History of the A's
The Glory Returns
1938 was a magical year for the Athletics. A generation of home-grown lacrosse stars were coming of age together and they produced one of the strongest teams ever in the history of the Canadian box game. That '38 team featured 10 players that would be inducted into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
I have pushed the time period for this era out till the end of the forties, even though the last Athletics' Mann Cup win came in 1946. The Athletics of 1947-49 still included a healthy representation of the stars of the earlier years, while the support of the local fans remained relatively strong. Also, these teams continued to be serious contenders even though they wouldn't actually get another shot at the big dance (the very good 1948 team was beaten in a seven-game Ontario playoff by the eventual Mann Cup champion Hamilton Tigers, a team that was reinforced by a few ex-Athletics to add a bitter-sweet taste to the defeat).
During this era the Garden City Arena was opened in 1938, but in the 65+ years that followed, the Athletics would rarely use this facility as their base of operations.
The factories of St. Catharines would expand operations in response to wartime production needs and utilize a larger female labour force. More than 4,000 residents of St. Catharines would serve in the armed forces in the Second World War and 215 would be killed in action. The population of St. Catharines in the 1941 census was 30,275.
In the years after the war, the Port Weller Dry Docks were established, parking meters were installed downtown, and in 1949, the passenger steamer Northumberland would be destroyed by fire in Port Dalhousie harbour. In the field era of Athletics lacrosse, the steamer service between Port Dalhousie and Toronto had played a significant role in the development of St. Catharines as a lacrosse centre of note in southern Ontario. The destruction of the Northumberland at the end of the decade may have symbolized the decline of more than one of the city's beloved icons of the past.
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The Athletics scrapbook for this era includes:
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