Michael John O'Brien

He attended school until Grade 8, quitting at age 14 for a water boy position at a railway construction site.

[3] He arrived in Renfrew, Ontario as a teenager and, in 1879, he and two partners won the contract to build the Kingston and Pembroke Railway (K & P).

"[5][6][7] The La Rose claim had been bought from Fred La Rose by the Timmins and McMartin brothers; a protracted legal battle ensued between the "O'Brien crowd" and the "LaRose people", collectively, "The Big Cobalters", which "caught the Whitney government in the cross-fire," before a publicly profitable conclusion was devised by the Government of Ontario in 1906.

[11] His influence in Renfrew and the surrounding area included a dairy, woolens and knit factories, and saw and planing lumber mills.

The organization was co-founded by Ambrose in 1909 after a dispute in the existing Eastern Canada Hockey Association professional league and the rejection of O'Brien's teams to be admitted to the ECHA.

The NHA survived and later absorbed the ECHA teams to provide a single professional ice hockey league in Eastern Canada.

The Kings players had been lured from other professional teams to play in Renfrew, with the goal of winning the Stanley Cup championship.

M.J. O'Brien, 1912. Portrait by George Grantham Bain .
O'Brien Mine in Cobalt, Ontario
Silver ingot from O'Brien mine
Two-handled metal cup with ice hockey players on each side on a wood base which has silver badges listing the winners
O'Brien Cup