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1930 - 1949, 1980 - 1989, All, Baseball, Male

STAN SWAIN

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They called him “Possum” when he was a nipper and the moniker stuck  throughout his fine athletic career in the fields of hockey, football, baseball and hockey. Born in Collingwood, he was a son of the late Herb Swain, one of this town’s best baseball pitchers for over a twenty year span.

He first gained recognition as a plunging halfback on the Collingwood Collegiate
Junior Football team in 1929. That year the juniors played eight games going undefeated by lop sided scores.

In 1933 and 1934 he was a key player with the C.C.I. seniors, Central Ontario
Secondary School Senior Finalists.

His baseball career started in 1931 with Collingwood. Thornbury lured him away in
1932 but he was back in Collingwood in 1934. His baseball career reached its crescendo in 1935 when the Collingwood Shipbuilders won the Ontario Intermediate “A” championship. Stan was the team’s second baseman, the key man in the Shipbuilders famed double play combination.

In 1936, he went to Penetang but came back to play with Meaford in 1940 and
Collingwood in 1941.

He commenced his hockey career with the East End Fishermen in the old Collingwood Junior Hockey League and played five years with the Collingwood Juniors before going back to Penetang to play Intermediate in 1936. He finished off his hockey career with Kirkland Lake Bird Goldmine and Omega in 1937-38-39 in Senior O.H.A. Stan starred at basketball at the C.C.I. for 5 years. The 1933 senior team went to the Central Ontario Secondary School Senior basketball final.

1950 - 1969, 1970 - 1989, 2000 - 2009, All, Hockey, Male

PETE STOUTENBURG

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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.

1900 - 1929, 1970 - 1979, All, Male, Other

JACK STOUTENBURG

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Jack Stoutenburg makes the Sports Hall of Fame on a bicycle. He was the top bike
racer of his days in the Georgian Bay district and probably one of the best in Canada when bicycle racing was a major sport.

Would you believe that a crowd of 3,000 came to Collingwood to watch a five mile bike race just after the turn of the century? He became prominent as a bike race almost overnight when he won surprise victory over the famed McKee brothers, Art and Jack, of Barrie in a five-mile race at Meaford.

He accumulated a case full of trophies and medals from 1904 to 1912.

Although the five-mile events was his most specialty, Jack won one & two mile events but his most important one-miler was a victory at the C.N.E. track in Toronto in 1908. He almost missed that race when he took the wrong street car from the Union Station and ended up in Scarborough. Still lugging his racing bike he finally made it with the co-operation of two or three kindly street car conductors. He was on his mark a few seconds before starting time and did not have time to procure a starter- that’s the fellow who gives the rider a shove when the starting gun is fired and Jack had to mount from a dead start. This cost him several precious seconds and by that time the field had a fifty-yard lead. But he caught them on the third lap and he won the race
by the width of a bicycle tire They say it was the greatest mile bike race ever witnessed at the C.N.E. grounds but another sporting event got he headlines that day. It seems that on that same afternoon, Tommy Longboat, the peerless Canadian Indian runner, won a fifteen- mile foot race against the great Alfie Shrubb of England.

Jack Stoutenburg continued racing bikes until 1912. Not because he was physically
finished. He just ran out of competition. Jack passed away in his 90th year.

2000 - 2009, 2010 - 2019, All, Male, Other

CHRIS STOUTENBURG

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Chris Stoutenburg’s was an all-around athlete that excelled in football, basketball, golf, track and field. During his senior year at CCI, many Canadian Universities scouted his football talents with Guelph ultimately being selected as Chris’s choice to wear their colours for the coming season.

In 1997, after sustaining a spinal cord injury, Chris refocused his athletic talent into the sport of wheelchair basketball where he has never looked back! A life-long Collingwood resident, Chris has become a collector of gold – gold medallions! Within 2 years, Chris became a member of the national team in 1999, Chris’s national team athletic career is represented by two Paralympic gold medals   (2000-Sydney & 2004-Athens) and one silver medal (2008 –Beijing; a world championship and Wheelchair Basketball Canada All Star (2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008).
Today, a recent retiree from the national wheelchair basketball program, Chris has begun to focus his energies towards sledge hockey.Away from the world of athletics, Chris dedicates himself towards for the seamless integration of disabled persons into society. As a spokesperson on Accessibility and Paralympic Sport, Chris represents Canada Basketball, Sunnybrook “Life after Injury” and Breaking Down Barriers. Annually, he is the featured guest speaker at 20+ engagements annually.

In 2008, Chris’s services were called upon as he was the honorary chair of the 2008 Ontario Paralympic Winter Championships held in Collingwood. In his words, “never stop keep making people aware of disabilities but don’t hesitate to beat the odds yourself, make yourself important and build the muscles that still work and find another way.” Unquestionably, words that have driven Chris Stoutenburg to his incredible number of achievements in Paralympic sport. His international successes in Wheelchair Basketball have made Chris Stoutenburg a global ambassador for the Town of Collingwood.

1950 - 1969, 1970 - 1989, 1990 - 1999, All, Builder, Harness Racing, Male

ROBERT STEWART

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Robert Stewart, secretary-manager of the Canadian Standard bred Horse Society, died suddenly after collapsing while playing in an Oldtimers’ hockey game. He was 38.

A native of Collingwood, Stewart had a lifelong involvement in almost all facets
of harness racing and served as the Society’s chief executive officer for
almost 16 years.

In his early teens he trained horses owned by his parents, Ray and Edna Stewart,
including Spencer’s Pride, Muddy Heel, If, Success Curl and Trivia.  During the summer school breaks he worked as a groom at the raceways for Clarence Lockhart and Pat Crowe and also trained horses for Jack Smith and Russ Irwin. He was licensed as a driver in 1969 and drove primarily in races at “B” tracks such as Owen Sound and at fall fair meets in the Collingwood and Barrie area.

Stewart was also licensed as a starter and associate judge from 1970 to 1978 and
officiated in these capacities at various non-extended meetings. In recent years, his Adanac Farms co-owned such outstanding racehorses as Happy Little B, Mon View, Saunders Alpine Label and Trojan Leroy, all winners of more than $165,000.

Stewart was widely known and highly respected throughout the standard bred industry in both Canada and the U.S.  He was primarily responsible for making the
three horse sales conducted annually by the Society among the most successful
in North America and was a strong advocate of having all horses’ blood typed and foals identified by freeze branding to ensure their identity and to verify their parentage.

After receiving his early education in Collingwood, Stewart graduated in Business
Administration from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto and then from
the Akron School of Business Administration where he made the Dean’s List both
years.

1970 - 1979, All, Builder, Male

LOU STAPLETON

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The Builders section of a Sports Hall of Fame is reserved for men and women who have contributed time, talent and leadership to the organization and
development of sports.

Generally, these dedicated men rarely hear the plaudits of the crowd; never see their names in headlines and most often are forgotten entirely.

Such a man was the late Lou Stapleton, the beloved former principal and physical education teacher at the Collingwood Collegiate. He is the one man who definitely had left his mark in the development of every phase of high school athletics in the Georgian Bay District. You of this generation, who never know Lou Stapleton, were deprived of the influence of this very special man.

He possessed the gift that enabled him to bring out the most and the best in every
athlete. His keen sense of sportsmanship and fair play left a lasting impression on every student fortunate enough to come under his guidance on a football field, a baseball diamond, the gymnasium or in track and field competition.

He drilled his junior and senior football teams in after school sessions that lasted until after dark and then he had them back at night for blackboard talks.

He was the man responsible for the formation of the Georgian Bay Secondary Schools
Athletic Association and he became its first president. When Stapes first came to Collingwood, football was only two bucks and a kick. But in less than two years he had his players away ahead of Barrie, Owen Sound, Midland and Orillia in the fine points
of the modern game.

His best football team was built around Jack Portland in 1929 and the squad won the
Ontario Secondary Schools championship. His track team brought national acclaim when he brought a small squad of ten jumpers and runners of the C.N.E. Intercollegiate title.

Lou Stapleton was a giant in the athletic field but he died all too soon. His untimely death took place in 1938 at the height of his brilliant career.

1980 - 1989, All, Builder, Hockey, Male

DONALD “NIP” SPOONER

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Nip” Spooner qualifies as both a player and a builder in the Sports Hall of Fame.  He played a major roll in the establishment of the Eddie Bush Arena as the official home for the Hall of Fame.  Besides playing Junior and Senior hockey, he was a long-time scout for the Toronto Maple Leafs as a scout and is credited with the discovery of Darryl Sly and Wayne Carleton.

Donald Spooner was induced into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame in August, 1984.

 

1990 - 1999, All, Builder, Male, Wrestling

RALPH SNEYD

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Ralph was born in Vancouver BC in January of 1945 and spent his early years of school competition moving from Montreal, Daytona Beach Fla., Port Hope and Toronto.

He participated on several championship teams in high school and represented his school at the Ontario Athletic Leadership Camp where he was introduced to the sport of amateur wrestling. He competed in wrestling’s early years as a
high school and university sport. In 1969 he started his teaching career in North York’s, Northview Heights SS where he began his coaching career and convened and won several Team Championships with three Canadian Champions and six OFSAA medalists.

Ralph moved to Collingwood in 1976 and began the Collingwood Wrestling Club that saw just fewer than 3,000 members in its 30 year operation. His high school wrestlers collected 26 OFSSA medals and 51 GBSSA Championships. The club continued to compete in Canadian Amateur events and won 18 Ontario Team Championships and 7 Canadian team titles. 147 wrestlers won Ontario Amateur Wrestling Medals and sixty two of them winning Canadian medals. Three of his wrestlers went on to win silver and bronze medals in World Championships. Fourteen former wrestlers of the program are now coaching wrestling in other programs across Canada. Ralph was the Team Leader for several Ontario teams who all won Gold at the National Championships. He coached Canadian teams at World Championships in France,
Hungary and Washington DC.

He hosted 148 wrestling tournaments including 9 OFSAA Championships, 16 Ontario Championships, 7 Canadian Championships including 4 in Collingwood and the World Youth Wrestling Championships held in Collingwood in 1987. He retired from teaching in 2000 but still is involved with the sport of Wrestling in Ontario and committees such as the Multiuse Committee in Collingwood.

– President of Central Ontario Wrestling 1979-1992 and member of OAWA Board of Directors

-Member of OFSSA Sports Advisory Committee for Wrestling 1983-1998

-Founded Wrestling Drawmasters Association of Canada in 1988

– Wrote all 3 OFSSA Rulebooks on Wrestling

– Was a co-founder of Ontario Youth Wrestling and Canadian Youth Wrestling and
chaired the committee for 12 years.

– Established Simcoe County Elementary School Wrestling program for boys and girls

-Assisted in the development of Women’s Wrestling as an OFSSA and Amateur Olympic Sport

– Chaired committees in Ontario, National or World sporting events held in Collingwood 1989-2003

– Founder and Chair of the Federation of Collingwood Sports Inc (transportation support to sports teams)

– Creator of the Black and Gold Society to honour outstanding alumni at CCI and first Chairperson

Understandably, Ralph has been recognized with numerous awards for his dedication. Some of these include:

– Ontario Special Achievement Award 1988

– FILA Gold Star 1987 (the sport of wrestling’s highest international award)

– Ontario Coach of the Year Awards 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1994

– Inductee Canadian Wrestling Sport Hall of Fame 1998

– OFSSA Leadership in School Sport Award 1992

– Simcoe County Excellence in Education Award 2003

– Order of Collingwood 1987 and Companion to the Order of Collingwood 2004

 

1930 - 1949, 1950 - 1969, 1980 - 1989, All, Athlete, Male, Other, Wrestling

LARRY SMITH

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Larry Smith’s qualifications for the Sports Hall of Fame can come under any of the following headings: Boxing, wrestling, softball, baseball, football, track and field, bowling and coaching.

A very astute business man, he has often been known as “Square Deal Larry”. His idea of a square deal is to trade you a pork chop for a pig and the pork chop would probably be a shoulder cut.

Larry did not come into athletic prominence until around the age of 16 due to the fact that he was an only son and was more than urged to lead a sheltered life. He played a pretty good football game with

Collingwood Collegiate under the coaching of the late Lou Stapleton, earned a letter in Track & Field and made quite an impression in the Coronation Meet at Owen Sound by winning the 100 and 220 yard sprint in a pair of great duels with Eddie Sergeant, the well-known former M.P.P. for Grey. He finished his secondary school education at Glebe Collegiate in Ottawa At Glebe, he took up boxing and wrestling and went to the finals in both these sports in the Ottawa Valley championships.
Incidentally, he lost out in the boxing final to the late Johnny Quilty of St. Patricks College. Quilty later became a hockey star with the Montreal Canadiens.

At the Aggie College in Guelph, he played football and made the college track and field team in the sprints and relay races. Along came WWII and Larry enlisted with the 541 st Parachute Regiment. He won the light heavyweight boxing title at Fort Bragg and found in several important military boxing tournaments at Camp MacKall, Fort Jackson, Camp Gordon and Fort Benning.

He was selected to represent Airborne Command in the All American Army Golden Gloves at Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1943. He won three bouts and lost in the final. During his active duty in Europe, he made sixty parachute jumps and took part in the bloody battle of Arnheim. While in the army of occupation in Germany and Austria, Larry took part in several wrestling bouts with Captain Vern Smith, former American Amateur Union and American Intercollegiate champion. He won points in the General Patton Third Army Track and Field Meet and ran the anchor leg on
the 506th Regiment Relay team in Munich.

After the war, Smith returned to Collingwood, where he pitched softball for the Collingwood Legion softball team. The Legion team won the Blue Mountain League title in 1949, the Legion District title and went to the Ontario final. In 1950, he played centre filed for the Collingwood Intermediate baseball team and won the Georgian Bay League batting championship. This team also went to the provincial final.

He took up 5-pin bowling after he settled down to business as  the owner and operator of the Collingwood Bowling Lanes and had a 250 average for 6 straight years. His best effort was a 256 average and a 975 triple in Senior play. He also won the Legion District Singles title at Newmarket.

Larry coached the Collingwood Collegiate Senior Football team in 1947, acted as wrestling and boxing instructor for the Collingwood Sea Cadet Corps and supervised a bowling school for Grade School children.

Collingwood fans got a chance to Larry in action when he challenged the Masked Marvel, who was then giving wrestling exhibitions with the Kings Brothers Circus. With the assistance of a thick coating of olive oil and the referee (long-time friend Don Jeffrey) Smith beat the Masked Marvel, much to the delight of the hometown fans.

1930 - 1949, 1970 - 1979, All, Baseball, Male

DEVERDE “SMOKEY” SMITH

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There was no question about the Collingwood Athlete of the Year Award back in 1935. Deverde “Smokey” Smith won the honours hands down!

Deverde came from down eastern Ontario way with a infectious smile. Nobody paid him particular attention until he turned up at the Exhibition Park one day and he
wanted to try out for the junior baseball team.

Veteran baseball men like Huck Caesar, Dr. Bill Blakley, Father Hugh Ellard and Roy Burmister just couldn’t believe their eyes.

Here was a kid with magic in his left arm and only sixteen years old. His curve looked like the ball was coming at you from first base, the high hard one looked the size of an aspirin and his sinker dropped five feet from the point of delivery to the plate. That evening, this reporter hung the name “Smokey” on him and moniker stuck.

The kid became Collingwood’s skater that very day and baseball was back in Collingwood. I t was too late to build a title winning team that year but in 1935 Collingwood lured catcher Paddy Young away from Creemore as Smitty’s battery mate and the rest is sporting history.

In 1935, Smokey curve balled the Shipbuilders to the Ontario championship and in the process defeated Penetang’s, Phil Marchildon, who was destined to star in the American League with Conny Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics, seven out of nine times with two more games ending in ties.

He pitched a perfect game against Coniston in the Semi-final round and had two more no-hit no-run games in the regular Georgian Bay League schedule. His 1935 pitching record with 22 wins – 3 losses while striking out 310 batters. He went on to a professional career in the Canadian-American League and had the pleasure of beating Marchildon in the same league 2-1 in a game that went 12 innings.

Deverde did not seriously pursue a pro career and he hung up the glove after joining the Ontario Provincial Police.