Starting with 1938-39, he played defence for the Americans until 1940-41 after which he retired.

Lorne Smith (1928-2002) was an ice hockey player and later a coach who played defence.

For the 2007-08 season, Mattsson was converted to playing defence after being a forward his whole career.

"Once we got back to playing defence we were able to turn the game around," James said.

Despite being 35 and having played defence for most of his career, he returned as a forward, and was surprisingly successful.

He played defence for his final two seasons before retiring.

Vinzents played 29 out of 30 possible league games and was one of the reasons for the teams successful defence.

Playing left defence, Cuthbert has established himself as one of the team's most reliable defencemen.

In that season, he scored eight goals with three assists, mostly while playing defence.

This proved popular with ice hockey players that played defence.