A Great Game

by Stephen J. Harper

  Although the game was entertaining, the Royals proved no match for the Torontos. The local Pros pulled ahead early on power plays and won handily by a score of 15–8. At one point, they even managed to score while short two men. All the forwards had helped run up the count.

  With a win and a near win, the club was satisfied with the season’s first week on the ice. There was even more reason to celebrate at the box office. The Saturday-night game had gone head to head with the TAAC’s Interprovincial match—and it was no contest. Nearly 2,000 turned out to see the professional Torontos at Mutual. The amateur version got clobbered by the Montreal Wheelers 14–7 before a small crowd at the Excelsior.

  The Torontos headed into a busy second week with some storm clouds gathering around their lineup. Morrison remained out and was now said to be suffering from an “illness.”18 Lalonde had received a bad gash to the foot in the season opener, leading to his early exit when it was reinjured against Guelph. As well, rumours had the other owners siding with Berlin in the Kerr dispute. There were further reports that, frustrated with the situation, Dubbie was about to jump at an offer from Ottawa.

  On Monday night, the team travelled to Brantford and managed to put both Newsy and Dubbie on the ice just the same. It was a good thing. Brantford was widely rated as Toronto’s most dangerous competitor. Notwithstanding the loss of Taylor and the retirement of Roy Brown as a player, the Braves had strengthened overall, especially with the addition of forwards Tommy Smith and Art Throop from Pittsburgh. This season’s games with Brantford, much like the previous year’s with Berlin, would prove to be the critical turning points of the campaign.

  This first one was another well-attended, wildly entertaining and hard-fought match, but with the Torontos again coming up short. All the players—with the exception of Birmingham—were judged to have played well. Unfortunately, the Braves had the edge and pulled ahead in the final minutes to win 9–6.

  It was a big loss on the ice, followed by bigger ones off the ice. Kerr defected to the Ottawas almost as quickly as the final bell sounded. The later, bizarre decision of the league to award him to neither Toronto nor Berlin, but instead to Guelph, only confirmed the personal wisdom of his move. Lalonde was also lost, at least temporarily. Shortly after the game, he was confined to bed, as, apparently, was Morrison. Newsy had a serious case of blood poisoning. He was hospitalized just in time, the attending physician judging him fortunate to have avoided the amputation of his foot.

  With the club badly hobbled, it headed back to Mutual Street for a game on Wednesday against Buck Irving’s new Galt club. Runions moved back into Kerr’s place at right wing. The surprise was on defence. Corbeau, Ronan and Birmingham were all moved up a slot, while Lawson Whitehead was tried out at point. Whitehead was a star with Toronto’s Tecumseh Lacrosse Club and had been trying to get a place on the pro hockey team since its inception.

  Lawson Whitehead put in a good effort against Galt, but most reviews indicated he struggled to keep pace. This picture of the local lacrosse player was taken much later—in 1926.

  Galt had a solid lineup, much of it recruited from the other OPHL clubs. It included Goldie Cochrane and his brother, Marsh, on the forward line. Bob Mercer, brother of Walter, was in the nets. Despite some contract scraps with key players, “Irving’s Indians”19 were undefeated in the league race and doing reasonably well at the box office.

  Again the Torontos lost a close affair, this time 5–4. It was a game in which rough play was as common as “samples of Red Rose tea at a country fair.”20 The hosts were judged the worse offenders. It ultimately cost them due to a key call against goalie Chuck Tyner. Tyner had again played a solid game, but he took a late penalty. That allowed Galt to score the eventual winner while Corbeau was left guarding the cage. Chuck tried valiantly to compensate by joining the rush in the closing moments. For the visitors, the surprise had been Pete Charlton. Playing point at the age of thirty, he had been one of the best performers on the ice.

  Having lost three key players, the Torontos were now a fairly ordinary lot (excepting, of course, the sensational Ridpath). Miln had promised to spare no expense to retain the championship, but with just one win in four league games, the club was beginning to fall back. Although opinion thus far was that he deserved “sympathy rather than criticism,”21 pressure was on the manager to make good.

  The next game—at St. Catharines on Friday night—would be a must-win.

  St. Kitts had a very weak team. Winless in four (counting one exhibition), the Athletics22 had not been close in a single game. Their predicament was deepened by management’s insistence on being the sole OPHL club to stick to the $25-a-player salary cap. By now their starting goaltender, 1906–07 Toronto Pro Mark Tooze, had quit in favour of Clarence Gorrie of the stillborn 1905–06 squad. More general turmoil was setting in, with some of their better players jumping ship and returning to Pittsburgh.

  Miln was also making changes. He ended the Whitehead experiment by bringing the club’s old reliable, Hugh Lambe, back at point. He also dumped Runions for good. Although tough, the right winger was judged to be otherwise inadequate. He would be replaced by Fred Young, little brother of Rolly.23 Fred had played the previous season in Pittsburgh, where the reviews had been fairly good.

  The revamped squad played reasonably well and won 7–4 in front of a fairly large crowd. The Torontos had fallen behind 3–1 early on, relying on Tyner to keep it close. After that, the visitors had gradually overpowered a home side filled out with local intermediates.

  While Toronto’s lineup holes were challenging, it was Brantford who evoked the sympathy that second week. Heading home from a Wednesday game at Guelph, the Braves were involved in a terrible train wreck on the Grand Trunk line. Most badly injured was right winger Jack Marks. Marks had played with the local club in last year’s Cup game and postseason. By all accounts, his extensive injuries would mean the end of his career. The Star gave unusual praise to a professional, calling Marks “a faithful and skilful player, who always gave his best efforts to his employers.”24

  The big gaps in Brantford’s roster would mean even more intense competition for Miln in his efforts to shore up his team. But the manager was not letting up. For the next game, Monday, January 18, in Toronto, he would bring in yet another new defenceman and right winger. The first was “Stoke” Doran of the Pittsburgh Bankers. Husky, though often awkward on his skates, he resembled rearguard partner Con Corbeau enough to be mistaken for him. The second was Harold McNamara, one of three hockey-playing brothers from Sault Ste. Marie. McNamara was one of the former Edmontons who had gone his own way after the Cup challenge.

  James Doran, like Kerr, was a Miln recruit originally from Brockville. Almost identical in appearance to Corbeau, “Stoke” wore a blue cap on the ice to distinguish himself from Con.

  Interestingly, the constant changes and frequent defeats had not yet put even a dint in local fan interest in the Toronto Pros. Close to 3,000—some of whom took the train from Berlin—packed the Mutual Street Rink that evening. Despite missing the injured Gross, the Dutchmen were off to a strong start at four wins and one loss, and were a close second to Brantford in the standings.

  The supporters of both teams were treated to a great game. Even the most hostile observers deemed it one of the best pro games yet played. The action was intense from the outset, with the Torontos utterly dominating. Excitement so rocked the old building that, after a goal by Ronan, a section of bleachers collapsed, heaving its cheering spectators onto the ice.

  The Torontos may have carried the play, but Berlin goalkeeper Hugh Lehman carried the day. The goalie displayed just the combination of brilliance and luck necessary to produce a 5–4 upset. The Star was the most colourful in its analysis, alleging Lehman “had a rabbit’s foot in each pad and horseshoes all over the net rail.”25 At the other end, Tyner had uncharacteristically let in a couple of long shots.

  Although the Torontos now had only two wins in six games, local sympathy rema
ined on the side of the “hard-luck outfit.”26 With only a break here or there, all four losses could have gone either way. Nevertheless, the club was falling back further. It was well behind Brantford (five wins and one tie), Berlin (just one loss) and Galt (a loss and a tie). Avoiding another loss on Wednesday against Guelph would thus be essential.

  Harold McNamara and his brothers. While equally giant siblings George (right) and Howard (left) were tough defencemen, the well-travelled Harold “Hal” McNamara (middle) was a stylish forward.

  The Royals, though not as bad as St. Kitts, were also a winless squad. Rumours of the two clubs’ imminent demise were circulating wildly in both centres and their morale was plunging. By comparison, the Toronto champs looked remarkably strong, although they would again be facing lineup changes.

  Despite a strong performance, McNamara would not be back. Miln had signed him for only one game. Hal was aiming to get on with the Montreal Shamrocks, where his brothers were playing. Besides, the trustees’ anti-ringer rule meant he would not be eligible for Cup competition with Toronto. Fred Young, whose play had received passing grades, was pressed back into service at right wing.

  At this point, however, it appears the constant changes began taking their toll on the Professionals. Lacking any teamwork, they fell 6–4 before 500 remaining Royals’ supporters. Only Tyner and (once again) Ridpath had shone during the contest. The Guelph crowd jeered them mercilessly, “declaring that the Torontos were ‘dogs,’ ‘fat lobsters,’ ‘cattle,’ ‘horses,’ ‘wooden men,’ and other things equally complimentary.”27

  Less than a year after the Toronto Professionals were being praised as a legitimate Stanley Cup contender, they were being laughed off the ice.

  And their problems were only beginning.

  • CHAPTER TEN •

  THE TRIUMPH OF THE AMATEURS

  The End of the Toronto Professionals

  It is not often that amateur hockey can chase the pro. article out of a city the size of Toronto. But that’s what has happened here … It means that hockey in Toronto is on a healthy foundation, that O.H.A. supervision is universally satisfactory and that the future of the game is assured.1

  —Toronto Telegram

  Sport is the ultimate reality show. Try as some might to write its script, the drama has a way of finding its own, unpredictable path. That was certainly true in the case of the Toronto Professionals’ 1908–09 season. The humiliating loss at Guelph had been a devastating finish to the team’s third week of action—putting a seeming end to any shot at the Ontario title, let alone a second challenge for the Stanley Cup. And yet, no sooner had the Guelph defeat been recorded than a spectacular series of events would befall the Ontario Professional Hockey League. While all of them were bad from the league’s standpoint, they would combine to give the stumbling champions a new lease on life.

  As soon as Guelph registered its first victory, the club announced its breakup. A second losing season was killing attendance. The disastrous St. Catharines outfit threw in the towel shortly thereafter. Rumours swirled around Galt’s departure as well, but Irving managed to pull through by convincing the owners of the smallish local rink to cut their rent.

  In effect, the problems afflicting pro hockey everywhere had hit the OPHL with a vengeance, revealing its early-season expansion as foolish. It all confirmed that the commercial game had grown far too quickly for its foundations to have been well laid. These, combined with ordeals of the local Professionals, greatly delighted John Ross Robertson and his OHA followers. This comment from Frank Nelson’s Globe was typical:

  Professional hockey in such places as St. Catharines, Galt and Guelph in western Ontario, and Renfrew, Smith’s [sic] Falls and Cornwall, in the east, must of necessity be either a joke or an imposition. In most of the places named it partakes of the character of both.2

  With the loss of two clubs, the ailments afflicting pro hockey had hit the OPHL.

  Yet in Toronto, the crafty Alexander Miln would respond rapidly to the challenges. In fact, he took quick advantage of the situation by scooping up the best player from each of the collapsing OPHL franchises. These were Howard Manson of Guelph and Donald Smith of St. Kitts, both originally from Cornwall. For Smith, it was his second stop in Toronto. He had been retained as a substitute in the run-up to the previous season’s Cup challenge.

  Toronto also benefited from the curious league decision to count all games against the defunct teams, regardless of outcome, as victories for the surviving ones. The “dogs” and “fat lobsters” defeated 6–4 in Guelph were now said to have won that game. Indeed, the Torontos, having been the only club to have lost to either the Royals or the Athletics, were the only beneficiaries of the ruling. It was a small step up, but one that gave them some hope of regaining the championship.

  Miln’s fortune was not all good, however. He was the victim of growing raids on the OPHL by the Temiskaming league. One night after practice, Skene Ronan and Con Corbeau took their gear from trainer Frank Carroll, left the rink, quickly packed their bags and secretly slipped out of town for a train ride to Haileybury.

  The loss of Ronan and Corbeau was a real blow. Skene, who had been moved up to centre in recent matches, was getting noticeably better with each outing. Con was maturing into a quality defenceman and team leader, acting as unofficial captain while fellow French Canadian Newsy Lalonde was on the injury list.

  Corbeau later tried to explain to Toronto fans how he could have broken his contract and run off to Haileybury for the princely sum of $75 a week:

  We were honestly sorry to leave Toronto … Manager Alex. Milne [sic] is the straightest man who ever managed me. He is a good fellow in every way, and we were sorry to leave him. But what could we do? No fair-minded man would blame us under the circumstances.3

  Corbeau was either being facetious or naive. The loyal Torontos’ supporters blamed him. They felt betrayed. So, too, did the Ontario league, which banned both Corbeau and Ronan for life. However, given the competitive pressures on pro clubs to recruit constantly, players knew that such sanctions were meaningless.

  The OPHL’s problems seemed to be of some benefit to Toronto. However, the defections of Corbeau and Ronan to the Temiskaming league were an ominous sign.

  For Toronto’s manager, there also remained the questions surrounding his disabled stars. Word was that Newsy Lalonde was out of hospital, practising and ready for action. Yet Bert Morrison, according to reports, remained stricken with his vague “illness.” Last season, he had been the target of constant press criticism; this year, the same writers had not ceased talking about the damage done by his absence. Nonetheless, any expectation of his return gradually—and strangely—slipped away as the season progressed.

  Now, with a surplus of forwards to choose from, Miln made the decision to cut Herb Birmingham. The twenty-seven-year-old veteran lacked the weight to check back and no longer had the speed to keep pace. Herbie had been averaging two goals a game for the Torontos, but the decision was not controversial. There was no outcry from either fans or press. This underscores just how lightly goal scoring was taken as a measure of offensive prowess during this era.

  A general thaw throughout southern Ontario delayed the Torontos’ next match until Wednesday, January 27, at the Galt Rink. The made-over Professionals included only three players from their previous game. Chuck Tyner in goal and Bruce Ridpath on left wing had been the two constants throughout the season. Stoke Doran at cover was still a relative newcomer.

  The reconstituted offence looked very good on paper. Lalonde was back at centre, while Smith took his natural place at rover and Manson was moved to the right side. However, with Hugh Lambe behind Doran, the defence looked slow and suspect. The club had no spare rearguard, Fred Young being the only extra player still under contract. For this contest at least, the weakness did not matter. When the defence proved inadequate, Tyner more than compensated with his goaltending. Lalonde, with four markers, led an offence that rolled over the Indians 7–3. He
also took his team through the tough stuff, bettering the home side’s Angus Dusome in the main bout.

  Galt, previously tied with Brantford in the standings, had lost for only the second time, and Little Manchester’s fans did not take it well. A couple of hundred locals waited outside the rink to confront the visitors after the game. In the end, however, they turned largely passive, reserving “a few warm hisses”4 for the referee.

  Miln now wanted an opportunity to show his new powerhouse offence to Torontonians. He decided to schedule a postponed game with Brantford for that Saturday night at the Mutual Street Rink. Almost immediately there was an uproar. The Toronto Amateur Athletic Club had its Interprovincial home game scheduled for the same time at the Excelsior. The amateur Torontos clearly were not relishing the competition for fans, as they threatened to cancel their future OHA bookings at the old Caledonian if the head-to-head manoeuvres of Miln and his Professionals continued.

  For the pro Torontos, Brantford would be the real test. That club was again in first in the OPHL race. The Braves had kept on winning despite the personnel losses sustained in the recent train crash. Interestingly, the replacement for Jack Marks at right wing had turned out to be none other than former Toronto Pro Wally Mercer, picked up when Guelph dissolved.

  The Pros’ manager decided to shore up his defence for the encounter. He relegated Lambe to the substitution list, put Doran back at point, and brought in a new cover. This would be yet another Cornwall player, Hank Smith. Hank was a cousin of Donald, and he came directly from the Factory Town’s Federal league club.

  There was yet another packed house that evening in the Queen City. And the fans were not disappointed. The offence, with Manson and Donny Smith swapped, more than lived up to its billing. Even Robertson’s Tely was in awe of its performance:

  The whole four passed and re-passed the disc, bandied it about with the surety of wizards, never faltering, seldom failing, and slipping along past their opponents like shadows.5