History of the A's

Ken Croft Goes To The Hall Of Fame(s)

by Jim Wallace

The St. Catharines Standard

Wednesday July 16, 2003 

ST. CATHARINES -- The way Ken Croft sees it, his lacrosse career was a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Like in 1944, when the then-18-year-old was picked up by the St. Catharines senior Athletics because there was no juvenile team. That team ended up winning the Mann Cup. Nine years later, while a member of the Orillia Terriers, he took a call from Peterborough. A couple of its players couldn’t make the Mann Cup final in British Columbia and they needed some help. That team ended up winning the Mann Cup.

This year, the timing will be even better. Almost 50 years after winning that second Mann Cup, Croft will return to the West Coast, but this time to be inducted into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame. Like all youngsters growing up in St. Catharines and Port Dalhousie in the 1920s and 1930s, lacrosse was the game to play. It was no different for Croft, who turned 77 earlier this month.

“There wasn’t any money around and most of us kids in Port (he was born in St. Catharines) had a lacrosse stick and we fooled around.” After playing bantam and midget in St. Catharines, Croft decided to try out for the St. Catharines juvenile team. “I was 18, and four or five of us young guys went to the (St. Catharines ) Collegiate where the seniors were practicing, and we were practicing for juvenile” he recalled. “After a week or so, a guy told me I was going to make the team and I said ‘I hope so because that’s what I’m out here for.’ He said no, the senior team.”

Croft and his juvenile mates were named to the senior team when a juvenile team didn’t materialize. That team ended up playing the New Westminster Salmonbellies for the Mann Cup at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. “In those days, you went to the dressing room and didn’t know if you were going to play or not,” he said. “If your name was on the board, you dressed. “It was the same thing at Maple Leaf Gardens. I went over and didn’t know if I was going to dress or not. I don’t know how it happened, but I was out there to start the game when they played God Save the King.”

As for the national championship, “We were just on the coattails of the good guys,” he said modestly. “I don’t think I did very much, but I was there.” After returning to St. Catharines, he entered the army and played junior, moving to Quebec City to play when he couldn’t come up with the cash to attend university. He turned 21 while playing lacrosse there. “It was quite an experience — the older guys would go to the tavern and we used to go to the beach.”

Upon his return to St. Catharines, he landed a job in the engineering department at General Motors and started playing for the Athletics. He had a chance to play in Hamilton for more money, but the A’s wanted $600 for his release. Toronto eventually bought his rights and he scored a couple of goals in his first game with the West Yorks. Because of financial problems, the team moved to Orillia in 1953 and Croft followed. That was when he got his chance to play against the Victoria Shamrocks with Peterborough, which was in the midst of five straight Mann Cup victories.

“Al Frick was supposed to go, but he couldn’t because of work, so Derry Davies and I went. “Here, again, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time,” he said. “I’ve never been on a team that had so much talent and so much confidence. When you went into the dressing room, it wasn’t a matter of who was going to win, but by how much.” Croft, typically, downplayed his part in the two titles. “I figured all the time I was playing, I was a fringe player, right up to the time Toronto paid $600 for my release. But when I talk about lacrosse, it’s a team effort,” he added modestly. “I was a very small part of the team. The ‘I’ word I don’t like; in lacrosse you have to play together. That Peterborough team was just awesome. I think they’re all in the Hall of Fame — where they should be.”

His lacrosse career lasted 10 years and after playing some intermediate and senior hockey, he coached at the bantam level. A member of the St. Catharines Old Boys Lacrosse Association, he now gives back to the game as an ambassador at the Ontario Lacrosse Hall of Fame, where he was a charter inductee in 1997.

Croft hasn’t decided what he’s going to say at his induction when he and Elinor, his wife of 54 years, make the trip to B.C. “I understand you have to respond, and I’ve heard some of the responses are I,  I,  I.…They won’t get that from me; I wasn’t an I,  I,  I; I was a we. I feel very fortunate I even got considered.”

As for his own telephone call, it couldn’t have come at a better time. Since returning from Florida in late April, he discovered he had a torn rotator cuff and tendon problems, which have stopped him from playing competitive tennis, something he has enjoyed tremendously since his retirement 21 years ago. He was also in hospital briefly with another problem. “I was playing tennis up until six weeks ago; I was devastated. Between those two (problems), the only thing good that’s happened since we came back from Florida was this phone call. It took me from the doldrums to a high. It changed my whole outlook.”

And it was a matter of timing.

Lacrosse was his game

Getting cut from midget hockey team spurred Ken Croft to bigger, better things

by Jim Wallace

The St. Catharines Standard

Monday April, 2008

Ken Croft remembers being the last cut for a St. Catharines midget hockey team.

Of course, with just the one team between St. Catharines and Port Dalhousie in the 1930s, it meant there were about 150 players trying out for 20 spots.

Croft was a pretty fair hockey player, but it was his exploits in lacrosse that won him a spot in the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame five years ago.

The 81-year-old will receive what he feels is an even bigger honour when he will be inducted into the St. Catharines Sports Hall of Fame.

Croft had the option of staying on with the midget team many years ago, but couldn't bring himself to practice with them.

"We used to take the first streetcar in the morning- it was black outside and cold - to get to Garden City Arena (now Jack Gatecliff Arena) to try out for this midget hockey team," he recalled. "Then we would go over to the (St. Catharines Collegiate) to school and take the streetcar home.

"But (the coaches) took me aside and said, 'We only have 20 certificates and you're the last one. But if you want, you can stay with the team and practice.' "

Croft was so crestfallen, he didn't bother. In some ways, he regretted his decision because it mean't he wouldn't get the ice time he wanted, but there was an upside and he took it as a positive.

"In retrospect, I think it was kind of a good thing because two years later, whether it was because I tried harder, I got on that (juvenile) team."

The squad, with future pro players like Eric Unger, Dean McBride and Tom Smelle, to name a few, went on to win a Southern Ontario juvenile championship.

And while some members made their living playing hockey, Croft dabbled in hockey and made his name in lacrosse.

That career started in St. Catharines and he also played in Quebec City in 1947, with the St. Catharines senior team 1948 to 1951 and 1954 to 1955.

Fifty years after his second Mann Cup victory, he was named to the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame after he was a charter member of the Ontario Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1997.

For Croft, however, it was always about the team.

"When I talk about lacrosse, it's always a team effort," he said in an earlier interview. "I was a very small part of the team.

"The 'I' word I don't like; in lacrosse, you have to play together." Croft said these days, if he was to liken himself to a player, it would be another St. Catharines native, Mark Steenhuis of the Buffalo Bandits.

"I often wonder how I would have made out with the type of game now," he said. "But (Steenhuis) is about my size and he does quite well because he's fearless and a team player, too."

In typical fashion, Croft downplayed his role on the Mann Cup champions, especially the victory with St. Catharines when he earned a spot on the senior team's roster when a juvenile lacrosse team didn't materialize.

"We were just on the coattails of the good guys," he said. "I don't think I did very much, but I was there."

His statistics might say otherwise. Some of the scoring records have been lost, but from 1948 to 1955, Croft played 247 games with St. Catharines, Weston and Orillia, scoring 295 goals and 453 points.

As a member of an armed services team in 1944, he helped St. Catharines to a Mann Cup and collected a second ring in 1953 with Peterborough as a late addition to the team.

In the meantime, Croft earned his education and became an engineer with General Motors, where he retired in 1982. Although he has severed ties with the lacrosse hall of fame, where he served as an ambassador and was on the board of directors from 2001-06, he still works with the St. Catharines Museum and conducts tours through the hall.

"It's a different game now," said Croft, who attends a number of St. Catharines Junior Athletics games during the summer months (He winters in Venice, Fla., and only sees NLL games on television).

"It's important that kids play the whole game both ways and learn all the facets. As a smaller person, I wasn't very good at checking, but that meant the bigger guys in the defence area were playing together with me to make sure I had a backup."

The introduction of the nylon stick was also a big change - especially for players who were used to being chopped at anywhere near the goal crease.

"When you got hit with one of those (wooden) sticks, you felt it. With nylon, when you get a slap with the end of the stick, it makes a noise but it's not quite as disastrous as the wood."

Croft's induction will also be a bit of a family affair. His nephew Neil Stevens, who retired earlier this year from the Canadian Press, will be nearby.

"He and his family will be sitting at the next table," Croft said proudly.

(Note: Neil Stevens, former St. Catharines junior lacrosse standout, and lacrosse player/coach/executive John Mouradian were also named to the St. Catharines Sports Hall of Fame at the same time as Ken Croft).

related reading: An Interview With Ken Croft

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