Sam Jacks

Samuel Perry Jacks (April 23, 1915 – May 14, 1975 in Glasgow, Scotland) was a Canadian inventor, creator of the sport of ringette and floor hockey. He was posthumously inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 2007.
Biography.
In 1920, two years after World War I when he was roughly five years old, Jacks moved from Scotland with his family when they immigrated to Canada. In 1935 at twenty years of age he began his professional career in recreation becoming the Assistant Physical Director at the West End YMCA in Toronto. A year later, he invented floor hockey and codified its first set of rules, an achievement later recognized by the Youth Branch of the United Nations.
Jacks would hold this position at West End YMCA until 1940, a year after the outbreak of World War II.
From 1940-1945, Jacks was a member of the Canadian Forces. He served with #1 Motor Transport Volunteer Reserve Depot, 1st Light Anti-aircraft, Chemical Warfare School, and the 1st Parachute Battalion in charge of sports for South West England.
After his military service, Jacks met his future wife, a war bride, Agnes . The two would marry and begin their life together in Toronto where they had three sons, Barry, Bruce and Brian.
In 1946, Jacks returned to the West End YMCA in Toronto to continue his professional career and raise a family. Among his numerous duties part of his time was spent working with post war juvenile “gangs”.
In 1948, Jacks was asked to become director of parks and recreation for the city of North Bay, Ontario. He was instrumental in developing the first Northern Ontario Playground Hockey Association (NOPHA) which encouraged youth to play hockey on outdoor rinks.
Jacks's most well known achievement was his invention of the sport of ringette. Ringette was created to both address and remedy two ongoing problems: the observation and criticism regarding the Northern Ontario Recreation Directors Association (NORDA)'s tendency to place most of its time, resources, and focus on running sports programs aimed at the male population to the exclusion of the female population, and the association's continual lack of success in gaining and maintaining participation in the two winter based team sports available to girls at that time: broomball and girls ice hockey.