Part 5

Before we had defeated Brampton for the O.L.A. championship, it had been rumoured that the winners of this series would have to play the “Manitoba All Stars” on their way to Vancouver. As far as the players were concerned, this hearsay was just that. Until … Doug Cove announced at that team meeting on Thursday morning in Vancouver, to a group of not too wide-awake Minto Cup “semi-finalists”, that we were to act as Canada Postmen to deliver the Minto Cup to Winnipeg. There, the first game of the best-two-out-of-three MINTO CUP CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND, would be played BEGINNING Saturday night between the Manitoba “All Stars” and the Ontario “All Stars” …… US!

What a wake up pill, after a hard night of celebrating our right to play for the Canadian Championship in Winnipeg! Covey ended by saying, “We’ll just have to beat them, too!” At least that was what his voice said, but I wouldn’t dare to print what his face said.

Now all we had to do was travel 1,100 miles (1,760 km), by train, through the Western Cordillera and the Prairies, with what seemed like a zillion stops along the way. Then dismount in Winnipeg, bunk at our hotel, which proved, fortunately, to be right near the station, eat, and then head for the Manitoba “All Stars” arena or an outside lacrosse bowl.

By this time it seemed incidental whether we played on a terrazzo surface or a hard, compacted sand-clay court. We would have preferred the latter, because we could have prayed for rain to get a two day rest (Saturday and Sunday) and time for a practice. But alas, our taxis headed for the Olympic rink arena. It really didn’t matter. How does that song go, “It never rains in Manitoba”. Or was it “in California”?

A precedent had been established in 1901, in the year Lord Minto donated his trophy. It was impacting on the outcome of the 1950 Dominion Junior Lacrosse Championship. Back in 1901, as I wrote earlier, the Ottawa Capitals defeated Cornwall and were presented with the Cup by the Lord himself. Later that year, the Capitals were challenged by the Montreal Shamrocks who defeated them; they in turn hung onto the coveted prize six times between 1901 and 1907.

In 1910, New Westminster had to win it twice --- first from the Tecumsehs and then Montreal! 1911 saw Vancouver defeat Tecumsehs for the Trophy, before retaining it with a victory over their arch city rival, New Westminster.

All this occurred long before Lord Minto’s son gave permission for his Dad’s Cup to be given over for junior lacrosse supremacy in 1937. Covey and company hoped that in that Winnipeg arena we would repeat the feat of New Westminster in 1910 and Vancouver in 1911. Heaven help us, if the 1901 outcome was repeated in 1950! Half jokingly, I asked our mentor if we would have to play Quebec if we defeated Manitoba, then move on to our newest province Newfoundland, if it had a lacrosse bowl? Covey never even smiled. I don’t think he felt he could give me a definite No!

I’ve often speculated on how the 1950 Minto Cup winner would have been decided if those Vancouver Burrards had defeated us in the Kerrisdale arena?

Let the battle begin! A struggle it was. For a time it looked like this showdown would be a repeat of the 1901 triumvirate, when the challenger defeated the crowned champ!

It had been eons since any team had scored that many goals against us. And not since the fourth game against the Vancouver Eagles, in 1949, had any boxla hopeful taken us into overtime. Let’s listen to what Vince Leah, a Winnipeg sports writer covering the game had to say about this first tilt.

“St. Catharines’ terribly surprised Athletics earned a last-minute reprieve from becoming the victims of the greatest upset of this or any other lacrosse season, defeated Manitoba All Stars 21 – 16 in overtime Saturday to gain a one game lead in their best-of-three final for the Canadian Junior Championship.

The Peg kids, down 8 – 0 at one time after acquiring a bad case of stage fright in the presence of the vaunted Ontario squad, started to rally their forces in the second quarter and trailed 10 – 4 at half time. In the third period, the Winnipeg squad just overran the Athletics, outscoring them 7 – 2, and in the final period repeated 4 – 3. With 56 seconds to go in regulation time, the local lads failed to retain possession of the ball with victory in their grasp. Then fleet Ted Howe raced around the home team’s defence to whip home the shot that forced overtime and his team mates hugged him in delight.

Charlie Sabo whipped a pass from Bill Curtis after 45 seconds in extra time, but Howe tied the score at 2:33. With Gerry Riddler serving a penalty, the visitors displayed a lot of polished passing and shooting. Howe and Joe Convery scored in short order. Len Caruso fired in another, and diminutive Jim Bradshaw hit the target before Don Moore ended the scoring with 30 seconds left (with a beautifully executed backhand shot).

It was the finest performance in interprovincial competition by any local team since the defunct Winnipeg Argonauts in 1932 defeated B.C. Squamish Indians and went to Toronto for the Mann Cup.”

“You’re a tough outfit”, chorused the St. Catharines Double Blues. “As good as Vancouver … sure maybe a whole lot better”.

There were no excuses in the dressing room for the near defeat. “Howe we love you Ted” reverberated off the shower room walls for the hero of that game!

We were, justifiably, a tired lot. Yet, deep down inside each of us we felt that this Winnipeg outfit “would be done like dinner” in the next game, after we had had two good night sleeps.

Even though we had been scored on readily, we knew that our defensive system would not allow another outburst like this. Their Jim McGeorge, who ran like a deer, had a shot like a cannon and scored 5 goals, had to be stopped. He was the best junior lacrosse player I had seen that year. Our offensive machine had clicked on scoring – Howe (4), Moore (3), Woolley (3), Convery (2), Uhrynuk (2), Bradshaw (2), Caruso (2), Frick (1), Davies (1) and Smith (1).

Sunday was a free day. A few of us took our lacrosse sticks to a park to get some practice. Low and behold, there was Jim McGeorge with some of his lacrosse buddies and others playing touch football. My God, ……McGeorge could throw a football better than he could fire a lacrosse ball! Uhrynuk and I wanted to get in the game, but we were not invited. Maybe the sight of Uhrynuk’s muscles was a contributing factor?

Monday afternoon a few of us relaxed by going to see the movie “Annie Get Your Gun” and did a little shopping. After supper it was back to the Olympic Rick.

This was to be a much different game than any we had played in Western Canada. All the others had been cleanly fought. Our speed and defensive and offensive strategies had won for us. Few penalties were handed out in any one game. Not so this night!

“Rhubarbs were plenty in the early stages, with Len Caruso drawing a ten minute sentence (instead of the usual five) for chopping down Ernie Martin (after a number of near donnybrooks)”, wrote Leah.

Usually mild-mannered Cove was so incensed by the refs and the doled out time for Caruso’s penalty, that he threatened to forfeit the game by calling it quits. After a time out, cooler heads prevailed and the game progressed in a more orderly fashion.

Then, Joe Convery almost immediately drew a two minute penalty! Not liking the call, he told the referee as much. He was assessed with a game misconduct and didn’t see any more action.

“The A’s out of Ontario took a 5 – 1 opening period lead, and saw it cut to 5 – 4 at half time as the All Stars caught fire. But they were still out in front 7 – 6 at the three quarter mark. Again it was a penalty that enabled the Ontario crew to add to a shaky margin, when Len Brown took a seat in the sin bin deep in the final frame and saw St. Kitts pound in two counters during his stay to run the count to 9 – 6.”

Before time expired the All Stars got one back. Final score, 9 – 7. Our defence and goal-tending had returned to its usual form. McGeorge was kept off the score sheet! But their defence and shared goal tenders (Hicks and Gray) had been outstanding.

On offence, Don Moore and I got the accolades with three goals apiece. Bob Sutherland bagged himself a pair, while Emil accounted for the other one.

The Athletics won the Cup for real this time. But they had a tougher time knocking out the Manitoba All Stars than any opposition offered them through the regular season and on into the playoffs. Maybe all the traveling, five games in little over a week, etc. had taken its toll on Cove’s Double Blues by the time we reached Winnipeg. But we all admitted, not grudgingly, that this Manitoba team was damn good. It had fought with the same tenacity that the inhabitants of the Red River Valley did a few months earlier, in the spring of 1950, when they tangled with the overpowering flooding by the Red River. And as Manitobans were to do again in the spring of 1997 when they were hit by an even greater inundation, coined the “Flood of the Century”!

After a victory celebration every bit the equal to the one in B.C. we hid the Minto Cup in Vern Cottrell’s (our trainer) duffel bag. We didn’t want anyone from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland or the Territories to know we had it. Maybe next year they could challenge, but not this one!

It was really ours for a year! This marked the sixth time since 1937 (the year the Cup was donated for junior competition) that the Cup was to rest in Ontario. Remember too, that the Minto Cup had not been competed for between 1941 and 1946 because of World War Two.

We left Winnipeg Tuesday evening and were scheduled to arrive in Toronto Friday morning. Caruso, Sutherland and Sibbald returned to St. Catharines with us.

Goalie – Ted Braciuk, I don’t know what we would have done if he had been injured. Maybe Al Frick would have had to fill in using his goalie skills learned from his brother Whitey, before Al’s eleventh birthday.

Manager and Sponsor – Fred Conradi, business commitments prevented him from going west.

Forwards – Len Brown, Bill Curtis, Al Smallwood, Bill Swanke, Tom Barefoot, Bob McKracken.

Players – Grover, Simpson, Beaton, Vance, Perfiti, Browning, Elmer, Radonick, Hibbert, Caletti, Redliner, McLennan, Gowland, Sinclair, Grover, Anderson, Johnson, Woods. (Unfortunately I do not know many of their positions or their first names).

Our train pulled into downtown Toronto Friday morning, almost two weeks to the day from the time a westward Odyssey began that none of us would ever forget. Our engine, the “Black Beauty” that she was, held her head up high because she was, after all, conveying the reigning Canadian Junior Lacrosse Champions, with Lord Minto’s magnificent silverware tucked safely away in one of Vern Cottrell’s tuck bags. Her entrance to Union Station wasn’t the grand event that had brought the station platform to life a fortnight ago in Hornepayne. But this “iron horse” was used to these big city greetings, as were we!

In one of the sleeping cars, a group of dignified athletes were preparing to dismount. Many of us had been up since dawn. And after a breakfast for champions in the stately diner car, we had returned to our carriage to pack. Most of us were dressed in our usual street jeans when Doug announced that he had been informed by telegram that a civic reception was awaiting us in the Garden City at noon.

We were told to dress in our best suits (as if we had brought more than one), white shirts and ties. Furthermore, it was suggested we shine our good Sunday shoes. The mob response to this was similar to the one I had received when these same gentlemen suggested I take a beer in that Vancouver hotel room. Doug was stronger willed than I; he quickly put down the palace revolt.

Dressed to our Sunday best, we waited, incognito, in the Great Hall of Union Station for the train home. At high noon we arrived at St. Catharines’ Western Hill Terminal. The station platform was not quite as alive as Hornpayne’s, but there was a nice welcoming-home-crowd. A St. Catharines Standard photographer captured a great photo of co-captains Emil Uhrynuk and Doug Smith, with George Cleverly in the background, dismounting from the train carrying the Minto Cup. “The real reception was to be at City Hall”, a Standard scribe reported.

“Winners of the Junior Lacrosse Championship of Canada by beating, first Vancouver Burrards in the west coast city and then the Winnipeg Elmwoods (this was the first time any of us had heard that name) in the Prairies, the St. Catharines Junior Athletics were given a rousing welcome as they arrived home at noon today. After a brief greeting at the C.N.R. depot they were whisked to City Hall, in a horn blowing cavalcade, to receive the official welcome from the mayor and reeve of Port Dalhousie.”

Here, team members, officials of the St. Catharines Lacrosse Association, and civil dignitairies stood beneath a large welcoming banner hanging over the main entrance to the city hall which read –

“Mayor Robertson read telegrams of congratulations from the Honourable Charles Daley (Minister of Labour in the Provincial Government) and H.P. Cavers, Member of Parliament. Later the team paraded through the uptown streets to the Welland House where they were tendered a champion’s dinner by the Rotary Club.” (Perhaps the Kiwanis Club might have been a more fitting choice.)

There was only one more official celebration to attend … and I almost missed it. On the Saturday evening, the St. Catharines Lacrosse Association invited us to be their honoured guests at a Senior’s playoff-final game at the Haig St. Bowl. I don’t know why I was unaware of this event, but I took that girlfriend to whom I had written at least seven letters to a movie. After phoning my home around 6 o’clock to tell me to wait for him before going to the Haig St. Bowl, Emil discovered that I was on a date. My mother didn’t know exactly where I had gone. You wonder why he was the captain of both our Minto Cup team and our Red Feather Football team and a later Director of Education? Just ask the sleuth how he tracked me down. Sitting in the Lincoln Theatre, I suddenly felt a grip on my shoulder that I knew was not a loving hug. Then I felt my whole body levitate out of the seat as another muscular arm gripped and yanked my other shoulder upward. “Emil, what are you doing?” I sputtered. I knew he was strong but … if it takes me 12 words to say something, Uhrynuk can do it in 6. “The Haig Bowl and move it,” was all he had said then. But boy, was he mad! We arrived during the second period just before we were to be introduced to the crowd at half time. He never bought my story for not showing up; I still don’t think he does!

Even though many of us had another year of junior, most of us moved up to senior or retired. Lacrosse was over for me until the next summer, except for that one game I played that winter in Olean. I’m not certain if any other of my team mates played south of the border. Emil, Al Frick, John Dewar, Jack Sibbald and I returned to school. Our other Mintoers returned to their full time employment.

Only Uhrynuk and I jumped immediately from one sport to another. Because the A’s had swept the games west, we had returned a week ahead of schedule, thus only missing two weeks of football practices instead of three as Jim McNulty and Joe Cheevers had surmised. Except for our absence for an exhibition game against Ridley College, the two of us were available for the Tricolours opening match against Niagara Falls.

The second annual Red Feather High School Football Tournament was to begin on the weekend, beginning October 27, 1950, at the Canadian National Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. All the top high school teams from their districts were invited to this contest to decide the best team in the province. St. Catharines Collegiate Tricolours were selected as the top team in the Central Ontario Secondary School Association (COSSA) based in part on our previous year’s championship record. East York Collegiate Goliaths were the pre-tournament favourites. But strong teams came from Guelph, Hamilton Cathedral, Malvern Collegiate (Toronto), London South Collegiate, Ottawa Tech and finally, Sudbury High.

Let’s let Stan Houston of the Toronto Telegram tell us something of the event.

Despite a steady downpour of rain, 21,000 were on hand for the opening of the big show that winds up tonight (Saturday) with Ottawa tackling Sudbury, while London meets Malvern in the nightcap.

In a panorama of colour that even the top U.S. universities would find it difficult to duplicate, St. Catharines and East York triumphed over Guelph and Hamilton as the second annual Red Feather Tournament of Champions took over the C.N.E. stadium last night.

With East York’s two bands providing the music, students equipped with noise makers, balloons, etc and fireworks going off like crazy, it was difficult to tell who was cheering for whom. The famous East York drum majorettes put on the most dramatic display of the evening. These high stepping femmes brightened up the field like a beacon as they put on a fiery cross display by carrying huge flaming letters - E.Y.C.I. - the full length of the stands.

From the moment Premier Leslie Frost booted a 20 yarder to start the proceedings at seven chimes, until the final whistle over four hours later, there was never a dull moment for the spectators and hardly a dry one for the competitors and cheer-leaders.

In the football part of the program, the St. Catharines big red team was much too good for Guelph’s green and white machine.

Sparked by lacrossers Steve Oneschuk and Max Woolley, the winners rolled to a 52 - 0 victory. Oneschuk collected 11 points via five converts, a touchdown and a single, while Woolley was the most potent runner for the winners, eluding Guelph tacklers to score three touchdowns and set up a number of other scoring plays.

Other lacrossers to score touchdowns were quarterback Emil Uhrynuk, Fred Martin and Jimmy Buchanan, as did Jim Shook and Tommy Quinlan. It was rather surprising that very little press was directed towards the defence, which held a district champion to 0 points. The judges were astute when they selected future C.F.L. Hall of Famer Pete Neumann as our most valuable player.

The last event of the tournament on Saturday night was to bestow the Ted Reeves Trophy on the team judged by Ted Reeves and eight other experts to be the best of the eight appearing in the Red Feather Tournament of Champions. For the second time in little over a month, captain Emil Uhrynuk went forward to receive on behalf of a St. Catharines team, A COVETED TROPHY. THIS TIME IT WAS THE TED REEVES TROPHY!

One of the clients at the end of Saturday’s extravaganza was overheard saying, “If this thing gets any bigger and better they’ll have to build a bigger stadium than the 11,000 Maple Leaf Stadium and the 21,000 one here in the Exhibition grounds!”

In St. Catharines, Rex Stimers went bananas at CKTB after we beat out two Toronto teams! So did the 30 Tricolour players, coaches, managers, trainers, parents, Principal Price, the Mayor, MP and MPP, 1,600 students at the Collegiate and 45,000 Garden City citizens. Maybe a slight exaggeration! Nevermind, Emil and I were higher than Oak Hill’s Silver Spire!

I have qualms about finishing this book with an article written by the publisher of the St. Catharines Standard and owner of CKTB on the editorial page about my father and me, two days after we had won the Red Feather Championship. But my mother cherished it more than anything else that had ever been written about me on the sports pages, because of what was said about my Dad.

“TORONTO SURPRISED”

As one Toronto scribe writes it, about the game of football between St. Catharines and Guelph Collegiate teams on Friday, St. Catharines 52, Guelph 0, the team from this city was “surprisingly powerful.” Anyone might render that verdict from the score, but the fact is, St. Catharines have the benefits of real stars.

There are several names given honourable mention in the report of the game. There seems to be one name in particular worthy of mention, and it should be no detraction to any of the others. When the Junior Athletics lifted the Minto Cup at Vancouver and again in Winnipeg, in each and every game, Max Woolley’s play was a highlight. At Toronto, in the rugged game of football, he scored three touchdowns and set up other winning plays. And they say that he is better in basketball than he is in lacrosse or football. Which means he is super.

Max is the son of Mr. and Mrs. O. D. Woolley, Geneva Street, his father one of the best known of N. S. & T. men. Despite the athletic prowess of the son, there is a deep parental solicitude over university education in due time for the lad. Which is as it ought to be, of course.

What has happened to lacrosse? The game is popular in some communities, but is unknown in another centre five miles away. In St. Catharines when I was growing up, it surpassed hockey in popularity, but a few miles away in the cities of Niagara Falls or Welland, jai alai was better known. Until recently, senior lacrosse had not been played in St. Catharines for many years. In fact, our 1950 Minto Cup team was the last Minto or Mann Cup champion from the Garden City before the Junior A’s won the former in the early 90’s.

Records show that Canadian Indians were playing lacrosse, known as “baggataway”, long before anyone was considering a Canadian nation stretching from “sea to sea”. As far as St. Catharines was concerned, lacrosse had its humble beginnings about 1870, three years after Confederation. From this date for over 100 years the sport grew to be the dominant summer game in the Garden City. As early as 1889 the Athletics of St. Catharines became the champions of the Canadian Lacrosse Association. Teams that the Athletics competed against in the early days were the Quebec Capitals, the Montreal Shamrocks, the Montreal Nationals, and Cornwall. Crowds of 6,000 to 7,000 often watched these field lacrosse games with each team fielding 12 players.

In 1932 the field lacrosse game was replaced by the boxla one. It appears that this “new lacrosse” started in Australia and found its way into Canada through British Columbia. It was on the boxla crease that the St. Catharines Senior Athletics became famous. Many of those players that used to gather at Bill Taylor’s home after hard fought games were members of this team. The Athletics’ Mann Cup record shows the team to be champions in 1938, 1940, 1941, 1944, and 1946 . . . contenders in 1939 and 1945. But about the time the Senior Athletics were to celebrate their centennial, they were gone from the Garden City!

I have now lived in the Toronto area for 36 years and have never seen kids throwing a lacrosse ball around on the streets. In fact, my only contact with the game is the annual well attended lacrosse banquet held in May by the St. Catharines Old Boys’ Association.

To my pleasant surprise box scores of lacrosse league games across Ontario, of late, are being published in the Toronto Star, listing communities that never had teams in my day. Unfortunately though, newspaper articles about any of these boxla games are still rare in the Toronto newspapers! And the Mann Cup and Minto Cup Championship series are almost ignored!

I have heard the national sport described as a cult by a Toronto Star reporter, only supported by lacrosse junkies. But why this derogatory put down?

The game has the speed of hockey, the grace and skill of basketball and the body contact of football. If fighting is your thing, you should have seen the likes of George Hope or Doug Smith standing toe to toe in running shoes (not skates) on a packed down clay-sand surface slugging it out with the left and rights against opponents like Harry Lumley or Curley Swat Mason. But fortunately these encounters have become fewer and fewer I am told. I sometimes chuckle when I hear a neophyte tell me that the game is too rough, while he’s watching a NFL or CFL game or tuning into a NHL titanic struggle and hear the announcer say, “He sure gave him a good one”.

Lacrosse was the best game I ever played, as it was for the legendary fullback for the NFL Cleveland Browns, Jim Brown, who played field lacrosse for the University of Syracuse when he wasn’t playing for their football team. I certainly never had his athletic credentials, but my experience as a intercollegiate football player, a member of a senior intercollegiate (university) basketball all-star team, the team captain of McMaster Marauders in my graduating year; and an all-star senior Ontario lacrosse player . . . with an offer from the Montreal Alouettes to report to their training camp (which I turned down because I started my teaching career) gives me a knowledgeable perspective in which to judge.

Did the shortcomings of the 1949 and 1950 Minto Cup series reveal that the Canadian Lacrosse Association and its provincial counterparts were ill-equipped both financially and structurally to compete with the rising popularity of TV and the financially sound, well-established, professional sports leagues mainly centred in the U.S.A.? We kids certainly couldn’t answer that. We never looked beyond the next game, the next championship!

Maybe today, lacrosse needs more influential enthusiasts like George Beer. This 19^th century Montreal dentist drew up the first rules (other than those established by the Huron) for lacrosse and declared the game as Canada’s National Sport. Under his leadership and others like him, lacrosse and lacrosse leagues spread westward with the railways and the expansion of the country, resulting in a truly national sport whose champions could lay claim to the coveted Mann or Minto Cups.

Of late there has been a rather feeble movement in the media to identify hockey as our Winter National Sport and lacrosse as our Summer National Game. This is based on the misconception that lacrosse as our National Game is written into the British North America Act of 1867. Since it isn’t, lacrosse has no constitutional claim to be our National Game!

The decision to establish one is up to the nation. If the criteria for choosing this honour is based on contemporary popularity and participation, hockey wins it hands down. However, recent sports’ statistics show that soccer now has more participants in Canada than hockey! So . . . . . ?

If the selection is based on which game has been played for the longest time in what is now Canada and has it beginnings most deeply rooted in our country, lacrosse has no competition!

On September 29^th, 2002 Max was inducted into McMaster University’s Athletic Hall of Fame. Although this honour was based primarily on his basketball and football skills at the University, his prowess in lacrosse was also taken into consideration. There were only four Mac athletes who played on both the University’s first senior intercollegiate basketball team in 1952, and its first senior intercollegiate football team in 1954, and Max was one of them.

WE HAD TO WIN THE MINTO CUP TWICE IN 1950!