Randy Osburn was born in Collingwood, played all his minor hockey in Collingwood under such competent coaches as Dennis Robinson, Harvey Pearen and the late Merv Smith.

When he as ready to move up in t faster company in 1969, he was picked up by another Collingwood coach, Eddie Bush, who sent him to the Hamilton Mountain Junior B club. Eddie was coaching the Memorial Cup winning Hamilton Red Wings at the time.

Randy verified Eddie’s assessment of his ability by winning the scoring title in the Junior “B” League. The team lost out in the Ontario finals to the Dixie Bee Hives.

In 1970, he went up to the Hamilton “A” club but was traded the London Knights half way through the season. In 1971, he had a very good season with the Knights and the line of Reg Thomas, Dennis Ververgard and Osburn finished second in the scoring department, just 3 pints behind three future NHL stars named Shutt, Gardner and Harris of the Toronto Marlboros. Osburn scored forty goals and sixty assists for an even 100 points and the All-Star team.

The following year he was drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs and after a full season was sent to Oklahoma City in the Central Pro League.

He won the goal scoring title for the league and was again picked on the first All-Star team. Dallas won over Oklahoma City in the league finals.

In 1974, the Leafs traded him for Bill Flett to the Philadelphia Flyers, then the Stanley Cup Champions.  He played with the Flyers for over half a season and was then assigned to the Philadelphia Firebirds of the American Hockey League. A severe neck injury ended his playing career in 1978.

A Sports Hall of Fame in Collingwood would be vacant without the name of Reg Noble.

Of all the Collingwood born hockey players, the name of “Noble” stands out like a sore thumb because it was Reg who paved the way for the others.

A member of Canada’s National Hockey Hall of Fame, Noble turned pro with the old Toronto Arenas in 1916 but the team disbanded half-way through the season and Reg was snapped up by Montreal.

The Canadians won the Stanley Cup in 1918 that year and Reg was back in Toronto in 1917. Toronto won the Stanley Cup in 1918 and Noble scored 28 goals in twenty-two games schedule. He finished third in the scoring race behind Cy Denneny and Joe Malone. That was the year Joe Malone set the league on fire with 44 goals in 22 games. The Toronto team took the name of St. Patrick’s and in 1922 that team won the Stanley Cup with Noble and the late Harry Cameron, another Hall of Famer, setting pace for the St Pat’s.

He went to the Montreal Maroons in 1924 and helped that team win the Stanley Cup
in 1926. Noble finished his great hockey career with Detroit after eighteen years in the N.H.L. He died in June 19, 1962.

One of the greatest stick handlers of his time, Bobby Morrill holds the time record in Collingwood’s long hockey history for goals scored in a single season.

Fifty-three years ago, while playing centre for the Collingwood Juniors, he scored ninety-five goals in twenty-one games.

You would almost think he had some kind of a rubber-to-wood magnet on the blade of his stick. He had a supernatural knack of pulling the puck from the back of the net, pivoting around the post and slipping the puck under the goalie’s skates.

Mike Rodden actually compared Morrill to Howie Morenz when the two centers met in the 1921 O.H.A. Junior semi-finals and by a strange quirk of fate, both players died only a week apart in 1937. Morenz died after he received a broken leg in an N.H.L. game at the Montreal Forum and Morrill met a tragic death in an industrial accident at the International Nickel Plant in Port Colborne.

Rodden was really sweet on Morrill and he induced him to go for a try-out with the Toronto St. Pats. Bobby turned out for one practice, and according to Mike, he was a sensation. But he was convinced that he was not fast enough as a skater to hold his own in the N.H.L. and he never went back.

So Morrill went to Port Colborne where he became the toast of the canal town for many years when the Sailors ruled the roost in the Senior O.H.A. ranks.

We saw a carbon copy of Bobby some thirty years ago when his eldest son, Allan, spearheaded the Collingwood Greenshirts to four straight O.H.A. Junior “C” championships.

The fading art of stickhandle ran in the blood of the Morills. Four of Bobbie’s nephews, Barney and Ab Walmsley and Morrill and Ab Kirby left their marks on the Collingwood hockey scene over the past four decades.

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.

Lindsay was born in Collingwood, Ontario on September 7, 1955, the youngest of six children. He began skating at age three on an outside rink at Wasaga  Beach, Ontario.

In the summer of 1962, Lindsay moved with his family toToronto. In the fall of 1962 at age seven Lindsay began his hockey career by joining the Bert Robinson Minor Hockey League at the tyke level.

He played in this league until 1964. After winning the league championship the
first year, he played a second year of Tyke house league hockey for Bert Robinson and a third Tyke year for the Bert Robinson “Hornets”. In 1965, he switched to the George Bell Hockey Association where he played for their M.T.H.L. representative for the next three years of Minor Atom, Atom, and Pee Wee level hockey. Over the next three years, these three teams accounted for three Metropolitan Toronto Hockey League
Championships, three Ontario Minor Hockey Association Championships, a Silver Stick Hockey Championship (Port Huron, Michigan) and a Quebec Pee Wee “AA” Championships (Quebec City).

In 1968, Lindsay transferred to St Michael’s College Arena to play Minor Bantam for Toronto Olympics (M.T.H.L.) the following year playing for Foster Firebirds (M.T.H.L.) in the Bantam division. Lindsay was selected as the Toronto Telegram’s All-Star Goalie in the M.T.H.L. Lindsay enjoyed two successful seasons of Junior “B” hockey, including selection as the Western Division’s All-Star Goalie in the Junior “B” All-Star game and the All Ontario Junior “B” Championships.

In 1977, Lindsay signed as a ‘free-agent” with the New York Rangers. He split his 1st year of professional hockey between the New Haven “Nighthawks” of the American League and Toledo “Goaldiggers” of the International Hockey League, leading the “Goaldiggers” to the Turner Cup International Hockey League Championship while being voted First All Star Goalie.

The second year (1978-79) Lindsay led the New  Haven “Nighthawks” to the Southern Division Championship of the American Hockey League.

The following six years of professional hockey involved being drafted second by the Winnipeg Jets in the 1979 N.H.L. expansion draft. He split his time between the Jets and their central Hockey League Farm Team, the Tulsa Oilers. In 1981 Lindsay was names second All Star Team Goalie in the C.H.L. and in 1982 first All Star Team Goalie. Lindsay played for the Minnesota North Stars, New Jersey Devils and the Edmonton Oilers.