloyd MacFarlane, now of Moncton, was in the sin-bin for Acadia…in those years teams played short-handed when coincidental penalties were called), MacNeil broke away with the puck from his own end. As a rookie he wasn’t used to carrying the rubber, he now says, and he looked for someone to pass to (he was really looking for his centre, Bob (Gint) MacKenzie).

When some ice opened up, though, he was off to the races: instead of passing he took a wrist shot (this was before the advent of the slapshot), and beat Tomori to make the score read Acadia 2-Kentville 1.

Going back to the face-off he took a bit of good-natured ribbing from defenseman Bruce Dunlop, who chided him for lugging the puck coast to coast rather than passing. Because of that he had to hustle back to the face-off circle, skating through it actually, just before referee-in-chief Reg Beazley dropped the puck. The centre, MacKenzie, a “heckuvva hockey player,” MacNeil says, put the puck right on Connie’s stick off the face-off and he “took a stride or two” and shot past (or through) the legs of the Kentville defenseman. Tomori was screened on the play and didn’t see the shot. It would have hit him, MacNeil says, if the goaltender hadn’t moved.

Goal No. 2. The clock read 7:38.

Well, MacNeil says, that play worked so well he even talked to Dunlop again on his way back to the face-off circle.

Lo and behold, MacKenzie got the draw again and put the puck right on the tape for MacNeil a second straight time.

Same play…a couple of strides and a screened shot at Tomori who again didn’t see it…for a 4-1 Acadia lead. The only difference was that the third goal beat Tomori on the short side.

The clock read 7:41.

Three goals in a scant six seconds, obviously reason for bedlam among the Acadia faithful, but MacNeil says he doesn’t recall any major celebration. He has been told by others who were there that an excited crowd properly marked the occasion but, if it did, it didn’t register with the moment’s golden boy. He didn’t even think about keeping his stick or the game puck. (As an aside MacKenzie put the puck on MacNeil’s stick AGAIN off the ensuing face-off, but Connie’s magic had run out.)

Kelly, the long-time Acadia athletic director, explained the goals as “little plays we worked out for MacNeil.”

Many witnesses have given personal insights on the historic game. Huggins, now deceased, said in a CBC Radio interview a few years ago that he was “in shock” at the time. As a practitioner of the “he shoots, he scores” profession, he “could hardly say it fast enough,” he noted in the interview. He said Kelly went all the way to the NHL powers that be to try to get the achievement entered as a record but “nobody would believe him”. The clock was right, the time was right, though says Huggins, but unfortunately the game wasn’t recorded for posterity by the radio station. Huggins said in the interview that he rarely ever talked about the three goals because “people rather look at you with a strange look on their face…it can’t happen sort of thing.”

Gint MacKenzie, reputed to be a man of few words, remains a friend of Connie MacNeil’s to this day. In a recent comment from his winter home in Sarasota, Fla. he explained the fireworks this way: “Connie was playing left wing and I was at center. Kentville had a penalty and their right wing was vacant. Connie scored a goal. On the ensuing face-off from centre ice, the puck went directly to Connie, who, after two strides, was at their blue line and, shooting from there, the puck went into the net to score the second goal. The same thing happened on the next face-off. Thus he scored three goals in six seconds.”

MacKenzie also pointed out, however, that Acadia lost the game, despite MacNeil’s heroics. Defenseman Dunlop, now a mining prospector/entrepreneur is still looking for the “big one” at age 82, currently drilling in northern Manitoba. He remembers talking with MacNeil after the first goal...MacNeil on left wing and Dunlop on left defence. “We agreed… Connie to take off as the puck was dropped at centre.” Just as MacNeil hit the blue line the puck was on his stick, Dunlop recalls, “and away he went and scored number two.” As soon as the puck was dropped again...same play...same result…Dunlop says. Winston (Dooley) Churchill, as manager of the Acadia band (as well as bass drummer), was tasked with marking off an appropriate section in the bleachers for the musicians to be situated. And so it was that he and his musical compatriots were in excellent position to witness the scoring fireworks. Now, he says, “it was a long time ago and I never was an astute observer of hockey action, but Connie more or less came out of nowhere (he says he was loafing back of centre ice), got the puck, went in on the Kentville goalie and scored. “Acadia centre Bob (Gint) MacKenzie won the next face off and Connie was in on the net in no time for the second goal. Pretty exciting stuff in such short order.

“The third goal, as I recall, was a virtual repeat of the second,” Churchill says, adding that “I confess to feeling a little sad for him (Kentville goalie Tomori) at the time.” He says the fact Acadia lost the game took some of the glitter off the spectacular feat, “until you reminded yourself that you had witnessed an event unparalleled in hockey, one that has not been recognized as it should have been.”

Churchill was instrumental in later years in having MacNeil’s goal-scoring explosion chronicled on CBC Radio by well-known commentator John Hancock. Today MacNeil gets a kick out of the “Winston Churchill-John Hancock” connection.

Lloyd (Rocky) MacFarlane, of Moncton, also notched three goals that night but when MacNeil did his damage, MacFarlane was in the sin-bin serving a two-minute minor penalty. Today he chuckles, “I’d never be in there,” when reminded he was paying for his on-ice transgression at the time. “I remember the goals,” he said in a recent interview but, like MacNeil, does not recall any major celebration at the time. Memories fade also after such a long period of time he said. “Those were good days for us all,” he says, “for Connie and for others”. MacNeil himself describes the achievement with characteristic modesty. “It was, as you might guess, quite a series of lucky breaks for me. It amounted to scoring a goal, and scoring two more in three seconds each, directly off the face-offs.” He doesn’t see his exploits as anything extra ordinary and give most of the credit to his centre. Modesty is one of the most compelling features of the man; he’ll never be accused of blowing his own horn…he is reticent to the point of needing to be prodded when asked about the scene that special night.

However: the goals in his own words:

“With the great help of my centre man Bob (Gint) MacKenzie, I got two semi-screened shots and both got by the goalie.”

The goalie, Al Tomari, an “import” from Ontario, got a lot of heat at the time for being a “sieve” but it wasn’t his fault. ‘Tomori just didn’t see the second and third shots,” MacNeil said recently” A matter of fact description… with no embellishments… no patting himself on the back. MacNeil says it’s possible to score three goals in such a quick period of time…given the right circumstances. “The planets have to be lined up correctly and you have to be very, very lucky—and you have to have a skillful centre man who can win the draw and put in front of you for an immediate shot. All those things happened. The shots were from just about on the blue line, slightly to the left of centre,” MacNeil recalls.

(Remembering the face-offs, he says MacKenzie was a right hand shot and he was a “lefty”. He says MacKenzie’s ability to get the puck in the right area was the key to success and has been overlooked these many years). After all these years MacNeil and MacKenzie remain in touch with MacKenzie even calling him from Florida just after Christmas. As usual they chatted briefly about “the goals.” MacNeil wound up the night with an assist to go with his three goals and MacKenzie chalked up four assists. Strangely enough the scoring outburst didn’t get a lot of ink and MacNeil says he was actually a bit embarrassed by the achievement. Players he knew on other teams chided him, asked him what team he had been playing against....”Wolfville Nursing Home???? “Nobody seemed to know if it was a record,” he says and the achievement seemed to fade almost into oblivion until some hockey historians in recent years brought it back to light. Back in 1950 Alex Nickerson, then Nova Scotia’s best known sportswriter, said in The Chronicle-Herald, that eyebrows had been raised when the story of the hat-trick had appeared in the newspaper and Acadia sports officials, including Kelly, had been queried about accuracy. But, Nickerson wrote, “the reporter who sent in the story had been absolutely correct,” quoting Kelly, the man who had starred in hockey for the famous Charlottetown Abbies. The university newspaper, Acadia Athenarum, mentioned the event in rather pedestrian fashion, noting that with the scored tied 1-0, “the stage was set for Connie MacNeil’s three goals in the remarkable time of six seconds.”

MacNeil played on a line with the well-known Mo Smith and Fraser (Squint) Matheson his first year with Axemen but Coach Kelly had shuffled the lines on the night of his scoring outburst. One of his teammates that year was Bob MacDonald, who died last year following a near legendary newspaper career with The Toronto Telegram and The Toronto Sun.

Among Kentville players that night were Allie Carver, Willie (The Whip) Robertson, Art Byers (father of former NHLer Jerry Byers) and Al Fagan.

After he graduated from Acadia, MacNeil took a PE teaching position at ORHS, staying for three years before taking a job outside the education field in Halifax, and then moving on to Pugwash for six years.

After leaving Pugwash, where he was also vice principal, he taught at Horton District High School for 10 years before joining Kings County School board where he wound up his career as supervisor of the Western District, a position he held after moving up from the role of physical education supervisor. Ironically, he was followed in that first position by Heather (Whalen) Morse, a native of Oxford Junction.

He engaged in a second career…in real estate…after his first retirement, ending that career in 2004. His son was involved in the building trades and that’s really the genesis of his involvement. He also worked for a real estate firm in Wolfville but kept his “private interests” as well. (He also concedes he is one of those people who hate to be idle).

A third career is not in the cards however, not even in “bridge,” he chuckles.

He admits to being not a “very good” bridge player, preferring the “kitchen” variety to the too competitive duplicate bridge that has become so popular.

MacNeil’s wife since 1954, the former Myrtle MacCready, a native of St. Stephen, N.B., taught junior high math and science at ORHS for two years in the1950s.

They have four children: Margie, David, Andrew and Phil and two grandchildren…Dustin and Madison.

Despite his relatively brief stay in Oxford, he remained friends with several former fellow teachers. As a matter of fact he gave the eulogy at the funeral service for former ORHS vice-principal and, later principal, John Frauzel and maintained a long-standing friendship with the late Jim (The Fiddle Maker) MacCleave. And recently he and a number of his former students attended the funeral of his first principal, Douglas Craig, who was well known in education circles in Oxford and throughout N.S.

MacNeil also kept an Oxford link by serving as chairman of the Jean Slade Foundation, a group set up to assist the noted athlete and musician during her final, fatal illness. He describes Slade, daughter of former Oxford Police Chief Arthur Slade, as the finest female athlete he was ever associated with. She was in Canada’s Junior Olympics program in track and field in the 1950s and held several athletic records. A number of Oxford area people also served on the Foundation’s board. MacNeil didn’t play much hockey after Acadia…some with Oxford intermediate Ravens (a line mate was the late Owen Whitwham, whom he refers to as “a prince of a man”) and in a few “beer leagues.” He remembers well the old Hippodrome Arena in Oxford, especially the stair steps in the corners leading to the natural ice surface. The roof of the aging hockey emporium caved in during a major snowstorm on Christmas Day in 1970. (Ironically, the same storm, which dumped 21 inches of snow on the region, claimed the roof of the Moncton Stadium.) Before Acadia he had played high school hockey in Glace Bay. Practicing what he preached as a PE instructor, MacNeil also excelled at rugby (playing Intermediate in university) and handball (he was Nova Scotia singles champion in 1975).

He followed the National Hockey League in the days of his youth, remembering, as do so many of that era, the familiar voice of Foster Hewitt crackling over the airwaves. When still a little shaver, though, he sometimes couldn’t stay awake on a Saturday night until 10’clock when Foster’s game came on. In those days of the 1930s and 1940s, only the second and third periods of games were broadcast. A Maple Leafs fan to the end, he gravitated to Toronto superstars Syl Apps, Bob Davidson and Gordie Drillon. (Drillon, of Moncton, is the last Maple Leaf to win the league scoring championship.)

Hockey has changed greatly since those days and MacNeil feels recent rules changes that cut down the clutching and grabbing have improved the game. He would go further, however, and agrees with Coach’s Corner’s controversial spokesman Don Cherry that some of the modern equipment (shoulder and elbow pads, for instance) have become weapons.

MacNeil still skates and shoots a pretty mean game of golf. He has a 10 handicap and last year he shot his age a few times, no mean accomplishment at 77 and he enjoys a game of bridge, sometimes playing with some of the now “70-year-old kids” he used to teach.(He’s had the clubs out already this season, hammering ball after ball into a net at his residence).

At age 78 he is an avid supporter of Acadia’s athletic programs and also kept busy this hockey season trying to root his beloved Maple Leafs into a playoff spot. Although from that musical hotbed of Cape Breton, MacNeil admits he is not a musician. He sang some in church choirs and in high school events, but does NOT play that Cape Breton staple: the Celtic fiddle.” I’m not a candidate to become premier of Nova Scotia,” he chuckles, in reference to the current occupant of that office, Rodney MacDonald, who is a well-known fiddler from Cape Breton. And so the sweep second hand of time moves on…the two players inextricably linked by the astonishing quirk of fate in 1950 went their separate ways: MacNeil to the continued pursuit of his degree, Tomori back to the life of a drifting goaltender. Connie wishes he had got the chance to meet and know Tomori…that’s how he is, interested, caring. As for Tomori, his hockey future falls into a historic haze where few seem to remember him.

He played a bit in Sudbury where he retired and subsequently died about a dozen years ago.

With the advent of microfiche, the faded clippings at newspaper offices disappeared, later to be replaced by cyber libraries, still more difficult to crack in the vaults of time.

But this is about Connie. His six sterling seconds became a golden moment that he periodically revisits as he looks over a stellar life. As such, to him goes the last word.

Modest to the end, he has “mixed feelings” about his contribution to hockey lore.

It was an “accomplishment,” he guesses, but the team lost 13-11, missing a shot at the league championship; still “I do wish the powers that be (whoever they may be) would either validate it or discredit it.” Whenever he’s asked about that six-second span of time he feels like the historical fact is treated as “something rotten in the state of Denmark.”

Games were not taped then as they are now so the only reference points are fading newspaper clippings and fading memories.

But those who were there know it happened, the night Connie scored three goals in six seconds.

Now that’s a time to remember.

Repeated attempts to obtain an official comment from Canadian hockey governing bodies were unsuccessful. An email to the head of Hockey Canada received only a terse referral to the Hockey Hall of Fame. The Canadian Sports Hall of Fame also suggested the Hockey Hall of Fame; however, communications to that body did not garner a response.

(As a footnote to the historic game: Acadia out shot Kentville 55-22 but with both regular goalies unavailable to play, the guardian of the pipes that night (really the team’s manager) wasn’t up to the task and Kentville won the high-scoring contest.)