History of the A's

Athletics Retrospective - Carl Madsen

THROUGH THE SPORTS GATE

by JACK GATECLIFF

The St. Catharines Standard

Wednesday February 22, 1956

Want to start an argument? Ask any group of hockey fans which team, in their opinion, was the greatest in the history of the sport. Old time Leaf supporters would probably claim that “their team” of the Primeau-Jackson-Conacher era could whip the present Montreal Canadien power-house, while Canadien fans would be just as vehement about their own heroes.

There is none of this confusion in lacrosse. Without fear of contradiction it can be freely stated that no team in the history of box lacrosse can be mentioned in the same breath with the St. Catharines Athletics, vintage 1938 – 41. A strong statement, perhaps, but a true one.

If ever a team had “everything” it was the double blues of the late thirties and early forties. Ability fairly oozed from their every movement. They were colorful showmen who could afford to clown around a bit and still win games but when serious could score 40 goals in a night with little effort.

It was a team of individual stars welded into the smoothest box lacrosse combination ever seen in Canada . . . by their soft-spoken Coach Art Brown and a common love of the game itself.

It was a team which lent itself to affectionate nicknames, such as “Tank” Teather, “Wandy” McMahon, “Geezil” Madsen, “Bun” Barnard, “Buster” Green, and “Gus The Alibaba” Madsen.

In each of their championship seasons which stretched over four years the Athletics had as their captain, Gus Madsen. It would be unfair to say that Madsen was in any way the star of the team. On that club no one player stood out above another.

However, as captain and also because of his showmanship . . . a hop, step and jump before shooting; a grimace when checked by an opposing player to draw a penalty . . . Gus naturally drew a good deal of ink in the days when lacrosse was afforded national prominence.

Gus Madsen literally grew up with box lacrosse. He started in 1930 when field lacrosse was still in vogue, played with the first Ontario juvenile boxla championship team in 1933, followed with three Ontario junior Athletic championship clubs and broke into senior in 1935.

In 1936 the A’s were eliminated in senior by Burlington in the semifinals and in 1937 won the first of the final round from Orillia Terriers at Haig Bowl but lost the next two in succession in Orillia.

It was 1938 that the A’s finally broke the Terrier monopoly. When they followed with a Mann Cup victory over New Westminster Adanacs in Maple Leaf Gardens that autumn, a parade on St. Paul Street at 1 a.m. the morning following the last game pulled 10,000 St. Catharines citizens from their beds.

Enthusiasm for that team has only been rivaled by the Teepees Memorial Cup championship in 1954.

Gus was one of many all-round athletes developed in St. Catharines in the mid-thirties. He excelled at basketball, played with three COSSA football championship teams at the Collegiate and “played a little” hockey.

However it was at lacrosse that he became best known and is still recognized as the greatest two-way player in the history of the game. A defenceman with brother Frank, George Hope and Bun Barnard, Madsen was also a dangerous goal-scorer. In the season of 1938 he led the team in points in the playoffs with 21 goals, 27 assists for 48 points.

As captain of Canada’s greatest lacrosse team, Madsen naturally has many vivid recollections of games and trips with the “old” A’s. He thinks the team reached its peak in 1941 when they won the Mann Cup in the west against the Richmond Farmers in a tremendous five-game series.

The A’s were finally halted in 1942 when Mimico and Brampton combined to present a united force against them. In 1943 the Combines again won the Ontario title and added Gus to their roster as a replacement (a procedure, incidentally, never indulged in by the earlier Athletics).

Perhaps his “finest moment” came in the fourth game at the Gardens against the New Westminster Salmonbellies. With time running out in the last quarter the Salmonbellies were leading by two goals and it was then that Gus took over. In exactly one minute and 40 seconds he passed to Ross Gimblett to cut the lead to 10 – 9, scored the tying goal on a penalty shot and passed to George Masters for the winner.

Gus helped the Athletics win another Mann Cup in 1944 (his fifth Canadian and sixth Ontario senior championship) despite a bad knee injury suffered in Brampton during the last game of the regular schedule.

He “retired” in 1945 because of the injury but in 1946 came back from refereeing to play the final seven games of the schedule with Hamilton Tigers . . . the only time he played with a team other than St. Catharines although he was given offers from practically every senior team in Canada.

“Biggest season split we ever got even when we were drawing 4,000 a game was $325,” recalled Gus. “For those seven games in Hamilton I got more than double that $325 and do you know that I was flooded with phone calls from fans . . . many anonymous . . . calling me a tramp for playing with the Tigers.”

“Money though was the least of our concerns. We just liked playing, practiced at least three times a week and mornings when we weren’t working.”

Madsen refereed in Ontario for five years, spent one season on the west coast (1948) in the same capacity but now takes most of his lacrosse via the radio and newspaper.

“I’m still interested,” says Gus who coached players such as Steve Oneschuk, Max Woolley and Hank Ciesla, “but until they get more teams in senior they won’t bring the game back. Who wants to see the same players week after week.”

"The centre of interest in the accompanying picture is, of course, the Sir Donald Mann Cup, emblematic of the Canadian lacrosse championship. The scene is from the floor of the Hamilton arena, with President E. E. Barnes of the C. L. A., from Vancouver, presenting it to Capt. Carl (Gus) Madsen of the Athletics. To the left, in Fishermen togs, is Ike Hildebrand, the sparkplug of the west who just previously was awarded the Mike Kelly Memorial Medal as the outstanding player of the 1944 Mann Cup series."  based on a photo by Healey Studios (modified by AthLax.com)

THROUGH THE SPORTS GATE

by JACK GATECLIFF

The St. Catharines Standard

Thursday June 22, 1961

The Colorful Gus

Wednesday morning this writer was preparing for publication the picture of the great St. Catharines Athletic lacrosse team of the 1938 - 41 era.

This was just one of many photos of teams received in this department, which had brought fame to St. Catharines in years past.

We remarked at the time that, without exception, the playing personnel of this fabulous team was still enjoying good health and a full measure of prosperity.

Late Wednesday afternoon the word came of the sudden passing of perhaps the most colorful member of the club, Carl (Gus) Madsen.

It is difficult to express in our limited vocabulary, the shock which this news occasioned. And that shock was, and is, shared by thousands who followed that Athletic team through its many championship seasons.

As captain of four Mann Cup teams in St. Catharines, a member of one other Canadian senior championship team and an important part in a total of six teams which brought Ontario senior titles to this city, Gus Madsen was often described as the best two-way player in the history of the game.

Few can, or will dispute that claim.

There were so many outstanding players on those Athletic senior teams that it would be unfair and, perhaps, incorrect to say that Madsen was the best member of that group.

Sufficient it is to say that there were no better players with those teams and few who matched him in that intangible attribute known as "color."

"Color" is something which simply cannot be acquired. A player either has it or hasn't it.

Gus Madsen was one who had it in large measure.

The Athletics of the 1938 - 45 era were a team that lent itself to affectionate nicknames, such as "Tank" Teather, "Wandy" McMahon, "Bun" Barnard, "Buster" Green and the Madsen brothers, "Geezil" and "Gus."

In fact, Gus Madsen sported two nicknames, a key perhaps to the esteem in which he was held by local lacrosse followers.

His given name "Carl" was long forgotten by the time he reached senior lacrosse and he later was tagged with the additional handle of "The Alibaba."

The reasoning behind both names has long since been forgotten, but his unique style of play is just as vivid now to those who watched him play as it was at the time he was helping pack crowds of 4,000 and more into the old Haig Bowl.

As well as being a tremendous competitor, a sound checker on defence and an outstanding goalscorer (he led the Athletics in points during their march to their first Mann Cup in 1938 with 21 goals, 27 assists) Gus Madsen was the king of showmanship.

His hop, step and jump before shooting on goal; a grimace, carefully aimed in the direction of the referee when checked, to bring a penalty on the opposition; his arm-waving when he himself drew a rare penalty. These all helped make Gus Madsen and the Athletics the tonic which, for a time, lifted box lacrosse into national prominence.

All the St. Catharines players of that time were specialists. Gus Madsen was no exception.

His specialty was fan appeal.

Oddly enough one of Gus's biggest moments came not as a member of the Athletics, but as an addition to the 1943 Mimico-Brampton Combines.

The Combines lost in the west in '42, won again in Ontario on '43 and, in an effort to bring the Mann Cup back east, added Madsen to their roster for the 1943 series in Maple Leaf Gardens against the British Columbia champions, New Westminster Salmonbellies.

In the fourth game of that series, the Salmonbellies were leading the Combines by two goals with time running out in the last quarter.

It was then that Gus took over.

In exactly one minute and 40 seconds, he passed to Ross Gimblett to cut the lead to 10 -9, score the tying goal on a penalty shot and passed to George Masters for the goal which gave Mimico-Brampton not only an 11 - 10 win on the game but the championship by a margin of three games to one.

As could be expected, Gus, when given the penalty shot, didn't fire the ball home in the usual manner.

We can still picture him standing calmly while 10,000 in the Gardens held their breath.

Gus took his time walking up to the penalty shot line, waggled his stick twice before shooting, then bounced the ball past the western goaltender.

There was an immediate cry from the New Westminster bench that the shot was illegal.

The gist of the argument was that Madsen had "faked" a shot before firing the ball, an illegal play from the penalty shot line.

However, Gus merely told the officials that he was putting the ball more firmly in the pocket of his stick before shooting and the goal was allowed to stand.

Madsen helped the Athletics recover the Ontario and Canadian senior championship in 1944, retired in 1945 because of a recurring knee injury, then played briefly with the Hamilton Tigers in 1946 before the damaged knee finally forced him to end his playing career.

He refereed five years of senior in Ontario and in the west, and in recent years confined his lacrosse to reports in the newspapers and an occasional visit to the Haig Bowl as a spectator.

Last winter we were talking to Gus Madsen while he watched his son Ken play on defence with the junior "A" Teepees early in the season.

"What was the most money you ever earned while playing lacrosse?" we asked.

"The biggest split we ever got was in 1939," he said. We were packing them in for almost every game at a quarter a seat and each player realized $325 at the end of the season.

That was only a fraction of the amount he gave to the game each time he pulled on a jersey. 

On June 28th 1961, Jack Gatecliff reprinted this poem sent in by a fan of "Gus" Madsen...

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