Dr. James Cyril (Flin) Flanagan, was born in Thorne, Que., on Sept. 27, 1897.
Left for dead on the battlefield in a blood bath at Passchendale in World War I, he miraculously recovered and went on to study dentistry at McGill.
He became known as "Flin" Flanagan and starred at McGill for four brilliant years (1919-23) in both football and hockey despite having shrapnel in his legs and torso.
Flanagan was the last surviving member of McGill's 1919 Yates Cup championship football team he also coached with McGill's 1928 championship team.
He captained the hockey team in 1922-23 and scored 50 per cent of the team's goals that season (11 of 22) in only six games.
As a stickhandler, Flanagan had no peer in the amateur ranks. In 1920-21, he scored nine goals in five playoff games to establish a McGill playoff record that still stands for most playoff goals in a career. He once scored nine goals over back-to-back games, tallying four times in a 5-1 victory over the Boston Hockey Club (Dec. 29, 1922) and five goals in a 9-3 victory over the Boston Victorias the next day. The following season, he had another four-goal game in a stunning 5-3 upset over the Toronto Varsity Blues (Feb. 2, 1923), a team that went on to win the Queen's Cup championship.
An ardent believer in the sanctity of amateur status, he declined a $4,000 contract to play for the Montreal Canadiens in 1922.
After graduating in 1923, Flanagan opened two dental clinics in Montreal, including the first free dental clinic for the poor in the east end. His other clinic catered to rich Westmount clientele, which he charged double the going rate!
Flanagan, who was quoted in the 1923 Old McGill yearbook as saying, "My hobby is everything except physics", practiced dentistry until the age of 88. He died at the age of 96 on March 12, 1994, in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Que.
