Buffalo 07

"AT THE GAME BETWEEN THE BUFFALO AND SAINT CATHARINES TEAMS: TRYING TO BLOCK THE BALL"

The Buffalo Illustrated Express, July 21, 1907

special thanks to Dennis Gannon of the St. Catharines Historical Society

Buffalo is the team that would like above all things earthly to wallop St. Kitts and their effort on Saturday next at Olympic Park will be no puny one by any means. Composed of nearly all Canucks and three-quarters of that from the Garden City, where they first handled the stick, the Bisons, weather it be for fun, money or marbles, will play their game to win no matter if they are up against St. Kitts or Rochester. Buffalo and St. Kitts are like brothers off the field. But put them both into an enclosure to contest lacrosse honors and there will be no love lost, so far as the result of the game may go. Dixon, Bauman, Downey, O’Gorman, Cornett, Richards and Steele are the septet of Saints on the Bisonic line-up. The locals will run no risks of a possible loss and have not yet begun to dim their championship aspirations by the shadow of a loss at home or abroad. The boys will put in several hard practices this week to prepare for their trip to Uncle Sam’s domain and lacrosse sports will eagerly watch for results of the game of all-St. Kitts versus three-quarters St. Kitts.

The Athletics will run an excursion to Buffalo on Saturday. A special car has been engaged for across the river where the team and supporters will take the N. Y. C. to Buffalo. The game is scheduled to start at 4 p. m. and will give the boys plenty of time as they leave at 12 o’clock sharp by special car. Return fare from here to Buffalo is $1.00, tickets on sale at Tim and Mac’s. The Bisons are billing this game heavily so it is imperative that all who intend going should signify their intentions at once as only sixty reduced fare tickets will be sold.

If a person who saw the first lacrosse game in Buffalo three years ago had been at Olympic Park yesterday, he would have noted a marked contrast. He would say there has been a wonderful increase of spirit and enthusiasm among Buffalonians in the famous Indian game, over which Canada had gone wilder than ever the Americans did over baseball and which has won for itself a place in every Canadian boy’s heart.

Buffalo lost yesterday’s game to the Athletics of Saint Catharines by the score of 12 to 2, but the result isn’t a bit discouraging to the players any more than to the public. Lacrosse has taken a foothold here and when the spectators will have learned more about the play of the game and are able to follow with their eyes every move and bound of the ball it is an assured prediction that there’ll be a howling bunch of people at Olympic Park some day, people who will shout louder for a good Buffalo lacrosse team and make more noise than has ever been emitted from Olympic Park’s saintly precincts.

Yesterday’s game was all Saint Kitts. There wasn’t much for Buffalo to holler over. The boys did yell though when Buffalo scored twice after pretty combination work, the kind that seemed to be prevalent only at times in the play of the Bison aggregation.

The victory practically clinches the championship of the Canadian Lacrosse Association, for the visitors have now won six straight games and lost none. If Saint Kitts does land the championship, which seems so assured, they may play the National Lacrosse Union’s champion team for the championship of Canada. It’ll be a big feather in the cap of Edward F. Seixas, the president of the Saint Catharines club, who witnessed yesterday’s game at Olympic Park, and there’ll be doings on the banks of the Welland if they win. The final game for the championship of Canada with the N. L. U. may not materialize, but it’ll be honor big enough for Saint Kitts if they finish the season as creditably as they have begun it.

The team yesterday presented a stonewall defense to the Bison attack. There was no penetrating it and if that did occur there was Hesse, probably the best goal-tender in Canada today, to have a final say about it. Steele of the Bison aggregation managed to whirl two goals by Hesse, although the latter seemed to take the first one pretty badly because he might have easily averted it by a defter handling of his stick.

Buffalo played hard and frequently brilliant. Piche made a few graceful twists and wriggies that delighted the onlookers very much, especially because the wriggies were twined around a man amost twice his height and girth. Wenbourne played a beautiful and consistent game for Buffalo, pulling his team out of many a hole. Tod Downey was on the job continually and by McFadzean puffed hard, as he was kept checking the passes of the visitors in his territory. There was no question about it, however, the visitors outplayed the Bisons from the start to finish.

The game began about 4:15 o’clock after one photographer got through making time exposures of gum-chewing as she is done by lacrosse players, and another posed a bunch of the players in action pictures in mid-air.

Saint Kitts got the draw on the face-off and the usual grand mix-up that characterizes lacrosse ensued. Sullivan if Saint Kitts started down the field with the ball, shot it over to Parke, who sent it whirling into the net, scoring the first goal in a minute of play. Buffalo didn’t seem to awaken to the situation and there were three more goals scored against her before her men were able to withstand the fierceness of the attack that kept the ball in dangerous territory all the time. The first quarter ended with a 5 – 0 score in favour of the boys from the Welland bailiwick.

Play in the second quarter was a bit livelier and the Bisons picked up and “went at them,” as one of the spectators gently encouraged from behind a post in the grandstand.

Buffalo did it. The team pulled together and Steele shot the first goal. The score was 7 to 1. The spectators cheered loudly and applauded every play. Saint Catharines sent a fairly big crowd of rooters, who sat back comfortably in the grandstand and bleachers, grabbed up all the 10-to-8 money in sight and ate peanuts all the rest of the time, interrupting themselves between mouthfuls to whistle and holler every time Hagan or Fitzgerald or Aubron shot a goal for their township’s wielders of the big stick.

It was an interesting game throughout. There was a big crowd there. Everybody enjoyed the sport, including scores of women.

The game has drifted from a less spectacular form of long passing of years ago and the teams seem to prefer the short pass and long running. Drawing out the defense and smashing into the goal-tender, they shoot the sphere at a somewhat shorter range than that which was in vogue years ago. The science of the game has gripped all alike. Buffalo has a good many more lacrosse games in the future, when the races and circus aren’t here. It is to be hoped that the Bisons will improve.

Against Saint Kitts their showing might even be called strong. In an earlier game at Saint Catharines, it will be remembered, the score was 10 to 2 in favour of the Canadians. Buffalo has not won a game yet in the league series, but more home games are coming and a change should occur. In justice to Saint Catharines it should be noted that about eight of the Bisons were once Saint Catharines players. Saint Kitts grows lacrosse players and there’s no disputing it.

BUFFALO		ST. CATHARINES
Dixon	goal	Hesse
Wenborne	point	Stiven
McFadzean	cover point	Harris
Bauman	1st defense	England
Cornett	2nd defense	Stagg
Downey	3rd defense	Parke
Knight	center	Brown
Richards	3rd home	Ripley
O'Gorman	2nd home	Sullivan
Piche	1st home	Aubron
Steele	outside home	Fitzgerald
Mack	inside home	Hagan

Goals and time: Saint Catharines – Parke, 1 minute; Hagan, 4 minutes; Hagan, 11 minutes; Ripley, half minute; Fitzgerald, 11 minutes; Fitzgerald, 2 minutes; Aubron, 1 ½ minutes; Stagg, 2 ½ minutes; Aubron, 4 ½ minutes; Stagg, 3 ½ minutes; Stagg, 7 minutes; Ripley, 1 ½ minutes.