Former NHLer and Newfoundland hockey legend Alex Faulkner has passed away, just a few months after his brother George.
The Bishop’s Falls native passed away yesterday at the age of 88.
Faulkner started playing shinny on the frozen Exploits River with his brothers—including older brother George, the first Newfoundlander ever to play professional hockey.
Faulkner’s #17 retirement banner hangs from the rafters at the Danny Cleary Arena (VOCM News)
His name was synonymous with the CeeBees, where we was an all-star player, winning four Herders.
Faulkner, considered to be the province’s top offensive player, got his NHL break in 1961 with the Toronto Maple Leafs. He moved on to Detroit in 1962 where he scored five goals in the 1963 playoffs, including two game-winners against the Chicago Blackhawks.
Faulkner was inducted into the Newfoundland and Labrador Sports Hall of Fame in 1984 and was named to the province’s Hockey Hall of Fame in 1994.
I am saddened to hear of the loss of another hockey legend from this province. My deepest condolences to the family of Alex Faulkner, the first Newfoundlander to play in the NHL. I was proud to present him with government’s Confederation 75th Anniversary medal last fall. pic.twitter.com/RyWhV9JB2N
— Andrew Furey (@FureyAndrew) April 8, 2025
Lawyer Doug Moores says he knew the Faulkner brothers as a child when Alex and George arrived in Harbour Grace to start up the legendary CeeBees.
Moores told VOCM Open Line with Paddy Daly it was during his time playing for the CeeBees that Faulkner was noticed, and got his break in the NHL.
He says Alex was 22 when he came to Harbour Grace. “Here he was, playing with the CeeBees in Harbour Grace one night, and fortuitously he was scouted that night, it was a guy named King Clancy, who’s a scout from the Toronto Maple Leafs, a good friend of the late Howie Meeker. So they said ‘let’s go to Harbour Grace to see this young kid Alex Faulkner’ and he went to Harbour Grace, and Monday morning he was on an airplane, went to Toronto and went to the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey practice.”
Moores calls that ten year period between 1959 and 1969 the ‘Golden Age of Hockey’ in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Hoskins Funeral Home is taking care of the funeral arrangements.
