Playing Career
Hooper was born in the village of Rat Portage, later renamed Kenora, in north-western Ontario, Canada. He first played organized hockey for a local high school. The high school team was very talented, good enough to defeat Rat Portage's senior ice hockey team. In 1896, at the age of thirteen, Hooper joined the Rat Portage senior hockey team where he would play until 1908. During his years with the club, the Thistles won three league titles and challenged for the Stanley Cup three times, in 1903 and 1905 against Ottawa, and 1907 against the Montreal Wanderers. The team won the Cup in January 1907, largely in part due to Hooper's three goals in the second game of the two-game total-goals series. The team went on to defend the Stanley Cup as league champions, but lost the title in March 1907 to the same Wanderers. Hooper missed the March series rematch due to a fractured collarbone.
The Thistles folded after one game in January 1908 and Hooper joined the Montreal Wanderers. He only played two season games with the Wanderers and two Stanley Cup challenge games before he got his release from the Wanderers. He had been moved to the cover-point defence position by the Wanderers from his career forward position and lost the starting job to Walter Smaill. He signed with the Montreal Hockey Club for the rest of the season, where he played rover. Hooper's play in the 1907–08 season was considered by hockey writers to not be up to the standard of his previous years due to his fitness. He retired after the season.
Read more about this topic: Tom Hooper (ice Hockey)
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