Category Archives: Browse by Category

1990 - 1999, All, Football, Male

SCOTT LECKY

Leave a comment

Scott was born in Staten Island, New York, U.S.A., December 9, 1964, and at the time of his 1992 election to the Hall he was living in Collingwood.

Following his schooling in Collingwood and Cameron Street Public School, Collingwood Collegiate Institute and at the University of Guelph, football
became his life.

A summary of his playing career is seen in the following:

–  1979-1982 -Played football, and other sports, at Collingwood Collegiate Institute

-1979-80 Scott was the junior boys’ athlete of the year at Collingwood Collegiate
Institute

-1980 He was the MVP on the CCI junior football team and played on the midget
basketball team.

– 1982-MVP senior football at CCI and winner of the Robertson-Titus Football
Award.

– 1982-83-Competed in track and field and as of his induction to the Hall of Fame
still held five records in that sport at Collingwood Collegiate Institute.

-Played football at the University of Guelph 1983-1985

– 1983 –was named the University  of Guelph’s ‘Rookie of the Year’

-1984 – Played with the Ottawa Schooners Junior Football Club and won the  Canadian Championships.

-Member of the Canadian Football League’s B.C. Lions 1986-1989

– 1986-Scott was named the B.C. Lions ‘Rookie of the Year’

-In 1986, in his starting game with the Lions, he played slotback and scored a
touchdown

-In 1988 he helped take the Lions to the Western Conference Finals and played as the starting slotback in the Grey Cup contest played in Ottawa.

Scott was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame on Junes 20, 1992, in the Players’
category.

 

1990 - 1999, All, Builder, Male

DON PAUL DR.

Leave a comment

Born in Hamilton on March 5, 1933, Don Paul grew up in Pamour, Ontario.  Following his schooling in South Porcupine, Toronto, and University of Toronto, ‘Doc’ as he is known to all, moved to Collingwood in 1961. Don and his wife Joan have raised three children, Margo, Gordon and Douglas.

Unquestionably, Don’s recognition as a ‘Builder” is the result of his ongoing efforts on behalf of the local charities and sports. A list of his contribution to our sports scene is all-encompassing as illustrated by this summary of his involvement.

-Past President and executive member of the Collingwood Shipbuilders’ hockey clubs

-Past President and charter member of the Collingwood Blue Mountain Golf and Country Club

-Member of the management committee of the Ontario Winter Games (1991)

-Chairman of the fundraising committee for the Ontario Winter Games (1991)

-Executive and charter member of the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame (1974-1990)

-Member of the executive committee for fundraising campaign for the Collingwood YMCA (1978)

-Past Chairman of the Collingwood Recreation Board.

–Player, coach and manager Christies’s Men’s Wear Slo-Pitch Club,(a) All-Ontario finalists 1978-1990; (b) Summerfest Tournament champions three times; (c) League champions three times.

-Collingwood Summerfest Slo-Pitch Tournament chairman (1985-1990)

-Member of the Foundation of the Collingwood General and Marine Hospital.

-Past president of the Collingwood Rotary Club.

-Presented the Order of Collingwood, January 1, 1991.

Don Paul was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame on June 20, 1992, into the Builders’ Category.

1950 - 1969, 1970 - 1989, 1980 - 1989, All, Hockey, Male

DARRYL SLY

Leave a comment

Darryl Sly is not only a hockey player. He is an organizer and an ambassador of good will for the game he loves and plays so well.

Never hesitant to lend a helping hand to young players on the way up, Darryl know the value of good publicity and he has done much to publicize his native Collingwood.

Born in Collingwood, he came all the way up through the town=s minor hockey system and capped off his own minor hockey career by helping the Collingwood Clubs win the O.M.H.A. Juvenile “A” championship in 1956.

From juvenile he immediately jumped to the Major “A” Junior League in 1957 under the guidance of Father Dave Bauer. He developed into one of the top junior defensemen in the nation as a member of St. Michael’s college team.

From St. Mike’s he went to the Kitchener-Waterloo Flying Dutchmen in the Senior “A” loop.  As a member of the Flying Dutchmen, he represented Canada in the 1960 Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley. That was the year that Canada lost to the United States and they had to be content with a Silver Medal.

International hockey seemed to be in his blood and in 1961 he was an outstanding star on another Canadian National team. The Trail Smoke Eaters won the World Hockey championship over a powerful Russian club. Incidentally, that was the last time a Canadian team won a World Amateur hockey tournament.

Darryl was on a red hot winning streak because he came back from the World tournament and helped the Galt Terriers win the Allan Cup that very same year.

After turning pro with the Toronto Maple Leaf organization, Darryl kept hoarding the silverware with Rochester in the American League, winning three consecutive Calder Cups. He moved out to Vancouver when the Rochester club’s franchise was transferred to the wear coast city and once again the silverware rolled his way.  Vancouver won the Western League title and the Lester Patrick Trophy.

Playing on four championship teams in five years has got to be a record.

Darryl was then drafted to the Minnesota North Stars in the N.H.L. and the following season he was back with another expansion club-the Vancouver Canucks.

A year later he decided to look to the future with his family and a business career but kept his hand in hockey by retrieving his amateur status.

Here was a hockey player who looked beyond hockey while he was still playing the game. Already a college graduate, he picked up a Bachelor of Arts degree and carried on with a successful teaching career.

Like Bern Brophy, Roy Burmister, Jack Portland and Eddie Bush, all members of Collingwood’s Sports Hall of Fame, Darryl Sly came back to the old home town to finish his hockey career as a player and coach.

Darryl hooked up as a player-coach with the Barrie Flyers in 1971 and in the next seven years led the Flyers to the Allan Cup finals four times. They won the Allan Cup after a great series with Spokane in 1974.

He came back to Collingwood as a player-coach. He led the Shipbuilders to the O.H.A. Intermediate Championship in 1983.

1930 - 1949, 1950 - 1969, 1970 - 1979, 1970 - 1989, All, Builder, Hockey, Male

EDDIE BUSH

Leave a comment

Eddie bush is Collingwood’s most famous hockey export over the past thirty five years
and certainly the most colourful.

Eddie makes the Collingwood Hall of Fame on three counts-as a player, a coach and a
builder.

This brash, flamboyant, swashbuckling competitor came a long way since he made the Collingwood Junior as a kid from the other side of the east end track back in
the hungry thirties.

Bush was a winner right from the start. He hated to lose and he expressed nothing but contempt for anybody who took defeat too lightly.

He qualifies as a builder because it was Bush who revived hockey in Collingwood after it had sunk into the doldrums for more than a decade.

He put this town back on the hockey map in 1951 when he closed off his active pro career to give Collingwood three consecutive Junior “C” provincial titles and a pair of back to back Intermediate “A” championships missing a third one after a great series with the Simcoe Gunners. What a work horse he proved to be in those golden years of Collingwood hockey in 1951-52-53. Coaching the juniors, acting as player-coach with the Shipbuilders and still finding time to impact his great hockey skill and experience to the minor hockey teams from Pee Wee to Juvenile.

He turned professional with Detroit in 1938 and the sporting public knew all about it the first day he arrived in Detroit. Jack Adams was not too shocked with the flamboyance of his introduction because he had been exposed to the Collingwood elements years before with Reg Noble, Sailor Jim Herberts and Bern Brophy.

At any rate he sent Eddie to Pittsburgh and Kansas City for seasoning but he was back in the big time in 1941-42. The big fellow had his best season in 1943 and you will find his name in Stanley Cup records.

In the third game of the Stanley Cup finals the Wings beat the Leafs 5-2 and Eddie helped himself to a goal and four assists. That single game scoring record for a defenseman still stands. Bush looked to be on his way to a brilliant N.H.L. career, but, as in the case of Portland,  fate stepped in. Eddie joined the R.C.A.F. and when the war ended thee years later, it was just too late.

His playing career, however, lasted almost ten years more with Cleveland, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Sherbrooke and finally back in his old home town.

But he continued in the game that has always been his life as a very successful coach at Collingwood, Guelph, Hamilton, Pittsburgh, Memphis, Quebec, Richmond and the Kitchener Rangers. He got back in the N.H.L. as a coach for part of the season with the Kansas City Scouts in 1976.

He was a good football player, better than average ball player and expert at darts and is still pretty nifty with a dollar.

1980 - 1989, All, Builder, Male

ROBERT “ROSE” BUSH

Everybody has a secret dream, no matter how small, and everybody lives for the day the dream will come true.

For many people the dream of a lifetime never materialize but there is always that
hope that lies beneath the human breast.

But a lifetime dream did come true for the late Robert “Rose” Bush on June 23rd, 1978, when Bob Bush cut the traditional ceremonial ribbon to officially open the “Old Village Park” in Collingwood’s east end.

They couldn’t have selected a more appropriate citizen to do the honours because AA park for the east enders’ had long been Bob’s Slogan since he was first elected to council years ago.

The “Old Village” takes in that historic territory between Niagara and Raglan Streets and runs north and south from the waterfront to Shannon’s Bridge. Rose was born and raised in that hallowed section and had been regarded as the unofficial Mayor of the Old  Village for most of his adult life.

An outstanding athlete in his younger days, Bob Bush learned to skate on the east mill pond, learned to swim in the old stone quarry (the exact site of the Village Park) played ball in the rock strewn back lots, speared long neglected gravel road that was Raglan Street. When he was fifteen he vowed the east end kids would some day have a park of their own. That park is a reality now and it can stand as a monument to Robert “Rose” Bush.

The Rose took part in about every phase of sport and he kept the sporting fraternity well informed regarding the sporting scene as a columnist with the Enterprise-Bulletin, and in later years, with the Collingwood Times. He played hockey with the Collingwood Juniors after coming up through the town’s minor hockey system, starred on several championships softball teams and was the prime mover in the organization of that fabulous Collingwood Bearded Softball Team during the town’s Centennial year in 1958.

He was a better than average lacrosse player, a hard plunging half-back with the C.C.I. football team and a talented left handed baseball pitcher. In baseball he was a picture but when he switched to softball he became a left hand catcher-and a good one.

He started out with the old Trinity Live Wires around 1938 in the Senior Softball League but he switched to the Legion club after a couple of seasons and moved over to the Pros and helped brother Ed win two league championships.

Rose handled a pretty nifty lacrosse stick when the game made a short lived comeback in Collingwood around 1937.

Rose acted ad bench manager when the Collingwood Greenshirts were winning O.H.A. Junior “C” titles in the early fifties. His brother Ed coached the Greenshirts at that time and this arrangement created repercussion at times. Ed fired Rose about twice a month but blood was thicker than water and the dismissals lasted only from one game to another.

The Rose pulled on punches in his breezy column “Out on the Limb”. His
newspaper career was interrupted for three years during World War 11 when he served with the R.C.A.F. in North Africa, Italy and France. In later years, before suffering a stroke in 1975, he wrote another sports column in the Collingwood Times.

Bob died in 1980. He was fifty-eight.

1950 - 1969, 1970 - 1989, 1980 - 1989, All, Hockey, Male

CLAIRE ALEXANDER

Leave a comment

Born in 1945, this fine hockey player came up through the ranks of the Collingwood
Minor Hockey System.  He had played in numerous leagues previously but had
been rejected by umpteen more. On the strength of his booming shot, Alexander
once won a scoring championship playing Senior hockey with the Collingwood
Shipbuilders.

Following a nomadic Junior career, Alexander became one of the hockey’s last great amateur players.  After a brief stint in minor-pro hockey in the mid-1960s, he returned home to Ontario and took a job as a milkman, while continuing to star with local senior amateur teams. A skilled defender with a booming shot, Alexander led the Orillia Terriers to the Allan Cup , awarded to Canada’s top amateur club, in 1973

He turned professional with Knoxville and in 1972 the Toronto Maple Leafs talked Alexander into giving pro hockey another chance, and he joined their Central Hockey League affiliate, the Oklahoma City Blazers the following year. He was an immediate hit, as he scored 60 points and was named the league’s top rookie and top defender.

In 1974-75, at the age of 29, Alexander was called up to the Leafs, making his NHL debut at the age of 29. He finished the season with 7 goals (including a hat-trick) and 17 points in 42 games. He spent most of the next two seasons on the Leafs’ roster, posting 21 points in 81 games, and made his most notable contribution in the 1976 playoffs with 6 points in 9 games.

For the 1977-78, Alexander was traded to the Vancouver Canucks. He split the season between the Canucks and their farm team in Tulsa, but made a substantial  contribution with 26 points in just 32 games in Vancouver. The following season, he moved to the  WHA with the Edmonton Oilers, posting 31 points on a team featuring Wayne Gretzky in his first professional season. He then spent two season playing in Germany for a two-year term, later coaching a junior team there and another team in Switzerland the year after before retiring in 1981.

Following his retirement, the Leafs hired him to coach their AHL affiliate in St. Catharine’s in 1984. In 1985, his preference for a private life to raise his family resulted in Claire leaving the organization.

Alexander finished his career with 18 goals and 64 points in 155 career NHL games, along with just 36 penalty minutes. He also recorded 8 goals and 31 points in 54 WHA games.

He played on Toronto Metro Old-timers, world’s champions for 1983.

Nowadays, he cheers on his daughter Buffy, representing Canada in rowing for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Beijing will be the third Olympics for Buffy Williams, who won a bronze medal with the women’s eight in Sydney in 2000 and placed fourth in the women’s pair in Athens in 2004 with partner Darcy Marquardt.

Claire was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame in 1984.

1900 - 1929, 1930 - 1949, 1950 - 1969, 1980 - 1989, All, Athlete, Male

GEORGE “CHUB ” BUTTERS

2 Comments

Chub Butters could be classed as one of Collingwood’s best all around athletes because he excelled in track and field, hockey, football, basketball and swimming.
While attending the Collingwood Collegiate he won the Intermediate and Senior track and field  championships in 1932 and 1933. A foxy broken field runner on junior and senior high school football teams, he was a star half back with the 1933 Central Ontario Secondary Schools Senior champions in 1933 when his team defeated St. Catherines 12-9 in the final. Chub scored the winning touchdown.
In Inter-Collegiate track and field competitions he set school records in the 100 and 220 yard sprints and in the low hurdles.
His long amateur hockey career started in the old Collingwood Junior Town League when he captained the champion East End Club. At the age of 15, Chub made the Collingwood Junior O.H.A. team and after four years in junior company graduated to the Intermediate Collingwood Shipbuilders.
In 1937, he played for Geralton in the Northern Ontario Senior “A” series and then performed two seasons with Timmins in the same league. Returning to Collingwood in 1940, he played Senior “B” and Intermediate “A” for his home town until his retirement from hockey in 1952.
In 1951 he captained the Collingwood Shipbuilders, under coach Eddie Bush, to the provincial championship. He was outstanding in the finals series against Fort Erie.
He was considered one of Collingwood’s most outstanding swimmers and divers and in the summer of 1929, won the first Collingwood Aquatics Cup with five firsts in swimming seconds to Don McMinn, one of this town’s really great distance swimmers. He liked to remember how he played on the wing with Rabbi Fryer
when that great old timer played his last game against Midland in 1934.
He was also a better than average softball player with the Pros in the old Collingwood Softball League and he had a one-season fling at the game of lacrosse when the late Lou Dique tried to revive the game in 1927.

1930 - 1949, 1950 - 1969, 1980 - 1989, All, Hockey, Male

BILL ALLAN

Leave a comment

Although he excelled as an all around athlete, Bill Allan’s hockey career made him a
real traveling man. Not counting his minor hockey activities, Bill played on
nine teams in three countries and two continents.

Born in Victoria Harbour, he played minor hockey in Midland before moving to Wiarton, where his late father served as government Indian Agent.

The Allan family moved to Collingwood in 1935 where Bill made the Junior team the
first time out. After three years with the Collingwood Juniors he moved north
with Don Jeffery to Pomour Mines in the NorthernOntario Senior “A” League.

In 1939, Bill and Jeff came back to Collingwood just in time to help the
Collingwood Shipbuilders win the O.H.A. Intermediate “A” championship
under Bern Brophy.

He moved to the Port Colborne Sailors in 1940 and in 1941 joined the R.C.A.F.
During his training period as a wireless operator he found time to perform for
the R.C.A.F. team and the Truro Bearcats.

Following his discharge after the war, Bill moved out to the Pacific Coast League where he starred with the Portland Eagles in the years 1946-47-48.

He was on the move again in 1949 and this time he crossed the Atlantic
to play a bang up defensive game for the famed Harringay Greyhounds of the
English League.

It was back to Collingwood in 1950 as the Shipbuilders went to the finals against Port Colborne. Jack Portland, just back from a long N.H.L. career, coached that team.

Bill teamed up with Eddie Bush as the Shipbuilders won the O.H.A. Intermediate
“A” title in 1951. A severe eye injury put him out of action for most of the 1952 season but he came back to finish up his career with the Shipbuilders, Intermediate “A” finalists in 1953. He commanded the Kiwanis Ai Cadet Squadron and coached minor hockey teams for a number of years.

Hockey was not his only sport. Bill Allan can be rated as one of the best softball
pitchers ever to perform in the old Blue Mountain League. He pitched on two
championship ball teams in the early fifties with the Canadian Legion and
Trott’s Pros.

1970 - 1989, 1990 - 1999, All, Athlete, Sport, Track & Field

BARRY BARKER

Leave a comment

Barry Barker, as a multi-sport athlete, was inducted in the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame, in 1996.

Barry Barker is probably most renowned for his years as a Collingwood Collegiate track and field star in the middle distances.  His personal best times in the senior boys’ 800 metres and as a member of the school’s 4 X 400- metre relay team have not come close to being beaten in 20 years.

Among his accomplishments on the track were Georgian Bay region championships and a bronze at the Ontario championships in the senior boys’ 800 metre in 1976.

He also stands as the only CCI athlete invited to the world-class Maple Leaf Indoor Games, and was both a junior and senior athlete of the years at CCI.  He also participated in football, basketball and cross-country running.

During his high school years, Barker also found time to play Jr. “B” hockey in Collingwood as a reserve netminder for the 1975-76 OHA finalists, and he reached the same stage the next year with the Alliston Jr. ‘C’ Hornets.

He has been coach of the CMHA Midget Rep. team throughout the 80’s and 90’s while playing on two local slo-pitch teams that went to the Canadian championships.

1930 - 1949, 1950 - 1969, 1980 - 1989, All, Baseball, Hockey, Male

JAMES “TUB” BARRETT

Leave a comment

James “Tubby” Barrett was one of the slickest stick handlers in  Collingwood’s long hockey history and one of the games most potent scorers.

Small of stature but as tough as a pine knot, the “Tub” made monkeys out of
the opposing defensemen thirty years ago when the famed Collingwood Greenshirts
won four consecutive O.H.A. Junior “C” titles and the Intermediate
Shipbuilders won two back to back titles in 1951 and 1952.

In his hey day he worked on a super forward line with Allan Morrill and the late
Frankie Dance. The scoring records of this remarkable junior hockey trio will
probably stand forever.

One night I saw this line rack up 37 scoring points in a 20-3 win over Barrie. Barrett collected five goals and nine assists, Morrill had six goals and six assists and Dance
chalked up three goals and seven assists.

During the four-year reign of the Greenshirts in O.H.A. Junior “C” company,
Tub scored 174 goals, 139 assists for a total of 313 points in 113 games.

The line of Barrett-Morrill and Dance scored 444 goals during that four-year span.

At the same time, Barrett and Morrill, took part in the Intermediate “A” play-offs in 1952 and 1953, adding two more O.H.A. Medals to their collections. They played no small part in the winning of the two Intermediate titles for Eddie Bush. Tub Barrett and Allan Morrill picked up six O.H.A. championship medals in four years-the record still stands.

Barrett started his hockey career with the Collingwood Midgets in 1945 and was a member of the star studded Collingwood Clubs, winners of the Ontario Juvenile title in 1949. He tool a fling in the Scottish League in 1954 but came home before the end of the schedule and finished that season with Bracebridge. He played two more seasons with Collingwood before calling it a career. We have no way of
compiling an accurate record of Barrett’s goal scoring total over his brilliant ten year span, but a conservative estimate is four hundred goals.

His athletic prowess was not confined to hockey. Tub was a member of the
Collingwood Midget baseball team, Ontario Midget champions in 1947, under the
coaching of Brit Burns.

He was good enough to receive a pro tryout at a baseball camp in Toronto in 1949 as a catcher. From 1949 to 1952 he played baseball with Collingwood, Thornbury and Creemore and was a member of The Stayner O.A.B.A. Intermediate champions in 1957 and the Collingwood provincial finalists in 1958.

His shelf of silverware, with medals and trophies, representing provincial
championships, include: one juvenile, four junior and two intermediate hockey
medals, plus a junior and an intermediate medal for baseball at the provincial
level.