Raoul Dumouchel

Raoul Dumouchel

• School Université Laval à Montréal
• High School Collège Sainte-Marie

• Born November 9, 1870 in Montreal, QC CAN
• Died September 12, 1931 in Pointe-aux-Trembles, QC CAN

Biographical Information

Raoul Dumouchel was a major figure in the development of organized sports in Quebec in the final years of the 19th Century and the early decades of the 20th Century. A notary public and a member of Montreal's French-speaking upper class, Dumouchel was also a big sports fan from his school years who used his connections and social influence to promote its practice and create an appropriate infrastructure of clubs and installations. He also was a pioneer of sports journalism in the province, writing articles for various publications, including the city's two main French-language newspapers of the day, La Presse and La Patrie.

While his first endeavors concerned the promotion of handball and lacrosse, he also dabbled in the promotion of various other sports. He joined the "National Amateur Athletic Association", Montreal's French-speaking sports club in 1895 and would serve as a member of its board in various capacities, including President, until his death. One of his main projects was the construction of a state-of-the-art sports complex, the "Palestre nationale", which opened in 1919.

In baseball, Dumouchel was the organizer and served as President of the first edition of the Provincial League, which played its first season in 1898. The circuit would continue on and off, sometimes inside and sometimes outside of organized baseball, until its final demise in 1970. In 1900, he was the main writer of the first French-language book on baseball, entitled Le sport, Guide officiel. The publication was the first to translate the official rules of baseball in French and is the source of much of the French language terminology in use to this day. It also included statistics from the Eastern League, in which the Montreal Royals were playing, as well as chapters on the "history of baseball in French-speaking America".

Further Reading

• Gilles Janson: "Raoul Dumouchel", in Gilles Janson, ed.: Dictionnaire des grands oubliés du sport au Québec, 1850-1950, Les éditions du Septentrion, Quebec, QC, 2013, pp. 152-155. ISBN 978-2-89448-725-9

Related Sites

• "Le sport, Guide officiel"