A Great Game

by Stephen J. Harper

  Sir Hugh Montagu Allan was one of Canada’s most prominent business leaders. His new trophy would be the national amateur alternative to Lord Stanley’s chalice.

  In other words, the advocates of amateurism were living by the apparent sports (and life) dictum of Robertson: “If you can’t beat ’em, don’t join ’em.” Unable to stop professional hockey, they were undertaking a second-best alternative—forming their own, parallel structures. But the most important long-term move for the amateur game that year was made by Sir Hugh Montagu Allan, not by the OHA boss.

  Soon after the 1908–09 season began, the honorary president of the MAAA announced the presentation of a new national challenge trophy for Canada’s winter sport. It had been at first rumoured that the mug would be donated by the governor general. In the end, however, it was to be the Allan Cup, not the Grey Cup, that would serve amateur hockey. It would quickly galvanize coast-to-coast competition just as the Stanley Cup had done for the pros.

  Meanwhile, the problems of professional hockey showed no sign of abating. In reality, the pro scene had been built up far too quickly for its foundations to have been well laid. Its rapid growth in the past couple of seasons had clearly been an overexpansion.

  Players’ salaries were rising faster than revenue streams—far faster. Managers pleaded for the need to control salaries at the same time as they agreed to bigger contracts. And even as they raised ticket prices, they were literally bleeding money. In short, it was the same woeful owners’ tale, in microcosm, that hockey fans would be hearing a century later.

  Not only was the Eastern Canada Hockey Association shrinking, but so were the circuits around it. The Renfrew Creamery Kings joined the struggling Federal league after its Upper Ottawa Valley group returned to the amateur ranks. The Temiskaming league had lost Latchford the previous year and was now just an isolated three-town association.

  In Manitoba, the professional organization—one of the country’s most important—completely imploded. The league had lost two of its five teams to financial problems the previous season, including the once-mighty Kenora Thistles. Shortly after 1908–09 began, its three teams became two. By midseason, only the Winnipeg Shamrocks remained.

  The Alberta-Saskatchewan association had also become a one-team league. In December, its Edmonton club finally got its first shot at the Stanley Cup. A team loaded with stars—Tom Phillips, Lester Patrick, Didier Pitre, Fred Whitcroft—went down to the defending champion Montreal Wanderers. This would not be the last time an all-star aggregation would fail to defeat a balanced, quality team. In the process, however, the outcry against the hiring of ringers and against players jumping contracts would reach new heights.

  Yet the salary wars and shrinking ranks of the commercial game seemed to be of little concern to the Ontario Professional Hockey League. At the November 13 annual meeting, held at Toronto’s King Edward Hotel, the league adopted a salary cap of $25 per player per week. Of course, this was a limit that no one intended to honour. More importantly, the organization decided to expand to six teams, the two newcomers being Galt and St. Catharines.

  The OPHL had been eyeing Galt since its inception. Alex Miln and Buck Irving had visited the industrial town the previous fall, trying to place a franchise, against a backdrop of continuing local fallout over the charges Irving had levelled against the OHA in January 1907.

  During the 1907–08, season the relationship between Galt and the OHA, which had long been tenuous, had soured completely. The local paper charged that “the frothings” of John Ross Robertson and his underlings had led to “a successful professional league that is tearing the vitals out of the O.H.A.”12 Such a ripe audience for the OPHL explains why Toronto and Berlin had held their postseason exhibition in the town known as Little Manchester.

  Interestingly, the Galt franchise was eventually granted to none other than Buck Irving himself. This gave Irving a role in two of the league’s six clubs. While the Guelph team was officially taken over by local former pro baseball player Jimmy Cockman, Buck’s father, Thomas Irving, kept the franchise in the family orbit through his ownership of the Royal City Rink. Nonetheless, the focus of the younger Irving’s escapades shifted to his new team.

  Norman Edgar Irving’s big ambitions—and his antics—would make him the most important figure in the history of the Ontario Professional Hockey League.

  Irving immediately set off on his familiar routine of loud self-promotion. He dropped the names of some big potential signings and hinted at others. However, Buck was not repeating his Guelph mistake. He began to recruit realistically and aggressively—and in the process started to create tensions with other league owners.

  St. Catharines also had an unhappy history with the OHA. A bastion of lacrosse, its hockey program had been devastated by Robertson’s 1904 take-no-prisoners ban on players of the summer game. Two years after that, a hockey team sponsored by the local power company had played a visiting IHL pro team, leading to the breakup of the local amateur league.

  With an eye on OPHL membership, the Athletic Lacrosse Club of St. Catharines had formed a pro hockey team during the previous season. The squad had played one exhibition game. It was against Hamilton’s pros, a rival also organized by lacrosse players. St. Kitts won decisively and thus prepared to establish a permanent club.

  At the outset of the season there was some doubt, however, whether the Ontario capital itself would continue to compete against these other provincial towns. After their strong showing in the Stanley Cup game, rumours swirled around the Toronto Professionals’ possible admission to the ECHA. These continued until late November, when Miln was said to have finally rejected a written offer from the Eastern league.

  The Eastern teams no doubt wanted Toronto to make up for the defections to the Interprovincial and to blunt the competitive threat the new circuit represented. This time, Miln seems to have been tempted. In the end, though, he came to the same conclusions he had in the past. The Mutual Street Rink lacked the seating capacity to finance the transportation costs involved. The Ontario league represented smaller, but closer markets and was easy on the budget. And, of course, he still did not have that new rink.

  With fans’ appetite for the pro game so whetted by the Stanley Cup challenge, local opinion was distinctly disappointed by Miln’s decision. The clear desire of Toronto fans was to be in a “big league” with Montreal. Worryingly for Miln and the Professionals’ supporters, such a rivalry is what the amateur game, with its new Big Four league, would offer Toronto hockey fans.

  The local Interprovincial entry, sponsored by the Toronto Amateur Athletic Club, set up shop at the Excelsior Rink on College Street. Percy Quinn and Eddie Livingstone—two hockey men of whom much would be heard in the years to come—were among the team’s management. The TAAC, in bright crimson uniforms decorated with a large white T, also liked to use the name “Torontos.”

  The challenge was not subtle.

  For the Toronto Pros, the first order of business was to re-sign their roster. The players having scattered during the post-Cup exhibition tour in March, this was no easy feat. As well, competition for good players remained intense despite the smaller number of pro employers. Even Eastern league interests, having seen the Torontos up close in Stanley Cup play, were approaching some of the club’s best men.

  Local opponents tried to make much of rumours that the championship men would head to Pittsburgh. Corbeau, for one, did suit up in the Smoky City. However, the truth was that those who went did so only to get in shape by playing on artificial ice during the preseason. The Western Pennsylvania league could no longer afford to lure quality players from Canada for the main campaign. In fact, this would be its last year of operation.

  Ironically, the most problematic approaches came from within the OPHL itself. The other clubs—especially Berlin—made determined efforts to sign the members of the Torontos. Flagrantly ignoring the $25 salary limit, they were driving up Miln’s payroll in the process. The Queen City manager would
be successful in signing his core men—Corbeau, Lalonde, Morrison, Ridpath and Tyner. He did allow Mercer to be taken back by Guelph.

  Herbert Frederick Birmingham was an accomplished cross-country runner, but on skates, he was neither fast nor big. He did have a touch around the net.

  The biggest loss was Young—in an affair that got quite complicated. The Toronto captain had long had an uneasy relationship with the game. Despite the money earned and modest success on the ice, Rolly’s real desire was to become a medical doctor. After the Stanley Cup match, he had mused about retiring and did not accompany the team on its postseason Ontario swing.

  Despite declaring in the fall that he was finished, Young was later talked into inking a fat contract by Berlin president Oscar Rumpel and manager W. G. “Pop” Williams. Rolly realized almost immediately, however, that the new twenty-game OPHL schedule was too intense for his studies at the U of T. He asked to be released to play part-time in Toronto instead. Berlin refused and, after a great deal of haggling and threatened retirement, Young decided to stay with the game—but it would have to be in the Dutchmen’s lineup.

  With Young gone, the Toronto captaincy passed to Newsy Lalonde. Though only twenty-one years of age, the intense French Canadian was showing an increasing interest in leadership and a strong commitment to the franchise. He had, for example, helped get fellow Cornwall man Don Smith to fill in for Bert Morrison at the end of 1907–08.

  As captain, Lalonde now had a hand in player recruitment. This was fortuitous. With the Federal league gradually fading, Lalonde’s old stomping grounds in eastern Ontario were a good place to look for new talent. Lalonde knew the best players and had the contacts. Miln smartly sent Lalonde on the road east, where his first convert was Zina Runions. Another fellow Cornwall man, Runions was hired to take Mercer’s place at right wing. Originally a goalkeeper, his résumé included the infamous March 1907 brawl against the Ottawa Vics that had resulted in the death of Bud McCourt.

  Miln picked up youngster Erskine Rockcliffe “Skene” Ronan from Pittsburgh to fill the hole created by the departure of Rolly Young. It became immediately evident that he was a performer of great promise.

  Miln also resigned Hugh Lambe as a spare defenceman and Herb Birmingham, a proven goal scorer, as a spare forward. Birmingham’s contract meant that, of the 1904–05 OHA champion Toronto Marlboros, all the regulars had now gone pro except Edgar Winchester. And virtually all had signed at one time or another with the local Professionals.

  The real catch was the netting of one Erskine “Skene” Ronan. The Ottawa lad had been a junior sensation before turning pro. Corbeau, returning from the West Penn league, had confirmed the rookie’s talent. Although Ronan had been on the wings for the Pittsburgh Bankers, Miln intended to play him in Young’s place at cover point.

  The club now had five Stanley Cup regulars and good new men. Queen City opinion on the season’s prospects was pretty optimistic. The News was the most unequivocal: “It looks as if the team would be even better than last year’s, when they won the championship.”13

  The Ontario Pro league began its 1908–09 campaign with an aggressive preseason schedule. Its clubs played in no fewer than nine exhibition matches. Two of these would involve the Torontos.

  The first was a road game against the Berlin Dutchmen. Last season’s runners-up had succeeded in strengthening themselves through their frantic recruiting efforts. Besides Young from Toronto, they had also lured Billy “Lady” Taylor from Brantford, Art Serviss from Portage la Prairie and goalie Hugh Lehman from Pembroke of the Upper Ottawa Valley league. However, they had lost star cover Goldie Cochrane, signed by Buck Irving for Galt.

  The Torontos had been training hard for the Christmas Day encounter, both on dry land and some early-winter ice. They were, however, without Runions and Ronan, who were still a couple of days away from relocating to Toronto. Birmingham, a natural centre, was pressed into service at right wing. At cover, the team borrowed Brantford bad boy Cap McDonald, who had returned from Pittsburgh. The presence of such bitter rivals as McDonald and Lalonde on the same side reminded fans that pro allegiance is a fleeting thing.

  Alfred Ernest McDonald was the stereotypical dirty, violent International Hockey League veteran. The previous season’s incident appeared forgiven when Cap joined Newsy Lalonde in a Toronto uniform for the Christmas 1908 exhibition against Berlin.

  The Torontos had a decided advantage over Berlin, playing its second game that day. The Dutchmen had beaten Galt on the road, but fell behind the Professionals early and stayed that way most of the game. Nevertheless, they fought back to tie 5–5 before time expired. Toronto then wisely declined Berlin’s offer to play off the draw.

  The game was considered a good one, but a rough one. Young’s performance had mixed reviews, but his defection only accentuated the bad blood between the clubs. Again, Uncle Gross was at the centre of the battles, this time principally with Corbeau. Lalonde and Ridpath picked up where they had left off in leading the Toronto offence.

  The Torontos’ home opener would be the only one of the preseason exhibitions not to feature two OPHL teams. It originated with Miln’s attempts to get the Edmonton Seniors to come to Toronto. Those plans went awry when the recent Stanley Cup challenger started to break up shortly after its loss in Montreal. Fortunately, Manager Miln was able to snare the Ottawa Hockey Club in the meantime.

  The match between the Toronto Professionals and Ottawa Silver Seven was a real coup. These two teams were widely considered the principal threats to the Montreal Wanderers’ hold on the Cup. The Ottawas had bolstered themselves through the replacement of some aging veterans, in particular by luring Bruce Stuart from the Redbands.

  As it happened, Stuart was either hurt or ill (depending on the report) and did not dress that Saturday evening, January 2, at the Mutual Street Rink. Still, the Ottawas lined up an impressive septet: Percy LeSueur, Fred Lake, Fred Taylor, Edgar Dey, Marty Walsh, Billy Gilmour and Hamby Shore. Cyclone Taylor’s return to Toronto was his first since the OHA junior final of 1903–04.

  With ticket prices hiked for the occasion—fifty cents for general admission, $1 for reserved seating—the teams did not disappoint. The encounter was fast and hard, with the Torontos matching the legendary dirty play of the Ottawas blow for blow. Lalonde put Gilmour out of the game with a cross-check to the mouth. Morrison was assigned to check Taylor, and the two went at each other all night.

  In fact, the Professionals—their full lineup in place—were more than a match for the Ottawas, winning 5–4. Despite a clearly weaker defence, the hard skating and checking of their forwards slowed and frequently reversed the attack of the husky visitors. Walsh got three goals for Ottawa, but Taylor was held scoreless, while Morrison got two. Tyner equalled the renowned LeSueur at every turn.

  For a club setting out to capture the Stanley Cup, it was a brilliant start to the year. Even the Globe, one of the harshest critics of the Pros, was impressed:

  It is not intended to detract from the abilities of the great seven from Ottawa, but the Torontos were just as good, and a little better, and would repeat the victory in three games out of four.14

  Impressive as the Toronto Professionals had been, they would begin their regular season with a significant hole in their lineup. Bert Morrison would not dress for the OPHL opener the following Tuesday in Berlin. He had apparently been hurt in the Ottawa game, though the nature of the injury was not disclosed. In the interim, Birmingham took his place at rover. The Ottawa exhibition had also featured the appearance of another new player. Albert “Dubbie” Kerr had replaced Runions at right wing halfway through the game. Recruited from Pittsburgh just in time for the season, his play had been exceptional. However, as the club hit the road, he was becoming the centre of controversy.

  Kerr had been negotiating with both Toronto and Berlin. While it was claimed he signed first with the Professionals, the Dutchmen had paid for his transportation to Canada. An angry manager Williams bluntly told the press: “Ke
rr accepted and used our transportation and he’s our man. Why, his trunk is here at the station.”15

  Miln had barely arrived at his hotel when he was loudly accosted by Berlin’s senior people. The yelling continued until the game was supposed to start, and then some. The home team finally consented to allow Dubbie to play, but only under protest to the league executive.

  Albert Daniel “Dubbie” Kerr had been a teammate of Con Corbeau’s in Pittsburgh before Christmas. The object of a vicious contract dispute between Toronto and Berlin, the “Brockville Cannonball” proved to be a player worth fighting for.

  The dispute only heightened the increasingly bitter rivalry between the two clubs. With both sides running the goalies, a good half-dozen scraps filled the night. The main event was between the former defence partners, Corbeau and Young.

  It was also an exciting, seesaw game. In better condition thanks to longer preseason ice, Berlin eventually pulled through by a count of 8–7. As for Kerr, despite the loss, opinion was clearly that “he is a player worth fighting for.”16

  The same lineup would get another chance—this time at home on Saturday against Guelph. The Royals’ new management had not cured the club’s problems. Uncertainty over financing had led to the abrupt dismissal and rehiring of its personnel around Christmas.

  By the time the visitors arrived in Toronto, however, things were looking up somewhat. Guelph had come off a 2–2 preseason with some decent newcomers in uniform. Walter Mercer was back at right wing, rejoining Herb Fyfe at centre. Alex Miln believed the new rover, Howard Manson, to be “the fastest man in the league.”17