Robbie’s hockey career spans an active period of some 40 years counting his seven years with the Collingwood Old-timers squad.
He played on three championship teams in Public school; Juvenile in 1941; Junior “A” with Barrie; Intermediate and Senior with Collingwood, and was a member of the All-Ontario Kinsmen Hockey Club.
Robert Sandell was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame, in August, 1984.
Donnie Hudson never weighed more than 140 Pounds, but he had the heart of a lion and can be considered as one of the fastest goalkeepers ever developed in Collingwood.
Born in Collingwood’s South End, he came up through the Collingwood Minor Hockey system from atom to juvenile. When he finished his active career about 25 years ago, he had amassed a total of six OHA championships.
His first provincial title came in 1949 when he shared goalkeeping duties with Murray Blackburn, under the coaching of Porky Young, when the Peerless Collingwood Cubs won the Ontario Juvenile title without losing a game.
Then came four straight Junior “C” OHA championships with the Collingwood Greenshirts. A feat that has never been duplicated in OHA history.
The Greenshirts finally lost to Welland in the 1954 semi-final round. Roy Connacher was coaching the Midland team that same year, Midland had qualified for the final against Welland and Connacher, asked for, and got permission to use Hudson after his own goalie was injured. Midland won the title and Donnie Hudson won his sixth straight provincial championship.
Like most star goalies of that era, Hudson rarely left his feet, but it was his lightening-fast hands that gave him the edge on other goalkeepers.
We can safely say that he made more stops with his gloves than his pads or stick. For this reason he was not bothered by those troublesome rebounds that haunted other goalies.
Hap Emms wanted Donnie for the Barrie Colts in Junior “A” company, but he finally and reluctantly decided that at five-feet five inches he was too small for the major leagues. He had tryouts with Guelph and Kitchener and played one season with Queens’ University. He played one year with the Collingwood Shipbuilders in Intermediate “A” hockey before hanging up his skates.
Ill health ended his active career 16years ago, but on his return from Texas continued to assist as a coach in the Collingwood Minor Hockey system. Donnie was also a better that average baseball player during the fifties.
One month before his induction into the Hall of Fame, Donnie Hudson’s succumbed to cancer after a long battle on May 3, 1986. He was 52.
Born in Collingwood, Paul Shakes scored one hundred goals in the novice division of Collingwood Minor Hockey, and that record still stands. Paul hockey skills caught the attention of our local junior team where he played at the midget age of 15.
Shakes was chosen 38th overall by the California Golden Seals (NHL) after accumulating 170 points in three seasons with the St. Catharines Black Hawks of the OHA. After scoring 20 goals in 1971-72 the young rearguard was voted on to the OHA first all-star team.
A recognized fine playmaker, Paul played defense for Salt Lake City in 1972-73 where he registered a decent 42 points as a rookie pro with the WHL’s Salt Lake Golden Eagles. The next year he played 21 games for the California Golden Seals but was relegated to the minors for the last two years of his career before he retired in 1976 after surgery for a herniated disk.
He now has an interest in Harness Racing where he and son Brad have co-owned and trained many champions including 2002 Ontario Sires Stakes champion Meadowview Sunny. In the same year, Meadowview Sunny was a recipient of the O’Brien Awards as the premiere 2 year old cold trotter in harness racing over a given year.
Paul was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame in 1984.
Ab Hughes was 30 years old when he began his National Hockey League career. That is considered to be an advantage age for a rookie but he stayed up there for three years with the old New York Americans and went on to a successful coaching career in St. Louis.
Born in Guelph, Abbie started as a junior with Collingwood and immediately caught the eye of a Toronto hockey scout who induced him to come to Toronto in 1917. He was only sixteen at the time but he starred with Aura Lee and helped that team win the Ontario Junior “A” title.
His career was interrupted for almost three years when he served with the Canadian armed forces in World War 1 but he took up right where he broke off and was a
member of the Collingwood Intermediate O.H.A. champions in 1920.
He saw a great deal of senior action with Toronto, Hamilton and Welland and then signed a professional contract with the New Haven Eagles and later played two years with the New York Americans in the N.H.L. in 1931 and 32.
Scotty Carmichael (founder of the Hall of Fame) was one of a group of Collingwood fans who made the trip to Toronto to see Hughes play his first game as a N.H.L. pro in the new Maple Leaf Gardens in 1931. What a show he put on for the home town fans. Abbie scored two goals and the Amerks beat the Leafs 3-2.
In the late thirties he was signed as a player-manager of the team fledging St. Louis
team in the American Association. He is credited with educating St. Louis to the ice game as he held skull sessions with the fans between periods and before games and organized the first hockey school.
Whit Hammond makes Collingwood’s Hall of Fame as a lacrosse player, speed skater and hockey player.
Eighty years ago he was one of the brightest stars in Canadian lacrosse but at that time he was raising no cheers from Collingwood fans. Wearing the colors of the Owen Sound Crescents he sank many a ball a Collingwood net and we were happy to see him move to Collingwood in 1908.
A fierce competitor at all times, he was a driving force behind Collingwood hockey teams for many years.
He played goal for the Shipbuilders in 1908, the first Collingwood team to reach the O.H.A. Intermediate finals.
His speed skating feats are legendary and as a speed skater he was indirectly responsible for starting a Canadian fighter on the road to the World Heavyweight Boxing title. That may sound like a kooky kind of a statement but it is true. Back in 1900, Whit Hammond and Noah Brusso of Hanover, Ontario, were considered to
be the best speed skaters in the country but they had never met in a race.
Brusso was charged with “ducking a match race with Hammond” and Brusso replied by accepting a match race with this remark. “If Whit Hammond beats me I will hang up my skates forever.” Hammond beat him in three straight heats for a trophy filled with silver dollars at Hepworth. Noah Brusso was true to his word.
He did hang up his skates and put on a pair of boxing gloves and changes his name to Tommy Burns.
It was a wise and profitable choice for the Hanover speed skater. A few years later on Feb. 23rd, 1906, he defeated Marvin Hart for the World heavyweight crown-the only Canadian ever to reach the pugilistic pinnacle.
Whit Hammond was one of the great athletes of his time. He died in Collingwood in 1959.
Ed Kea was born in Weesp, Holland but his family of fourteen relocated to Collingwood, Ontario when he was just four years old. In Canada he was exposed to the game of hockey and took to it very well. Kea never played Junior hockey, nor did he play collegiate hockey but he managed to turn professional in 1969 nonetheless. After two years with the Jersey Devils, and stops with the Seattle Totems and the St. Petersburg Suns, he was signed as a free agent by the Atlanta Flames in 1972.
Kea played 583 games over 10 seasons in the NHL, scoring 30 goals and
175 points. He spent his first six seasons with the Atlanta Flames, who signed him as a free-agent on Oct. 6, 1972.
The defenseman made his NHL during the 1973-74 season when he played three games for the Flames, but he was a regular the following season. Kea spent the next five seasons playing his solid, steady game on the Flames blue line before being dealt to St. Louis just prior to the 1979-80 season. With the Blues, Kea played three and half seasons before being sent to the minors.
During the 1982-83 season, St. Louis shipped him to their farm team in Salt Lake. Unfortunately, while toiling for the Salt Lake Golden Eagles tragedy struck. Kea hit his head on the ice during a game and suffered severe head trauma and was left handicapped as a result. Though a series of operations saved his life, Kea’s hockey career was obviously over and he retired and spent time with his wife and children.
Sadly, this wouldn’t be the only tragedy for Ed Kea and his family. In September 1999, Kea drowned at his family cottage. Kea was just 51 years old.
Bert McLeod can qualify for Collingwood’s Sports Hall of Fame in several categories because he excelled in every game he ever tried.
As a student in the Collingwood Collegiate over seventy years ago, he won the junior, intermediate and senior athletic awards in senior athletic awards in successive years and played fullback on the C.C.I. first ruby-football team.
As a member of the Collingwood Y.M.C.A. he stared in basketball, volleyball, track and field, gymnastics, baseball and lacrosse.
Bert played on Collingwood Junior O.H.A. teams for several years and then became a key defenseman with the Collingwood Intermediate team that lost only four games in three years- winning the provincial title in 1918-19-20.
Bret moved on to Peterborough in 1921 where he led the Lift Lock City team to two O.H.A. Senior “A” championships.
He turned professional with Kansas City in the mid twenties and pioneered the game in the mid-west American city as a player and coach.
During his seven-year win three championships and was never out of the play-offs. After his long athletic career he operated a successful pharmacy in Peterborough.
We have often heard it said that Donnie Keith is one of the most mild-mannered gentlemen in Collingwood, until he puts on a pair of skates.
When he puts on a hockey uniform, it’s a different story. He plays the game for keeps, gives no quarter and asks for none. It has been like that for nearly 20 years since he helped the old West End Wildcats win the town league championship under Coach Reg. Westbrooke back in 1947. He was the policeman on two great Juvenile teams when the Cubs went to the Ontario finals in 1948 and then won the title in 1949 without losing a single contest.
He jumped into the Junior “B” ranks with Guelph the following year and then spent two star-studded years with the Guelph “A” team in a league that boasted such coming NHL stars as Harry Howell, Lou Fontinato, Andy Bathgate and Dean Prentice.
He gained great respect in his knock-down, drag-out duels with the all time tough Fontinato. Keith backed down from nobody and he took as much as he handed out. Eddie Bush lured him back to Collingwood in 1951, and he was instrumental
in helping the Shipbuilders win a pair of OHA Intermediate “A” Titles.
He stayed with the Shipbuilders until the end of 1953 and then went over to the strong Meaford Knights. His rugged-checking and accurate-shooting were the main cogs in Meaford’s OHA Senior “B” Championship.
That season he led the league in scoring and penalties.
Donnie played the last 10 years of his active career in senior company with Shipbuilders. His OHA career spanned 20 years, but he is still starring with the Old Timers well into the 1990’s, along with such other old time Collingwood stars, as Robert Sandell, Don Rich, and Don Cook.
Don Keith was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame, in 1986.
The local sporting community was saddened when Don passed away 2010.
Ask anyone who saw him skate what kind of hockey talent Peter Stoutenburg had and their answer instead invariably ends with, “he was pretty good, but he was an even better person.”
“The legacy he left was that he was such a decent person that you couldn’t find anyone else who had more integrity,” said Don French, who grew up playing hockey, working with and being the best friend of Stoutenburg. “If someone needed a helping hand, Pete was the first one in the dressing room to stand up and spearhead the effort.”
He played Jr. “C” as an under-aged bantam and soon movedup to the Jr. “A” ranks with Kitchener, Niagara Falls and eventually in the Montreal Metro League in 1964. After two seasons with the New England Amateur Hockey League, Stoutenburg studied and played hockey at the long-time NCAA Division One program at the University of New Hampshire. In his final year of college hockey, Stoutenburg had five goals and 20 assists in 31 games and set a record for UNH defenders with a goal and four assists in one contest.
The NHL’s Montreal Canadiens came calling and Pete attended training camp with them in 1970. He was offered a spot on the Muskegon Michigan team in the old Colonial League, but opted to pursue a career in business.
After two seasons with the New England Amateur Hockey League, Stoutenburg studied and played hockey at the long-time NCAA Division One program at the University of New Hampshire. “He always said he wasn’t exactly the best goal scorer but when you saw him skate, you felt a lot more confident about how he played,” said wife Marsha, whom Pete met while at UNH.
Stoutenburg went on to become successful in the insurance industry and was posthumously honoured by Clarica at that company’s recent convention in San Antonio, Texas for his community work.
Hockey was always a passion, however, as he played senior hockey in Barrie and Galt and coached at the Minor, Jr. ‘B’ and University levels St. Catherines, where Marsha resides.
Old-timers’ hockey was a mainstay for Pete and he always returned to the Collingwood area a couple of times a year to play in tourneys with the Legion Vets. That core of players nearly won an all-Ontario title as bantams in 1960-61. Old-timers’ hockey was a mainstay for Pete and he always returned to the Collingwood area a couple of times a year to play in tourneys with the Legion Vets. That core of players nearly won an all-Ontario title as bantams in 1960-61.
Pete took up long-distance cycling with daughter Marlo. She has become a top-flight rower, unable to attend Pete’s induction into the Hall of Fame ceremony as she was in competition at the Boston Marathon of rowing competitions on the Charles River. “If Peter was around he’d say Marlo should go to Boston instead of going to something for him,” Marsha said.
Son Curtis played Jr. ‘B’ in Thorold and at Brock University and had his first child Aug. 27 with wife Vicky. Unfortunately, Stoutenburg is the lone deceased member of the class of 2004 to enter the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame.
Pete died of a heart attack in 2002 on a trip to his hometown of Collingwood, where he’d just purchased a condo.
He was the most artistic body checker ever to perform for a Collingwood hockey
team and must be ranked with the best hitting defensemen of anytime-professional or amateur.
Bon in Newmarket but a resident of Collingwood for forty years, Dutch was the kingpin on the 1935 Collingwood Shipbuilders, winners of the O.H.A. Intermediate “A” championship.
Dutch played hockey under the principle that a good body check should be heard and not seen. There never was a better demonstrator of that principle.
“The bigger they are, the heavier they fall!” said Dutch, and during his career he dropped tons of hockey beef over scorers of arena ice surfaces throughout Canada and the United States.
He weighed only 155 pounds but the answer to his great hitting ability was in the
timing. Dutch never ploughed directly into the path of an onrushing forward. All he needed was a piece of him.
Cain played junior hockey in his native Newmarket and was a member of the Owen Sound Greys, Memorial Cup champions of 1924-25. That was quite a team-Cain, Cooney Weiland, Butch Keeling, Teddy Graham, Hedley Smith and Fred Elliot. The team picture of the Greys is in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Weiland Graham and Keeling went on to stardom in the N.H.L.
In the following years, up until 1928, Dutch played with Eveleth and Calumet in the old Central League. Calumet won the title in 1927.
A few years ago Cain was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in Minnesota. Dutch returned to Canada in 1928 to help South Porcupine win the Northern Ontario senior title and then played on championship teams in the Eastern League with Baltimore Orioles and the Bronx Tigers. He was selected as the most valuable player in the league in the season of 1934-35.
He moved back to Collingwood in 1932 and was about to call it a career when he was
lured back into uniform by the late Walter Robinson, then coach of the Collingwood Shipbuilders. Dutch teamed up with big Jack Portland on the defense. Portland
was a good pupil and went on to a ten-year career in the N.H.L. his last season in 1935 was a winner.
Teaming up with playing-coach Bern Brophy, he helped Collingwood win the Intermediate title for the sixth time since 1910. He died the day after the founding of the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame.