William Ian Nelson Crutchfield (July 12, 1911 – July 22, 1985), known as Nels Crutchfield, was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 professional ice hockey

Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

 player.

Born in Knowlton, Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

, he played defence

Defenceman (ice hockey)

Defence in ice hockey is a player position whose primary responsibility is to prevent the opposing team from scoring...

 and centre

Centre (ice hockey)

The centre in ice hockey is a forward position of a player whose primary zone of play is the middle of the ice, away from the side boards. Centres have more flexibility in their positioning and are expected to cover more ice surface than any other player...

 for the McGill Redmen

McGill Redmen

The McGill Redmen CIS football team is one of the oldest in all of Canada, having begun organized competition in 1898. The team has appeared in three Vanier Cup national championships, in 1969, 1973 and 1987, with the Redmen finally winning the title in the 1987 game...

 from 1930 to 1934 and was team captain from 1933 to 1934. He received a Bachelor of Commerce

Bachelor of Commerce

A Bachelor of Commerce is an undergraduate degree in commerce and related subjects. The degree is also known as the Bachelor of Commerce and Administration, or BCA...

 degree in 1934. He played 41 games in the 1934–35 NHL season for the Montreal Canadiens

Montreal Canadiens

The Montreal Canadiens are a professional ice hockey team based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . The club is officially known as ...

 with 5 goals and 5 assists . His career was cut short after receiving a fractured skull in a car accident in September 1935.

He died in another car accident in 1985 in Huntsville, Ontario

Huntsville, Ontario

Huntsville is a town in the Muskoka Region of Ontario, Canada. It is located north of Toronto and south of North Bay....

.

He was posthumously inducted into the McGill University Sports Hall of Fame in 2001.

External links