History of the A's
Rex Stimers Remembered
On
April 1st 1966 one of the most colourful and beloved characters
associated with the sport of lacrosse passed away.
Rex
Stimers, as much as anyone, symbolized the glory years of St. Catharines
Athletics box lacrosse, and this even without ever playing the game.
His
friend Jack Gatecliff tried to pay tribute to Rex in his St. Catharines
Standard sports column of Saturday April 2nd, but he found that
one column was simply not enough . . . nor two, or even three.
Today
some will recognize his name only from the name on the wall of a
non-descript arena in St. Catharines. But there was a time that he was the
most renowned person in the Garden City, all built on his passion and
support of local sports.
But
let Jack Gatecliff tell us the whole story of this Canadian Lacrosse Hall
of Famer, as he did at that sad time in 1966.
And
the rest is history.
REX
STIMERS: SELDOM A DULL MOMENT
by
JACK GATECLIFF
The St. Catharines
Standard
April 2, 1966
Where
do you start when attempting to chart, ever so briefly, the larger moments
in the life of Rex Stimers.
Do
you go back to the autumn say in 1917 when the Royal Navy Q-boat on which
he was second cook, was torpedoed and sunk in the Mediterranean by a
German submarine?
The
16-year-old lad clung to a raft for 12 hours before he and just two other
survivors were picked up from the icy waters, in one of the many World War
I naval disasters.
Or
do you go back even farther, to 1909, when he was mascot of the University
of Toronto football team which won the Grey Cup under coach Dr. Harry
Griffith, later to become headmaster of Ridley College?
Perhaps
the Rex Stimers, as thousands knew him, really came into being when he
made his radio debut in 1924 as a member of a Toronto singing group which
presented Saturday night programs from the Prince George Hotel.
It
may be even more accurate to say that his career in radio actually got
underway a winter night in Kitchener in 1926 when he broadcast a boxing
card.
For
the next eight years he combined a sales job with Imperial Oil with
freelance sports announcing for stations in Kitchener, Brantford, Hamilton
and Preston.
In
1934 he gave up his position with Imperial Oil, settled in St. Catharines
and started an association with Radio Station CKTB which spanned 32 years
and thousands of sports broadcasts.
Rex
may not have been born in St. Catharines, but he wasted little time in
becoming this city’s No. 1 booster and certainly one of its best-known
residents.
His
favourite answer when quizzed as to his background was “I was raised in
Toronto, but the best thing that ever happened to me there was getting on
the train which brought me to St. Catharines.”
It
was Rex who tagged his beloved Niagara District “The Banana Belt” and
he, in turn, received more than his share of nicknames.
His
piercing shouts which threatened to blow out crystal sets, tubes and
transistors, as radios developed over the years, prompted the late Toronto
Star sports editor Lou Marsh to call him “The Voice” as long ago as
1935.
Columnist
Jim Coleman later dubbed him “The Lung.” His long-time friend Tommy
Morrison of Welland, used the term “The Foghorn”; he was “The
Tonsils” to Milt Dunnell, now sports editor of The Star; “The Larnyx”
to Vern Deeger of the Montreal Gazette; “The Throat” to former Toronto
Telegram sports editor Hal Walker.
After
sitting beside him during a junior hockey game, Toronto Globe-Mail sports
editor Jim Vipond called him “Old Beetface,” referring to his
complexion, which became more and more florid as the game progressed.
These
were not derogatory terms, mind you, but affectionate descriptions by his
friends in the business of sports writing and sportscasting.
Colourful
both on and off the microphone, sometimes infuriating when he refused to
give the score of the games (“Is it my fault if people tune in
late?”), he was a man of intense loyalties to the people he worked for
and with.
During
18 years of traveling thousands of miles to out-of-town hockey and
lacrosse games with Rex, we discussed subjects ranging from the first
chain-driven car he drove as a youth to the Royal Family.
He
always insisted that the biggest improvement in automobiles in the past 50
years was the durability of tires.
“I
remember the day when anyone driving from the Niagara District to Toronto
without getting a flat tire talked about it for weeks,” he once said.
He
was a great admirer of the Royal Family and one of his happiest
recollections was being presented to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth
when they made a brief stop in St. Catharines in 1939.
Rex
was an alderman at the time.
However,
in all our conversations we can never recall him criticizing any fellow
sports announcer of having anything but the kindest remarks for his
employers…the sponsors and staff at the St. Catharines radio station.
Two
years after becoming a fulltime radio announcer (1936), he started his
regular 6:45 p.m. show “The Spice of the Sports News.”
His
first sponsor was the Toronto-St. Catharines Transport Company, owned by
his good friend and sportsman, the late H. G. (Touch) Woods.
He
immediately started a club for youngsters known as “The Trans-Sport Club
of the Air.”
There
was no charge for membership, but each youngster, most of them ranging
between the ages of seven and 15 years, had to sign a pledge card which
bound them to doing homework regularly, playing sports cleanly, dressing
neatly and abstaining from cigarettes.
By
the time the club ceased to exist in the early ‘40’s, there had been
more than 10,000 card-carrying members from many sections of Ontario and
deep into New York State.
For
a short while he carried a regular feature on his program known as “The
Daily Boost” and “The Daily Knock.”
A
gong was hit a resounding wallop in the studio and Rex would praise an
athlete for an especially good performance.
Seconds
later he would give “The Daily Knock,” criticizing some person or some
incident in sport which had displeased him.
This
didn’t last too long.
“I
found plenty of athletes to praise,” he said. “But over the years
I’ve found very few I could criticize.” He once said that he had never
met anyone connected with athletics who he could honestly say he disliked.
“The
Daily Boost” and “The Daily Knock” thus disappeared from his
program.
Since
1942 his early evening program had been sponsored by Thompson Products
Ltd.
In
its 30th year when he died last night, the program had the
longest run of any sports show in Canada and he had interviewed countless
numbers of championship athletes and local sports personalities during
close to 9,000 programs.
The
slogan of his show “Good Sportmanship, Good Fellowship and Good
Citizenship” together with his nightly closing remark “For Thompson
Products Limited, A Good Place To Work” were as well-known locally as
Foster Hewitt’s introduction to the Saturday night National Hockey
League games: “Hello Canada and Hockey Fans In The United States.”
The
two men were pioneers in Canadian radio.
Hewitt
announced his first game from a telephone booth in 1923.
Rex
Stimers’ voice was carried on the air for the first time less than 12
months later.
For
the next 42 years there were few dull days in radio when Rex was in the
vicinity of the microphone.
Part
Two of “Rex Stimers: Seldom A Dull Moment” will appear in The Standard
Monday.
Part
2. Monday April 4, 1966
The
modern trend in sports writing and broadcasting is to take a rather
dispassionate view of the sports events being covered.
Slanting
stories or comments towards the home club is generally considered passé.
However,
this trend was never for Rex Stimers.
Rex,
whose funeral was held this afternoon, was, as Hamilton TV and radio
sports director Norm Marshall accurately described him, “one of the
vanishing breed of broadcasters.”
Rex
never tried to hide the fact that he was strictly a “homer.” Just
about anything which a St. Catharines team did was all right by him.
As
for the opposition?
Well
they were villains while the game was underway, although any supposed
wrong-doing was quickly forgiven later.
Marshall
recalled a night in the mid-forties when Rex was broadcasting a senior
hockey game in Hamilton.
Rex
was never reluctant in “refereeing” hockey or lacrosse games from the
relative safety of the radio booth.
And
he received a few letters from irate wives of referees who suggested that
he broadcast the game and forget about the insults.
He
was, however, held in the highest regard by the vast majority of the
officials and he, in turn, respected them.
Ontario
Hockey Association secretary-manager Bill Hanley phoned this office
Saturday to tell of a little incident involving Rex and an O.H.A. referee.
Andy
Bellemer, an OHA referee of 20 years, was seriously ill in a Toronto
hospital during the 1960 Memorial Cup playoffs between St. Catharines
Teepees and Edmonton Oil Kings.
“I
was visiting Andy on the Sunday afternoon that the St. Catharines and
Edmonton teams were playing at Maple Leaf Gardens,” said Hanley.
“I
stepped out of the hospital room and phoned Rex, suggesting that it might
cheer Andy up if he mentioned him on the broadcast.”
“It
wasn’t a month earlier that Rex had taken Andy to task for some supposed
wrong-doing,” continued Hanley.
But
early in the first period he stopped his commentary of the game and talked
about Andy Bellemer for at least five minutes. He said what a fine referee
he had been, a credit to the game and that he was sure he’d be back on
the ice the next season.”
Hanley
said that he’d never seen such a change come over a hospital patient.
“He
was pretty low and was only half-listening to the game,” added Hanley.
“But as soon as his name was mentioned he cheered up and seemed like his
old self again.”
Although
we never heard Rex mention this particular incident, it was in keeping
with a suggestion made to him by Toronto Telegram sports columnist Ted
Reeve 25 years ago.
Reeve,
a friend of Rex’s back to his early days in Toronto, was listening to a
lacrosse broadcast from Haig Bowl during which one of the players was
rather severely criticized.
“I
have no doubt that you were correct in what you said,” wrote Reeve.
“But before this player retires, try to say something nice about him.
You won’t regret it.”
Reeve
had, in turn, been given the same advice by an older reporter in his
office.
A
scorching article had been written about a Toronto sportsman who had
devoted much of his life to minor athletes.
As
it turned out, the information the reporter received about an alleged
wrong-doing was incorrect, but before he could print a retraction the man
under fire died.
Andy
Bellemer died six weeks after listening to warm remarks while in his
hospital bed.
The
OHA referees, upon hearing of Rex’s death, phoned Hanley and told him
that they were getting together to send a wreath.
Several
months ago Norm Lever contacted this writer suggesting that an
“appreciation night” be held for Rex Stimers.
We
met a couple of times, lined up a tentative committee, but never really
got the idea off the ground.
What
else can be said except that we’re sorry Rex died without knowing such
an event was being planned.
Part 3.
April 5, 1966
“The
most remarkable thing about the stories concerning Rex Stimers,” his
long-time friend Jay MacDonald once said, “is that 90 per cent of them
are true.”
We
don’t know about the other 10 per cent, but after being a close
associate of Rex’s and travelling with him to various sports events for
18 years, our only comment is that it would be extremely difficult to
enlarge on them.
During
his early years in St. Catharines, Rex broadcast out-of-town lacrosse
games while sitting in the CKTB studios in Oak Hill.
The
procedure was that a contact man, Haggis Mackintosh at first, later Whitey
Frick and yours truly, would phone the goals, assists and penalties to
Marion Mosher at the CKTB switchboard.
Mrs.
Mosher would in turn relay the information to Rex and Tommy Garriock.
The
result was an amazingly authentic-sounding broadcast.
Crowd
noises were piped in, Tommy would change lines by placing players’ names
in a board in front of Rex and for years there was almost as much
controversy over whether Rex was actually at the games as to the relative
merits of the Athletics and Orillia Terriers.
This
plan worked to perfection until one night in Etobicoke when the “leg
man” was Haggis Mackintosh.
Haggis
dutifully reported the first three quarters of the close game.
The
intermission between the third and fourth stretched on . . . and on . . .
and on.
Phone
calls were made, to no avail.
Finally,
in desperation, an announcer was brought on the air to report in mournful
tones that “technical difficulties” had prevented the airing of the
last quarter.
The
“technical difficulties,” as it turned out, were that Haggis had
completely forgotten to phone in the final summary.
There
was the night in Waterloo, a bitterly-cold arena, when Rex shivered and
shook his way through the first two periods of a junior A game.
Just
before the start of the third period, a messenger from the arena office
reported that a communication from CKTB studios had just been received
reporting that not a word had been received at their end of the line.
It
seems that Larry Holleran, usually a most reliable operator, had
mistakenly plugged the radio equipment in Waterloo into a rural telephone
line.
Seven
rather shocked telephone subscribers were the only folk listening in on
the first 40 minutes of the hockey game.
During
the Eastern Canada junior hockey playoffs in 1954, several trips were made
to Quebec City.
Rex
was in excellent health the night before the sixth game, but in the
morning woke up, eyes and nose running from a heavy cold.
We
were dispatched by team president George Stauffer to obtain medication so
that Rex would be fit to broadcast that night.
The
druggist prescribed nose and eye drops.
Now,
as anyone knows, prescriptions are difficult enough to read at any time.
But in French…well, you can imagine the problem.
The
two bottles were handed to Rex and an hour later we returned to see how he
was making out.
It’s
a sight we’ll never forget.
A
most excitable person at any time, Rex was absolutely beside himself.
“I’ve
gone blind,” he moaned from his bed. “And I can’t seem to get a
breath of air through my nose.”
He
was indeed in rough shape.
His
eyes were cemented shut as if he’d stuck his head into a bucket of wet
cement and his nose was little better.
As
may have been surmised by now, he had been unable to make out the writing
and had guessed wrong as to which drops were for the nose and which for
the eyes.
His
eyelids were finally pried open, his nose cleared and, as if by some
miracle, the cold disappeared.
He
gave his usual partisan description of the game that evening with no
noticeable diminishing of lung power.
The
Teepees won that series and advanced into the finals against Edmonton.
They
won the first three games, tied the fourth then defeated the Oil Kings on
a Sunday afternoon in Maple Leaf Gardens to bring St. Catharines its first
Memorial Cup.
This
was the moment long-awaited by Rex Stimers.
After
10 years of junior hockey in St. Catharines, the Teepees, coached by Rudy
Pilous and urged on by Rex’s vibrant exhortations, had finally come home
a winner.
There
had been many pitfalls along the way and there was to be one more for
“The Lung.”
Hundreds
of St. Catharines fans traveled to Toronto for that final game and the
cars lined up outside the Gardens on Carleton St. to parade home, led, of
course by the team bus and Rex piloting his auto just a few yards behind.
Horns
were blaring, pennants waving as the parade headed out of Toronto, along
the Queen Elizabeth Way, around Burlington Beach and into the home stretch
on the south side of Lake Ontario.
The
happy Rex was tapping his gas pedal in time with a tune on the radio when
suddenly, just as the convoy approached Jordan Harbour, the Stimers car
stalled.
The
three passengers, Larry Smith, Don Sinclair and yours truly from the
Standard, were convinced that this was just one of Rex’s little gags.
But
we were wrong.
After
driving thousands of miles to dozens of games all season, the gas pedal
had snapped and Rex was in imminent peril of missing the supreme moment of
his life, the triumphant entry into St. Catharines with the champs.
Fortunately,
the car immediately behind him was a cruiser driven by one of his friends
in the Ontario Provincial Police.
The
cruiser neatly moved up behind the Stimers auto and pushed it the rest of
the way down Queen Elizabeth, up Geneva St. and right in front of Garden
City Arena.
As
happened so often with Rex over the years, “disaster” was averted and
he was there right on time to lead the salute to the conquering heroes.
Part 4.
April 6, 1966
It
was sometimes said of Rex Stimers, that he could be heard equally well
without a microphone; that all the technical equipment was not really
needed when he was at his vocal best.
He
certainly did have lungs which threatened to burst the eardrums in the
immediate vicinity and operators at the CKTB studios usually had to turn
the volume down in preparation for his final warhoop “We Really Scalped
‘Em Tonight” after a St. Catharines victory.
However
with a microphone he was heard over a remarkably large area.
CKTB
received mail from many parts of Canada and the United States reporting
that listeners had heard the radio station signal while Rex announced
sports events.
Barring
the possibility that some of those green-faced gentlemen piloting flying
saucers heard Rex in outer space, the record for distance was Australia.
Almost
20 years ago a man in Melbourne picked up Rex’s 6:45 program by freak
reception while driving to work in the morning.
“It
wasn’t clear,” said the man in the card he immediately sent to CKTB,
“But I did manage to hear where the broadcast was from and thought you
might be interested.”
The
card was one of Rex’s most prized possessions.
Clinton
Page of St. Catharines phoned this morning to say that while he was in the
Merchant Marine during World War II his ship often listened to Rex off the
coast of Newfoundland.
One
story he liked to tell on himself was of the family in Northern Ontario
which was spending a quiet Friday evening at home and decided to listen to
radio.
The
dial was being turned for some soft music when out of the speaker blared
Rex bellowing “They Scored!” during a playoff game against St.
Michael’s.
“The
family cat was asleep in front of the radio,” said Rex. “I guess I
must have shaken it up a bit. It jumped up, leaped right through the
screen door and disappeared into the woods.”
The
frightened animal was never seen again.
Rex
was always the first to admit that he was the world’s worst loser.
As
a youth he played to win in baseball, later he showed no less
determination as a fine amateur golfer.
And
he just couldn’t understand anyone who passed off defeat lightly.
In
the early years of junior hockey, he travelled on the Teepee team bus.
When
they won, he led the singsong on the way home.
When
they lost, he was the very picture of dejection.
One
night from Barrie after a defeat, the Teepees started singing a few old
favourites but Rex refused to join in.
“I
don’t know what they’ve got to be happy about,” he said. “Don’t
they realize they lost the game?”
Soon
after he decided to drive to out-of-town games and suffer in silence
rather than listen to any hilarity.
Rex
was the answer to any promoter’s dream.
Get
him on the bandwagon and they need worry no longer about gate receipts.
St.
Catharines Athletics had an outstanding lacrosse team in the late 30’s
and early 40’s but it was Rex who helped sell them to the public and
pack Haig Bowl with upwards of 4,000 fans.
Superlatives
were his stock in trade.
A
team was either the greatest or the worst, a player either the cleanest,
the fastest or the roughest and the slowest.
There
was just no in between.
With
Rex you could do no wrong or do nothing right.
However
those he liked out-numbered those he disliked perhaps 1,000 to one.
The
St. Catharines Collegiate senior football team asked his assistance one
year in an attempt to interest more people in a championship game at City
Sports Park.
Rex,
dressed in a wig, well-filled sweater and short skirt, led a parade down
St. Paul Street.
The
startled shoppers fell in behind Rex as if he was the Pied Piper, followed
the parade to the ball park and dutifully paid their way into the game.
He
did some promoting on his own too.
He
helped found a boxing club in St. Catharines 30 years ago and was
virtually a one-man drumbeater in pushing boxing into the status of a
major sport in this city.
With
Walt McCollum he organized the champion of champions golf tournament in
the Niagara District and had set the date and site for the 16th
renewal before he died last week.
Part 5.
April 7, 1966
In
all fairness it must be said that Rex Stimers was not a “reporter” in
the strictest sense.
He
wasn’t overly-concerned about statistics such as goals, assists or even
the final score of a game and wasn’t beyond enlarging on things just a
little if it suited his purpose.
However,
he more than compensated for these minor failings by his emotional
involvement in every type of activity he broadcast.
This
enabled him to “project” himself, as they say, into every home which
tuned in his nightly program or play-by-play broadcasts.
Lou
Cahill who, along with Tommy Morrison of Welland was one of Rex’s
earliest pals in the Niagara District, recalled the visit of King George
VI and Queen Elizabeth to St. Catharines in 1939.
“It
was typical Stimers luck,” said Lou, “that he only served one year on
council, but that was the year of the Royal Visit to Canada.”
Rex
had to do double duty the day the King and Queen came to this city.
To
his intense pleasure he and his wife “Momma” were presented to Their
Majesties along with other aldermen and Mayor Charles Daley at the CNR
depot in West St. Catharines.
As
soon as the formalities at the station were over, Rex was whisked away by
car to the corner of St. Paul and Queen where he was given a microphone
and awaited his turn to describe the scene as the Royal Couple came down
the main street.
Lou,
a reporter for The Standard at the time, was assigned to the same corner.
“The
cavalcade came over Burgoyne Bridge, went by Memorial Park and crossed
Ontario St.,” said Lou.
“There
wasn’t a word out of Rex. It passed the end of William St. and he still
hadn’t uttered a sound.”
Cahill
said that he began to suspect that Rex had suffered some kind of fainting
spell and was held upright by the mass of people.
“I
finally nudged him and told him he’d better start talking,” continued
Lou.
Rex
turned to his friend and promptly burst into tears.
He
was so overcome by the excitement of the occasion that he simply
couldn’t speak.
That
was one of the few times, we might add, that Rex was ever stuck for words.
The
only other broadcast during which Rex lost his voice was due to a physical
rather than emotional problem.
Suddenly
his voice quit although his lips continued moving.
He
turned to this writer, a stricken look on his face, and indicated that we
had to take over.
Now
as anyone will clearly recall who heard those final minutes, we have as
much talent for play-by-play descriptions of a hockey game as Jimmy
Durante had for singing the lead in Othello.
Fortunately
the crowd noises partially obliterated our puny efforts and the station
didn’t lose its licence.
And
just as fortunately Rex recovered from his sneak attack of laryngitis and
was able to announce the last three rounds of the Memorial Cup series.
Two
years earlier the Teepees were also involved in a playoff round with St.
Michael’s.
Radio
Station CKTB did not carry Sunday hockey games at the time and as the
seventh game was on a Sunday, Rex had to suffer in relative silence in a
box seat rather than getting rid of his excess energy in the gondola.
The
Teeps led the Majors 6 – 1 going into the last period, but suddenly the
tide turned. With less than six minutes to play they had cut the margin
back to 6 – 5, and just to add to the tension Bill Dineen hit the goal
post with Marv Edwards apparently beaten.
That
was enough for Rex.
He
left his seat and headed into the press room under the stands.
He
had no sooner got out of sight of the action than a tremendous roar went
up from the capacity crowd.
The
pressroom attendant rushed in and yelled at Rex: “They just scored.”
That
was enough for his already churning stomach and he became violently ill.
What
Rex didn’t learn until later was that “they” were the St. Catharines
Teepees, not the Majors, and the Teeps went on to win the game and the
round.
Rex
had a special affection for the student supporters at St. Michael’s,
even though they were the opposition.
They
in turn treated Rex, who was a Baptist, as one of their own.
Win
or lose, at Maple Leaf Gardens or at Garden City Arena, the exuberant SMC
rooters usually finished the day with a “Yea Rex! Yea Stimers! Yea! Yea!
Rex Stimers!” yell which brought a lump to the throat and a mist to the
eye of the Toronto expatriate.
Concluding
Part. April 9, 1966
It
was often said that Rex Stimers was one of the few radio announcers who
could inject his own personality into such routine tasks as reading
baseball and hockey scores.
In
hockey, for instance, it was never just the Boston Bruins, but the
“Beantown Boston Bruins.”
The
New York Rangers became “The Biggy-Wiggy Town Rangers” and Detroit, of
course, “The Motor City Red Wings.”
With
almost anyone else these phrases would seem trite at best.
But
with Rex . . . well it just wouldn’t have seemed right any other way.
The
nicknames and phrases he coined for his favourite athletes were too
numerous to list.
However,
they included “Gus The Alibaba” for the late Athletic lacrosse
defenceman Carl Madsen; “Stinky” Edwards for the former Teepee
goaltender; “Mutt” Mowry for baseball catcher Doug Mowry.
One
of his best-known was describing the Cullen-Barlow-Cullen line with the
1954 St. Catharines Teepees as “The CBC Line.”
Paul
Mundrick, a senior hockey star here 25 years ago was the type of player
who played brilliantly one game, perhaps not quite so well the next.
To
Rex, he became Paul “In The Mood” Mundrick.
He
rated stops by goaltenders in hockey and lacrosse by “bells.”
The
lowest was the five-bell save, but this, naturally, was used only for a
routine stop.
A
10-bell save was fairly difficult, a 15-bell stop was brilliant and when
he used the 20-bell save you knew that a minor miracle had just been
accomplished.
Rex
was often accused, and rightly so, of failing to give the score of games
often enough.
As
we said in an earlier column, he tossed this criticism aside by saying
gruffly that it wasn’t his fault if people didn’t turn their radio on
in time to listen to the entire game.
But
it could be also said that it was not too difficult to ascertain which
team was winning, even though the score might be kept secret.
When
a St. Catharines team or a St. Catharines crew in rowing was ahead, his
tone reached an unbelievable pitch. When they were behind, sorrow dripped
from every word.
Rex
was a man whose mood could change in a flash.
One
night in Barrie the score was tied and a St. Catharines player missed an
open net.
Rex
put his hand over the microphone, leaned over to this reporter and
whispered bitterly “Why they have that guy on the team I don’t know.
He can’t skate, he can’t pass, he couldn’t shoot the puck into the
ocean if it was staring him in the face.”
Less
than 30 seconds later the same lad picked the puck up in his own end,
skated through the entire Barrie team, pulled the goaltender and scored
the game-winning goal.
Without
as much as a blush, Rex informed his listeners that here indeed was one of
the finest prospects in junior hockey.
“If
he doesn’t make the National Hockey League I’ll miss my bet,” he
said.
Unfortunately
the boy never did turn pro, but he did play some fine hockey for the
Teepees later that season.
It
was the same Barrie arena, although at a different game, that we had one
of our more memorable experiences with Rex.
During
the course of the game, Rex remarked that the radio booth appeared as if
it hadn’t been swept out since the building was erected.
“I’m
sitting here with peanut shells up to my knees,” he said.
It
so happened that the manager of the Barrie arena was listening to the game
in his office and, not surprisingly, he was a little upset over the
remarks about his housekeeping.
He
informed Hap Emms, then coach and manager of the Barrie team. There was a
rather novel way of getting into the Barrie radio booth. You climbed up a
long ladder, which was then hoisted up behind you by a pulley, much like a
drawbridge.
Once
you were there, you stayed until someone was kind enough to release the
rope from below.
When
the game was over the radio equipment was packed, but lo and behold, the
“drawbridge” was still up.
And
there below was Hap Emms who informed Rex rather bluntly that until he
apologized for his earlier remarks no one was getting down out of the
booth.
We
pictured two of us up there in the rafters until the spring thaw.
However,
fortunately Hap relented (the Flyers won that game, otherwise we might
still be there) and after 15 minutes the rope was released, lowering the
ladder.
That,
incidentally, was the start of the “feud” between St. Catharines and
Barrie which resulted in Hap bringing a gallon of paint to Garden City
Arena one game “so that you can paint your dirty boards.”
In
some ways Rex was like Peter Pan.
He
just never seemed to grow older.
In
his early 20’s he was a champion ballroom dancer in Toronto.
More
than 30 years later, while the St. Catharines Press Club was in full
swing, he entered a “Twist Championship” at the club headquarters on
the corner of St. Paul and Ontario.
The
judges, perhaps as much in recognition of his stamina as anything else,
awarded him first prize.
He
couldn’t have been more pleased had the Athletics, the Teepees and the
St. Catharines Rowing Club all won North American titles the same day.
One
of his favourite stories was of his Royal Navy ship, the Ursula, being
torpedoed and sunk in the Mediterranean during World War I.
The
date remained constant, Dec. 2, 1917, but other facts grew just a little
with the telling.
At
first he was adrift six hours, later it was eight and gradually worked up
to 12 hours.
“I
prayed,” said Rex, “that I’d be picked up and granted 40 more years
of life.”
The
destroyer HMS Century rescued Rex and one other survivor just before
sundown, and he was granted more than 48 years on this earth. Each
additional year he considered a bonus.
He
had his problems the last few years, as many people realize, but few
perhaps, completely understood.
But
they were years which he lived to the full.
“Rex,”
someone said at his funeral Monday, “may have been 65 when he died, but
in actual fact he lived double or triple that length of time.”
“The
Banana Belt,” as he called his beloved Niagara District, will go on.
But
it won’t be quite the same, or quite as exciting, without its greatest
booster, Rex Stimers.
Footnote: Rex’s long time broadcast partner, friend and brother-in-law, Tommy Garriock, passed away on May 26th of 2005 at the age of 89.
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