History of the A's
City Junior League Opens St. Kitts Boxla
BOX LACROSSE OPENED IN CITY
ATHLETICS WIN OVER ALERTS 11 - 4 AS SHAMROCKS-TECUMSEH DID NOT PLAY
The St. Catharines Standard
Monday June 6, 1932
With only one of the originally scheduled two opening box lacrosse games being played at city sports park on Saturday afternoon, the abbreviated pastime was not introduced officially in St. Catharines with any great show of excitement. Only a couple of hundred saw two Tecumseh teams mingle in an exhibition affair when the Shamrocks could not fulfill the engagement with the Brown coached men, while enthusiasm refused to run high in the opening league box lacrosse game of the season between the Athletics and East End Alerts with the former swamping the Alerts under a avalanche of goals by a score of 11 - 4.
Although none of the teams are really acquainted with the pee-wee game yet, there was plenty of action shown in the Alerts-Athletics tussle which gave promise of having the fans take to the game later on as soon as the players forget they are not on a wide expanse and acclimatize themselves to the small space. That a player cannot get away with plenty of the rough stuff that mars the open field game was evidenced on Saturday when referees Peart and May called every infraction, incidentally, taking the time out to tell what it was for, and as a result the game was necessarily slow. A few more games should give the players the chance to find out what's what and then the game should see plenty of speed, with play ranging from one end of the cushion to the other in lightning fashion.
Although the blue-shirted Athletics took the opening game by a margin of eight goals, the Alerts showed plenty of good material and deserved more goals on the play, but the Athletics were clearly masters of the situation at all times. Fred Stagg sent in a couple of native sons of the game, General and Bomberry, and this pair showed every other player plenty in the way of stick-handling and using their heads at all times. Both smooth workers, they added plenty of pep to the Alert attack and appeared more familiar with the game than any of the other players.
Buster Rowden proved the star of the game when he roamed all over the lot and broke away from his check to score five of the eleven goals and assist on two others. Rowden's speed carried him around the Alert defence continually to hard drives on the net. Miller (sp) and O'Malley were both outstanding for the winners, while Cleverley continued his rough tactics by drawing down five penalties although they were all for minor breaches of the rules.
Lounsbury proved the leading goal-getter for the losers with three to his credit while Madsen put in another counter for the Alerts. Athletics took a 4 - 2 lead at the end of the initial quarter, increased it by one in the second and ran it up to 9 - 3 at the end of the third period. No rest was given in between periods.
The teams:
Alerts - goal, Bowie; defence, Gilleland and Madsen; rover, Kasmaski; centre, Osbourne; forwards, Thoms, Lounsbury; sub-goal, Lucas; subs, Horne, B. Gilleland, Bomberry, General, Cameron, Halliday.
Athletics - goal, Whittaker; defence, Nutt, Hope; rover, Cleverley; centre, O'Malley; forwards, Millar, Rowden; subs, Wilson, Urquhart, Soper, Seager, Redman, VanAlstyne.
Referees - Peart and May
The Athletics would win both the city junior field and box titles, and form the nucleus of the team that went on to win the first All-Ontario junior box lacrosse championship. Read more on the 1932 St. Catharines Jr. Athletics in the featured stories section.
Note: other box lacrosse was played in the area in the summer of 1932 with a senior "A" team playing out of an arena in Niagara Falls and an intermediate team (senior "B") playing out of an outdoor lacrosse bowl at Lakeside Park in Port Dalhousie. Also, West St. Catharines had for a brief time an intermediate box team that played out of Walkinshaw Park.
Winston "Red" Millar
Toronto Telegram photo