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 prior to his induction into the Hall of Fame, Donnie Hudson’s succumbed
to cancer after a long battle on May 3, 1986.  He was 52.

Ab Hughes was the fifth Collingwood born hockey player to make the National Hockey League and he did not achieve this mark until he was past thirty. 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.

He 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.

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.

To say that Allan Morrill is a member of one of Collingwood’s great hockey families would be the understatement of the century. Allan will join his great uncle, Ernie “Rabbi” Fryer; his father Bobby Morrill, of the greatest amateur centre and goal scorers of all time; his two cousins, Barney Walmsley and the late Ab Kirby.

Allan’s active hockey career was far too short.  Had he chosen to continue after his junior days, he would undoubtedly have made the NHL.

He had everything –superb stick-handling ability, speed, courage and a shot that could tear out the end of a net.

His ability to score goals can be attested in his splendid goal production when the Collingwood Greenshirts won their first Ontario Junior title in 1950.

In a 15 game regular schedule he scored 25 goals and assisted on 18 more.  In the 17 game playoff series, he “lit the lamp” 21 times and was accredited with 20 assists.  That makes a total of 46 goals, 38 assists for a total of 84 points.

That year, Morrill and his team mates of Frankie Dance and Jimmy Barrett rolled up the astounding mark of 184 points.  Needless to say, Dance and Barrett are also in Collingwood’s Sports Hall of Fame.

Allan’s first provincial medal came in 1949 with Porky Young’s juvenile champions.  He was teamed with Frankie Dance and Jim Barrett that season and for the next four years the line held together to win four straight Junior “C” championships.  Morrill and Barrett also added a pair of OHA Intermediate “A”’ medals when Eddie Bush called them up to the Shipbuilders Intermediate finals in 1952 and 1953.

The Barrett-Morrill-Dance line was probably the greatest scoring combination in Collingwood’s hockey history.  Its passing plays could be described as “Poetry in Motion”.  With that combination there was no such a thing as “giving the puck away”.  Every move was made as if it was planned on the drawing board beforehand.  Dance
would lay out the pass to the point from left or right with deadly accuracy.  He did not even have to lift his head because he knew that either Morrill or Barrett would be on the receiving end and the shot on goal was automatic. That kid line accounted for 444 goals and 347 assists for a point total of 791 scoring points during the four year span they were together.

His greatest scoring feat came in the final game of the 1952 Collingwood-Ingersoll series.  Morrill scored five goals and assisted on a sixth as the Greenshirts won 7-5.  He drew a standing ovation from a crowd of 2,000 as he skated to the dressing room three minutes before the end of the game.

Allan left Collingwood for Gananoque in 1953.  He played part of a season for Kingston Seniors before calling it a career in 1954.

Allan Morrill was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame on June 11, 1986.