History of the A's
1946 - Athletics Win Fifth Mann Cup
The
Athletics of 1946 were a wonderful blend of old veterans that had cut
their teeth in the early years of box lacrosse in the 1930’s, and some
skilled youngsters that were the product of the long dedication of the
city’s minor lacrosse association to develop new “home-brew” talent.
With
the long war over and Canadians eager to return to a life of some
normalcy, the sport of lacrosse enjoyed the return of many of it’s
favourite sons. The Athletics were able to field their strongest team in
years; a team that perhaps could even rival the great Mann Cup team of
1938.
In
1946, the seven team senior O.L.A. was dominated by the Athletics and the
Mimico Mountaineers. The A’s went through the 30-game, regular season
schedule with 24 wins and a tie, good for first place. But the Mounts
finished just one win behind in a close race.
The
A’s and Mounts seemed destined to meet in the Ontario finals, and meet
they did. The Athletics appeared to be in control when they opened up a
three game to one lead in the best of seven final. But then the Mimico
Mountaineers stormed back with convincing 18 - 8, and 20 - 9 wins in games
five and six, enough to shatter the confidence of many of the Haig Bowl
patrons.
St.
Catharines Standard sports editor Clayton Browne wrote, “what a
difference one little week makes. Just last Friday, around 11 p.m., your
Athletics were the pride of the peninsula and the toast of Ontario
lacrosse, riding on the crest of a two-game lead over Mimico Mounts.
Today, they find the pesky Toronto suburb deadlocking the whole thing and
instead of A’s needing only a win to trek east, the boot is on the other
foot and is pinching pretty tightly.”
The
big, game-seven show-down would come on Friday September 20 before 4,200
fans at the jam-packed Haig Bowl. The Mounts led 3-2 after the first and
6-5 at the half. By the end of three quarters time, the teams were
deadlocked at 9 goals apiece in a true nail-biter.
But
the hometown home-brews would bust it wide open in the fourth when the
flying Scot, veteran George Urquhart scored in the opening six seconds.
This game-turner would be followed by another seven straight St.
Catharines tallies before the Mounts’ Blain McDonald answered with one
in the dying seconds. Final score was 17-10 for St. Catharines and another
Ontario crown for the double-blues. Ah, was it ever in doubt.
The
Athletics would now travel to Quebec City to play the Quebec Mountaineers
for the championship of Eastern Canada. Seems like the A’s had a lot of
‘mountains’ to climb in 1946.
The
Quebec Mounts were a team put together by Syd Wright and featured a couple
of locals in their line-up. Donald (Nip) O’Hearn and Port Dalhousie
native Bobby Thorpe were well known to St. Catharines lacrosse watchers,
but neither would see action in the two-game total-points Eastern
play-down. Thorpe would be off at the AHL hockey camp of the Buffalo
Bisons while O’Hearn, another minor-pro hockey player, would be called
home by the sudden passing of his brother George.
This
would severely handicap the Quebec team and even with future NHL coaching
legend George “Punch” Imlach in their lineup, they would lose the 2
games by scores of 19-12 and 16-7. Rex Stimers and Tommy Garriock provided
“phantom” radio broadcasts of the two games from the CKTB studios to
keep the St. Catharines fans informed. “The next best thing to being
there.”
The
A’s march to the Mann would now come down to a best of five series
against the fabled New Westminster Salmonbellies at Toronto’s Maple Leaf
Gardens. The Athletics had for the entire season enjoyed the enviable
luxury of having two sensational goalies in uniform with the veteran Bill
Whittaker and young Doug Favell. But with Whittaker suspended from Mann
Cup play by the C.L.A. for a little incident with referee Jimmy Gunn the
year before, Doug Favell would see all the goaltending action in these
finals.
The Standard’s Clayton Browne felt that Favell possessed a special skill that would help him as a goalie. He would write, “the sturdy city youngster has an asset over most young netminders that he can thank the R.C. Navy for. In his active service years his particular work on patrol duty was that of ‘enemy spotter’ and the experience thus gained is a remarkable asset. Favell never takes his eyes off the ball a second, even to yell to his mates to keep moving and out of his range of vision.” Browne would also add, “there is no doubt in the minds of hundreds of lacrosse lovers here that Doug Favell has every making of being a second Bill Whittaker…we would not be surprised if the husky youngster cropped up as the prize rookie of the season and also turned out to be the hero of the coming Mann Cup roundup.”
Right
you were Clayton.
Game
one of the Mann Cup finals would go off at the Gardens on Monday September
30th. Both teams would be travel weary as the A’s had only
wrapped up the Eastern title in Quebec City on the previous Friday
evening. New Westminster started strong and opened up a 5-3 lead by the
half. But the A’s would put together a fourth quarter rally and outscore
the Salmonbellies by 5 to 2 to take game one by a score of 11-10. Browne
would write, “today, veteran Jack (Wandy) McMahon is the toast of the
town and the city’s west end for that clinching goal. Prior to that it
was anybody’s tilt for the asking.”
The
Athletics were more dominating in game two, with Favell and company not
allowing a single ‘Bellies goal through the second and third quarters as
they cruised to a 18-9 victory. Perhaps the double-blues were inspired by
the St. Catharines Kiwanis Bantams who qualified for the Ontario finals by
defeating the Owen Sound Greenshirts 22-1 in the preliminary game at the
Gardens. Browne wrote of the A’s, “there were no galvanic stars for
the Cleverley clan, barring Favell. All played the lacrosse this city
expected and knew they could in the clutches.”
With
the series now 2-0 for the home-brews, the stage was now set for the
recurrence of another Mann Cup title for the Garden City. Would the glory
ever end?
Well, the rest is history.
The
following picture was on page one of the St. Catharines Standard on
Saturday October 5, 1946:
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MANN CUP COMES TO
ATHLETICS AND CITY FIFTH TIME IN EIGHT YEAR SPAN
DOUBLE-BLUES
SWEEP
MANN
CUP
IN
TRIPLE
WINS
OVER
FISHMEN
BY 11
TO 7
FOR
NATIONAL
BOX
HONORS
The St. Catharines
Standard
Saturday October
8, 1946
St.
Catharines Athletics maintained Garden City and Eastern Canada prestige
most nobly at Leaf Gardens in Toronto last night, the supremacy of never
letting the west win a Mann Cup in the east, when they shelved Jack
Woods’ New Westminster Salmonbellies in three straights for the handsome
gold $5,000 bauble, emblematic of the Dominion title and world’s honors
in the Canadian national game. It was 11 – 7 in the last set, giving
Saints a 14-goal margin on the series at 40 to 26.It also made the fifth
Mann Cup laurels to come to their native Garden City in a space of eight
years of boxla tilting, since the game moved indoors in 1933. Over that
period, the east has triumphed over the west eight times to four, as the
Pacific Coast has never won a series east since the field game existed.
Athletics
not only won, but they carried off all the honors in stars. Rookie goalie
Doug Favell, the 23-year-old ex-navy “lookout” was awarded the Mike
Kelley Memorial medal at the end of the game by CLA Sec’y Gene Dopp, as
the outstanding star of the Mann Cup series. He got five votes to one but
the odd vote also went to a teammate, in Jack (Wandy) McMahon, who is
retiring from action after 14 years of campaigning. The voting was
conducted by sports writers of this city, Toronto and the west covering
the series and it was conceded to Favell at the start of the game, unless
a miracle happened.
Such
didn’t. Favell was the star of that game just as he was in the second
start. He stopped the Fishmen 28 times to 19 for Bill Scuby of ‘Bellies,
rising to super heights in the last two minutes when he robbed Kip Routley
twice on the Favell doorsill, after the coast racer had skipped in behind
a somewhat lax defence. Favell got the biggest ovation possibly ever
tendered a player by the nice crowd of 7,726 fans who got a wealth of
action in the do or die efforts of the west champs.
In
addition, A’s rookie goalie was hit hard in the face twice in the game,
a bullet drive by Pete Meehan cracking him in the cheek and a former one
caroming off his head, but he gamely kept in the hot milling.
BACKED
TO THE WALL
The
five-time Mann cuppers entered the final under a big handicap, too. Billy
(Ham) Nelson was on the sidelines with a twisted ankle and that took a lot
of heavy going away from the E.C. champs, who had to revise a line, but
used Vern Whitely for the first time at three minutes of the last period.
The Fishmen also trotted out two new men in Jack Raitt and Alec Shaw, but
nothing the west had could beat the twin blues with the all-homebrew
roster of Garden City boys. ‘Bellies came out fighting to try and
salvage a win and force a fourth game. They sniped the opener in 41
seconds when Pete Meehan ducked Wandy McMahon and beat Favell. Cars Myers
got the first two penalties for rapping Dickinson at 5:00 and at 7:10 Bert
Bryant was docked, the latter paying off with the tie as Spark Urquhart
got a rebound. Stu Scott and Dickinson were cooled next and just before
the siren Fitzgerald was gated, in a period that saw both teams cautious
to the point of canniness, the checking heavy and an edge, if any, to the
westerners on speed, racing attack and fast back-checking.
A’s
MISS TOO MANY
A
goal apiece did not look like heavy scoring, but it picked up pace in the
second. At full power A’s forced and Urquhart missed the net on a free
shot. Then Saints began to click on passes and a twin snap, Jack McMahon
to Doug Cove, gave A’s the lead. In eight seconds it was 2 – 2 as
Myers failed to pass the ball and lost it when ganged. A star-running pass
and shot saw Scott make it 3 – 2 and Frank Madsen made it 4 – 2 when
he grabbed a rebound, but was knocked flat by Dickinson after scoring.
Morton missed a free shot by 10 feet near the end of the period, with the
A’s looking better on passes but off on sniping.
At the half interval Charlie Querrie presented Gord Gair with the Jimmy Murphy Memorial Trophy for top man of the OLA 1946 season, with 137 points from 100 goals and 37 assists.
(note:
scoring champion Gair had played for the Barrie Lakeshores in 1946).
THREE
IN THE VAN
Pete
Meehan, star of the west in all three games, was cooled at 1:05 of the
third for slashing Jack McMahon, who turned right around and tapered off a
star tally, with Morton setting it up, in 36 seconds. Another brilliant
tally was that of Fitzgerald to Scott on a running play at 6 – 2, then
Fitz set Jim McMahon up, only to have the latter miss the rigging at the
crease edge.
Pat
Smith fooled the Fishmen by snaring a loose ball in a melee and whirling
to whip it past Scuby and A’s were riding high with five up at 7 – 2.
Then ‘Bellies hit back and quick. Meehan set up Reo Jerome on a screened
shot Favell never saw and Ike Hildebrand came to life with his second goal
in the game, after getting a big hand for fancy racing and dodging. Those
three goals came in 42 seconds. Myers strangled Jerome for a free shot
which he luckily missed, the city fireman being unlucky on penalties,
shots and passes all night.
Meehan
slashed Scott at 9:00 and “Icicle Ike” did a star ragging act to kill
off the penalty. At full power later, he set up Kip Routley to make it 7
– 5, but Jack McMahon snared a loose ball in the orange end and scored
in the last 30 seconds for 8 – 5 at the siren.
Favell
was to have been presented with his new honors at the half and third
period ends, but Coach Cleverley refused it, for fear it would unbalance
the city rookie.
FISHMEN’S
LAST RALLY
The
only chills that “Bellies shot into the east came in the first minute of
the final, when the teaming of Reo Jerome from Pete Meehan, then Meehan
from Jerome saw the west slice the margin back two counters at 8 – 7, as
they came within 21 seconds. The Gardens were in an uproar at once and
A’s seemed tired. Whitley came on to ease pressure, but two bad passes
from Myers gave Fishmen the ball. Downey broke fast and raced in to the
crease edge but Favell beat him, then Saints got their second wind. A
smart cut-in play saw Cove score from Jack McMahon and when Urquhart raced
up the west side, he rounded Raitt and when Scuby came out 15 feet to
check him, “Urkie” caught the open net for the only one of that kind
in the whole series.
Pat
Smith took a sleeper pass and then was so fussed he couldn’t pick up the
ball, but the U.S. paratrooper made up for it a minute later when he fed
Jim McMahon the pass for the 11th and final goal of the game.
Routley’s brace of bested tries in the last two minutes of the game
showed Favell in rarest form, as A’s held possession thereafter and it
was all over but the hand-shakes and later the presentation of the Mann
Cup to Capt. Joe Cheevers in mid-floor. There were nearly 1,200 city fans
at the game, 754 going over by special train.
New
Westminster—Goal, Scuby; defence, Dickinson, Bryant; rover, Carter;
centre, Jerome; wings, Hildebrand, Meehan; subs, Downey, Wilkes, Routley,
Burton, Shaw, Houston, Raitt.
St.
Catharines—Goal, Favell; defence, F. Madsen, Cove; rover, Jack
McMahon; centre, Cheevers; wings, Urquhart, Morton; subs, Myers, T.
Madsen, Whitley, Jim McMahon, Scott, Smith.
Referees—Gus
Madsen, St. Kitts; Joe Murphy, Mimico.
First
Period:
NW—Meehan
(Jerome) 0:41
SC—Urquhart
9:12
Penalties:
Myers, Bryant, Scott, Dickinson
Second
Period:
SC—Cove
(Jack McMahon) 1:12
NW—Hildebrand
(Meehan) 1:20
SC—Scott
(Jim McMahon) 6:55
SC—F.
Madsen 10:10
Penalties:
Fitzgerald, Myers
Third
Period:
SC—Jack
McMahon (Morton) 1:41
SC—Scott
(Fitzgerald) 3:40
SC—Smith
7:05
NW—Jerome
(Meehan) 7:22
NW—Hildebrand
7:48
NW—Routley
(Hildebrand) 13:50
SC—Jack
McMahon 14:29
Penalty:
Meehan
Fourth
Period:
NW—Jerome
(Meehan) 1:24
NW—Meehan
(Jerome) 2:45
SC—Cove
(Jack McMahon) 7:40
SC—Urquhart
8:15
SC—Jim
McMahon (Smith) 10:53
Penalty:
None.
CHAMPS MODEST IN
BOX LAURELS
By Gerry Lougheed
(CP Staff Writer)
The St. Catharines
Standard
Saturday October
8, 1946
MAPLE
LEAF GARDENS, Toronto, Ont (CP) — Except for the Mann Cup,
emblematic of lacrosse supremacy, resting on top of a St. Catharines,
Ont., Athletics’ locker, the dressing room atmosphere last night of the
Athletics and the losing New Westminster Salmonbellies was almost
identical. An observer could scarcely tell that the A’s had won the
championship after a hard-fought 11 – 7 battle.
There
wasn’t the expected shouting and cheers as the winners filed in—only a
few back slaps from team rooters. The players themselves took the
victory—their fifth in Mann Cup play—in their stride. The man probably
most responsible for the triumph came in last, dripping perspiration. He
was 24-year-old Doug Favell who played an outstanding game in the nets.
“The whole team played a wonderful game,” he splurted, “and my
defence was really there.” He tossed his own efforts off with a shrug.
Coach
George Cleverly of the A’s admitted he crossed his fingers when the
Bellies edged within one goal of his team during the last period with the
score 8 – 7. “I figured we would get some more goals—I hoped. The
New Westminster gang played a fine game,” he added, “but our team had
more accurate shooting in the clinches.”
A’s
SMARTEST
From
the coach of the Bellies, Jack Wood, came no excuse. “They played
smarter ball than we did and tonight they were the better team.”
“My
boys were missing some of their normal fire but those Athletics were
deadly in on the finish and a fine team—I’d say they were better than
when they beat us two years ago.”
One
member of the teams tonight packed up his gutted stick for keeps. He was
Jack (Wandy) McMahon, the St. Catharines forward who played star games
throughout the series.
At
32 he felt “too old and the going is getting tough for me.”
This
was his 14th year as a senior player.
1946 St. Catharines Athletics
Regular
Season Scoring Statistics
Billy
(Ham) Nelson …........…75 (g), 55 (a), 130 (pts)
Jim
McMahon …...................77 (g), 50 (a), 127 (pts)
Stu
Scott …...........................67 (g), 24 (a), 91 (pts)
Roy
(Pung) Morton ….......…68 (g), 20 (a), 88 (pts)
Pat
Smith ….......................…45 (g), 42 (a), 87 (pts)
Joe
Cheevers ….................…48 (g), 32 (a), 80 (pts)
Tom
Madsen …..................…37 (g), 40 (a), 77 (pts)
George
Urquhart …............…29 (g), 42 (a), 71 (pts)
Jack
(Wandy) McMahon ……29 (g), 28 (a), 57 (pts)
Vern
Whitely …...................…28 (g), 16 (a), 44 (pts)
Norm
McDonald ….............…26 (g), 14 (a), 40 (pts)
Frank
Madsen …................…13 (g), 21 (a), 34 (pts)
Hal
Crooker …...................…11 (g), 14 (a), 25 (pts)
Doug
Cove ….......................…10 (g), 6 (a), 16 (pts)
Carson
Myers ….....................…7 (g), 8 (a), 15 (pts)
Norm
McLelland ….................…6 (g), 3 (a), 9 (pts)
Tony
Capula …........................…3 (g), 0 (a), 3 (pts)
Gerry
Fitzgerald …...................…2 (g), 0 (a), 2 (pts)
Doug
Favell ….........................…1 (g), 0 (a), 1 (pt)
Bill
Whittaker …........................…0 (g), 0 (a), 0 (pt)
The following 1996 reunion picture appeared in the St. Catharines Standard...
related reading: An Interview With Stu Scott