In 1958, he won the Dr. John C. Findley Trophy. The Dr. Findley Trophy is an award presented annually to the athlete adjudged to be the keenest and best competitor in the Town of Meaford. That year, the special citation read “To the little man with the big heart.” That single line is the life story of Collingwood born – Barney Walmsley.

Pound for pound . . . and he never weighed more than 135 of them. . .  Barney was one of the best and gamiest athletes ever to come out of Collingwood’s East End, and there were many games ones spawned in the shadow of the old Connaught School.

He excelled at every game he played; hockey, baseball, softball, football, track and field and even table tennis. Barney played them all and won them all – well and clean.

There are not many stick handlers left in the game of hockey. The stick handler has been discouraged in this era of hit, charge and shoot but Barney can be classed as one of the last of the good ones.

He had everything but weight on the ice with the big fellows. He weaved in and out of the tight corners like an eel, could attain full flight in three strides, could thread a needle from the port or starboard side with a flicking but powerful wrist shot, could lay a pass on a teammate’s stick from blue line to blue line, rarely lost a face-off and never, stopped trying and hustling.

Born on January 15, 1931, Barney skated a few days after he learned to walk.

His hockey career started with the formation of the Collingwood Minor Hockey Association back in 1945 when that organization boasted only four junior teams. He played centre for theEast End and made the first All-Star team the first-time out. He was fourteen and he tipped the scales at exactly 90 pounds, shoulder pads and all.

He jumped up to Midget O.M.H.A. in 1946 and was bitterly disappointed when Hap Emms’ Barrie Club beat them out in the group finals and went on to win the provincial title. Lindsay put the Collingwood team out in 1947 in a tough overtime game and the following year the whole team stepped up into Juvenile ranks. The club went to the finals.

The following year, the Juvenile Cubs won the Ontario title without losing a game. Barney scored 35 goals and set up plays for 81 more.

The following year, Barney and Len Cook went to the St. Louis training camp and St. Louis sent them to the Barrie Colts, a Junior “A” club, coached by Hap Emms.

Emms was very much impressed with Walmsley but he said “Barney you are good enough for any Junior “A” Club right now but you are too small for professional hockey.” The kid was naturally disappointed but he passed up the Junior “A” chance and came back to Collingwood.

That was the beginning of the long reign of the Collingwood Greenshirts. They won the Ontario Junior “C” title four years in a row.

In 1950, Barney scored 50 goals and at the end of the season, Baldy Cotton, chief scout for the Boston Bruins, asked him to sign with Waterloo in the Junior “A” loop. He was offered a contract but he couldn’t sign because he property of the St. Louis Flyers.

After a great deal of thought, he reasoned that there was no 103 pounders in the NHL and he came back to Collingwood.

He helped the Greenshirts to another title and moved up to the Intermediate ranks under Eddie Bush in 1952 when the Shipbuilders on the provincial championship for the second year in a row.

It was quite a season for Barney. He lost all of his front teeth in the group final against Newmarketbut he never missed a game.

In the Ontario final against the Simcoe Gunners, it was Barney who put the icing on the cake in the fifth game. He scored the cup-winning goal on a pass from Eddie Bush before the end of the 10 minute overtime period. The Gunners turned the tables on the Shipbuilders in the 1953 final.

After another year in Collingwood, he received offers from Orillia, St. Thomas and Meaford. He took Meaford because it was closest to home. Meaford reached the Intermediate “A” finals in the next two years and won the OHA Senior “B” title in 1958.

Barney had played in the OHA Junior, Intermediate and Senior finals for eight consecutive years. Meaford went to the Senior “B” final  again in 1963 and two years later Walmsley was back to Collingwood.

The Shipbuilders went to the Senior “A” final in 1965 and Barney moved back to Meaford to finish out his active playing days. He played hockey with the Oldtimers until 1982.

Barney was a slick fielding baseball player and was a member of the Collingwood team which won the Ontario Midget title in 1946. He later played O.B.A. baseball with Collingwood and in the Intermediate ranks with Thornbury, Orillia, Stayner, Creemore and Meaford. His athletic ability was not confined to hockey and baseball as he starred on high school basketball, soccer and football teams. In a Tudhope Track and Field Meet in 1946, he competed in five events and finished with a first, two – seconds and a third.

Don Westbrooke rose through the local minor system and went on to play Junior “B”, Intermediate, and Senior.  He also played professional hockey with International teams followed by the IHL Toldedo Blades in 1963-64 when he won Longman Trophy as “Rookie of The Year”.

1968-69                       Awarded the Gatschene Memorial Trophy as IHL-MVP Award

1969-70                       Awarded the Leo Lamoureux Trophy as IHL Top Scorer

As a 20-year-old IHL rookie for Toledo Blades in 1964, Don scored in overtime to beat defending champion Fort Wayne Komets in deciding sixth game of Turner Cup Finals.

In 1970-71, Don played under the infamous coach – Eddie Shore – with the Springfield Kings & Eddie Shore of American Hockey League. Later he was traded to Rochester Americans where he played with Collingwood native Darryl Sly & roommate Don Cherry.  In 1971-72, Don played in Seattle and led the team in scoring.

On January 5, 1974, Don Westbrooke became a North American trivial answer as he became the “only” North American player to score 3 goals against Vadislav Tretiak (of the Soviet Red Army Selects) and defeated the World Champions 6-4.

In July 1984, Don Westbrooke joined his goaltending father, the late Reg. Westbrooke, as an enshrined member of the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame.

Eddie Young joins his brother, “Porky” in the Hall of Fame and this will be the eighth time that brother acts have graced this charmed circle of Collingwood athletes.

Eddie was born in Collingwood and like most hockey members of the Hall of Fame, came all the way up through the Collingwood Minor Hockey Association from Novice to Juvenile.

After his graduation from minor hockey status, he played one year with the Collingwood Junior “B” Blues. He led the team in scoring for defencemen and the following season was snapped up by the Guelph Biltmore’s where he performed exceptionally well in Junior “A” company for three consecutive years.

For the next three seasons, Eddie was regarded as one of the top senior “A” players with Port Colbourne, Niagara Falls and Hamilton. During World War II he enlisted and played on army championship teams with Brampton and Camp Borden.

Following his discharge from service, Edie was signed by the Toronto Maple Leafs, but was assigned to the Central Pro League with Tulsa and Houston, where he performed for four years. His active pro career came to an end in 1959 when he returned to Port Colbourne for three seasons as playing coach.

Eddie Young was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame on June 11, 1986.

One of the most colourful hockey players in the history of the town.

Tom played on  Collingwood’s second Ontario Hockey Association’s team for ten years around the
turn of the century.  He was a member of the 1907 Intermediate Ontario
finalists.  He played professional hockey with Portage La Prairie and
Minneapolis.  He was also a star lacrosse player.

Born in 1934, this hockey player got his start with the Collingwood Minor Hockey Association.

He played with the Collingwood Junior C Club, before playing with the Junior ‘A’ – Guelph Biltmores. He played professional hockey in several cities, including New
Haven, Three Rivers Knoxville and Philadelphia in the Eastern Hockey League (EHL). His career in the EHL ended following the 1968-69 season as a player-coach with the Syracuse Blazers.

He moved to Wallingford, Connecticut where he coached a high school hockey team.

His brilliant career cut short by a near fatal accident in his early twenties, Frankie Dance, will still go down as one of the cleverest hockey players ever produced in Collingwood.

Born in Collingwood, he was the youngest son of another Collingwood Hockey Hall of  Famer, Jack Dance, a member of Collingwood’s first  Intermediate champions in 1910.

He started playing hockey shortly after he learned to walk and came all the way up through the Collingwood Minor Hockey system from Pee Wee to Juvenile.

Frankie was a member of the Collingwood Clubs, winners of the 1949 O.M.H.A. Juvenile championship, a team that went through the entire season without losing a game.

He collected four more provincial medals with the Collingwood Greenshirts, winners
of four straight O.H.A. Junior “C” titles in 1950-51-52 and 53. The same team went to the 1954 finals.

Frankie was the playmaker on the great little Greenshirt line with Jim Barrett and
Allan Morrill. During that four-year championship span, the Barrett-Morrill-Dance line scored 444 goals, chalked up 347 assists for a total of 791 scoring points.

The passing plays of that line could be described as “poetry in motion”. With that combination there was no such thing as “giving the puck away”. Every move, every play, was made as if the whole operation has been planned on a drawing board a forehand. Dance would lay out that pass dead on the point from right to let with deadly accuracy. He did not even have to lift his head. He knew that either Morrill or Barrett would be on the receiving end and the shot on goal was automatic.

In a game played in Barrie in 1951, Frankie collected ten points with three goals and seven assists.

He graduated to the Intermediate ranks in 1954 and scored thirty-five goals. That
Spring he fell from a hydro pole while working as a lineman with the Public Utilities. His life hung in the balance for weeks. His sheer courage helped in his remarkable recovery but the great young athlete’s career was over. His injuries left him crippled for the rest of his life.

His athletic ability was not confined to hockey. Frankie played a creditable game of baseball for Collingwood teams in the early fifties.

He was able to carry on his duties at the Public Utilities Commission for twenty-five years following the accident and was superintendent of the main pumping station at the time of his sudden death, on the job, on the night of Feb. 1st, 1978. Frankie was forty-seven.