All posts by Mark

1990 - 1999, All, Builder, Male

JACK GRIER

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Born in Winnipeg on July 10, 1920, Jack moved to Collingwood in 1965. Married to
Genevieve, they have two daughters Jackie and Brenda. Jack was schooled in the
Winnipeg and Owen Sound school systems and graduated from the Northern Business College.

Jack’s coaching career was highlighted by many championship titles won at every level of hockey ranging from Minor to the Senior ranks. A summary of his coaching
career includes; 1964-66 Collingwood Shipbuilders Senior A – Senior A Group
Champions and Eastern Canadian Allan Cup Semi-Finalists; 1967-68 Collingwood
Georgian China Senior A – Senior A Group Champions; 1968-69 Collingwood
Georgian China – Intermediate B; 1969-75 Collingwood Minor Hockey – PeeWee,
Bantam, Midget – Kinsmen PeeWee Finalist Silver Stick.

Jack became a worthy member of the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame on June 12, 1998 in the Builders’ category.

1950 - 1969, 2000 - 2009, All, Golf, Male, Other

AL GREIR

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Since playing Old Timers he has competed in over 2000 games, many
tournaments, won many medals, too numerous to mention. Alan coached Minor hockey for twenty years.

Football 1952,53,54,55 – Played football for CDCI

Track & Field 1952,53,54,55 – Competed in 100, 200, half mile, pole
vault and 2 Senior Championships, also numerous track events including the
Tud-Hope meets & represented central Vancouver Island at the Senior B.C.
Summer Games.

1950-59 – Numerous Hardball and Fastball Teams in Collingwood, winning
Fastball Championship in 1959.

Golf 1953 – CDCI Golf Championship

1958 – Collingwood Golf & Country Club Handicap Championship

This evening June 9, 2000 marks the induction of Alan Greir into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame in the Players’ category.

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

LARRY GIBBONS

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Larry Gibbons makes the Sports Hall of Fame as an aggressive all-around athlete.

Born in Collingwood, he grew up fast and always looked three or four years older  than his team mates and opponents when he performed for the minor hockey and ball teams.

He came through the Collingwood Minor Hockey system and looked like a Juvenile  when he played bantam, much to the consternation of the other kids and their parents.

Larry drew the attention of the scouts when he played a major part in helping the Collingwood Bantams reach the finals in the Bantam Division of the O.M.H.A.

After a season with the Collingwood Junior “C” club, he was drafted by the Toronto Marlboros and sent to the Markham Junior “B” club for the 1965-66 season where he was named to the Metro Junior “B” All-Star team.

Drafted in the second round by the Chicago Black Hawks while still Midget age, he was assigned to the St. Catherine’s Black Hawks in the Junior “A” loop for two seasons in 1967 and 68.

Although he never made the N.H.L. he played eight years in the Black Hawk organization.

Larry joined the Greensboro Generals in the Eastern Hockey League in the 1968-69 season and was with the same team when the Generals won the Southern Division championship in 1970.

He jumped back to Senior “A” hockey with Oakville in 1971 and was voted the league’s most valuable defenseman.

After another season with the Greensboro club in 1972 he went to the Flint Generals in the International League where he set a team record in scoring for defensemen in 1973.Flint won the Northern Division championship.

He starred with the Dallas Black Hawks when that team won the Central League title and the Adams Trophy in 1974.

After another full season with Dallas, Larry moved back with the Flint Generals in the International League and retired at the end of the 1975-76 season.

For three summers he directed the Detroit Red Wings Hockey School in Bracebridge and for two more summers conducted the Wasaga Stars School at Wasaga Beach.

He coached the Alliston Juniors to the Ontario semi-finals before calling it a hockey career.

Larry was an exceptionally good football player and was named the most valuable player with the Collingwood Collegiate Seniors in 1965.  He had considerable placed well up in the Ontario Schools Ski Racing programme.

Always a lover of horses, he became a certified farrier and was assistant manager of the Ontario Harnessmens’ Association for two years. Involved as an owner, trainer and driver of Standard Bred horses since 1972, Larry owned and operated the Intosh Harness Supplies Ltd. and Custom Blend Horse Feeds, coupled with a busy mail order horse supply businesses and the operation of the Tack Store at Windsor Raceway.

His uncle, Alex MacMurchy, a well known former long distance runner, was one of the first athletes to be inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame.

1950 - 1969, 1970 - 1989, 1990 - 1999, 2000 - 2009, 2000 - 2009, All, Athlete, Male

JIM GEORGAS

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Jimmie is an ageless sports legend, a lifelong advocate for physical fitness and not surprisingly, a tenacious, fearless, no-quit competitor.

His athletic talents spans numerous decades as he dominated the sports of skiing, cycling, duo-athlete and runner.  He has won 200+ duathalons including 10+ world & 14 national and provincial masters duathalon championships.

Jimmie has won an astonishing 209 out of 257 masters cycling events that feature hill climbs, time trials, criteriums and road races. As a runner, he participated in 39races ranging from 5-10 kms. taking home 30 gold, 6 silver and 3 bronze medals.

In addition to his membership in the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame, Jim’s accomplishments are honoured in the Owen Sound and Ontario Ski Pro Hall of Fame.

 

1900 - 1929, 1930 - 1949, 1970 - 1979, All, Hockey, Male

ERNIE “RABBI” FRYER

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Back at the turn of the century a Collingwood hockey coach watched a wiry red headed nipper weave back and forth through thirty or forty kids on a west end mill pond.

He wore a pair of beaten up spring skates and he carried a home made hockey stick. With that stick he performed miracles with a wooden puck. He only relinquished possession of that wooden missile when he felt like a rest.

That was the last time Ernie Fryer ever played on a mill pond. He was quickly injected into the line-up of the Collingwood Shipbuilders and for the next three decades he wrote his name across the record books of the Ontario Hockey Association.

He played his entire hockey in Collingwood with the exception of the two-season stint in Northern Ontario and a season with a senior club in Toronto.

He captained and spearheaded the Collingwood Shipbuilders to five Intermediate “A” provincial titles in 1910-13-18-19-20. He and Frank Cook turned down a pro offer from the Montreal Canadians mid-way through the 1920 season.

They said at the time that they could not leave Collingwood with the Shipbuilders on the way to a third straight championship. Of course, the amateur rate of pay was pretty good in those boom days of the early twenties.

The late Lou Marsh once said, “Rabbi Fryer was the greatest amateur player Iever saw. Everything he did in a hockey rink came natural.” Fryer was a legend in his time and he was still good enough to command star rating at forty-eight years of age. I saw him play his last game in Midland in 1934. He scored two goals and drew five penalties. He was his own policeman right to the end. When the final bell sounded, a thousand fans jumped the boards to shake his hand. The rest of the team was dressed and back in the hotel before Fryer left the rink. It was the first time I ever saw anything but fire in his eyes, but there were tears that night. It was the Rabbi’s finest hour.

We have no hesitation in inducting Ernest Fryer as the first member of Collingwood’s Sports Hall of Fame. He died November 15th, 1969. We will never see his like again.

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

CHARLES FRYER

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In Collingwood, Charlie Fryer was known as an all-round athlete, but he was best known in baseball and hockey.

The only position Charlie played on a baseball field was pitcher, and later in the fifties after pitching spectacularly with the Collingwood Chev-Olds baseball club, Charlie would continue to show his excellence by being invited to the spring training camp of the St. Thomasclub in the Inter-County baseball league, not making the club due to injuries.

As a hockey player, Charlie was no stranger to championships, having been a defenseman on six all-Ontario championship teams.

Charlie eventually worked his way up to be captain of the Collingwood Greenshirts that won three consecutive all-Ontario Junior “C” titles in 1952-53-54.

As well as playing for the Greenshirts, Charlie while still junior age, was called up to play on the intermediate Shipbuilders team.  Again, his play and leadership style helped win two more Ontario championships.

Charlie has been a referee of minor and recreational hockey for 30 years.  He is carded to referee CMHA finals, OMHA, the Central Ontario Hockey League and Western Ontario Hockey League.

When he finished playing hockey and baseball, Charlie returned to Collingwood where he was assessor for the town form 1960 -1987, leaving that position due to health reasons.  During that time, Charlie stayed involved in the Collingwood Minor Hockey Association coaching Midget and Juvenile teams.

1990 - 1999, All, Builder, Male

JOHN FREUDEMAN

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John was born in Guelph, Ontario on October 28, 1935, and at the time  of his election to the Hall he was living in Collingwood, with his wife Betsy  and their three children.

Following his schooling at Guelph, Teeswater, Wingham and the University of
Western Ontario, John moved to Collingwood in 1962.

Reasons for naming John to the Hall of Fame are many and as a builder he rates high
with all of the others in the Hall. A summary of the work and dedication of this man to Collingwood is seen in the following:

– Member of the executive of the Collingwood Ski Club

– Director of the Collingwood  Blue Mountain Golf and Country Club

– Director of the Collingwood Senior hockey club

– Director of the Collingwood Intermediate hockey club

– Manager of the all-Ontario 1974 Collingwood Juvenile hockey championship team

– Coach of many teams at Collingwood Collegiate Institute

–  Chairman of the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame and principle in the building
of the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame room

– Co-chairman of many Collingwood Summerfest Slo-Pitch Tournaments.

John Freudeman was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame on June 20,
1992, in the Builders’ category.

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

TOM FOLEY

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Very few old timers are alive to-day to recall the rowing exploits of Thomas “Iron Man” Foley.

The glamorous days of the great waterfront regattas are long past but seventy-five years ago rowing was the number 1 sport in this neck of the woods.

Foley built his own sculling shell and he learned the rudiments of the game without benefit of a professional coach. But he met and defeated some of the greatest scullers of his days-Jack Gaudaur, father of the president of the Canadian Football League, Matt Bisley, Mel Herman, Ben Dempster, Billy Gerioux, Frank Gaudaur, Billy Hamilton and Bob Kennedy- the rowing giants of the eighties and the nineties.

Jack Gaudaur, winner of the famed Diamond Sculls and a consistent winner in the Henley-On-The-Thomas classic, met Foley twice. Foley beat him in Midland and Jack reversed the decision in Orillia on Dominion Day, 1896.

Bob Kennedy was the American champion seven years in a row and Tom Foley beat him twice in one afternoon.

At the height of his career he hung up his oars. He was in the process of raising a large family and building a successful leather tanning business and he could not afford the time to train. It was Ned Hanlon,Canada’s greatest oarsman, who said. “Foley could have won a world title had he stayed another three years”.

Tom Foley died May 4th, 1939. We have always regretted that many of his trophies were destroyed in the fire which swept through the Huron Institute about 25 years ago.

1980 - 1989, All, Builder, Male

CLARENCE “RED” FAWCETT

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Red Fawcett was born in the South End of Collingwood, a section of the town that
produced many great athletes over the past eighty-years.

An exceptionally clean athlete, but an aggressive one, Red starred at every game
he chose to play; Hockey, softball, basketball, football and track and field.
He played them all and he gave everything he had in every contest.

I remember him when he was a freckle-faced kid of eleven or twelve. We kept chasing him away from the ball diamond because he was too small but he kept coming back. He made the South End team with players six years his senior.

Red did not pursue hockey after he left the junior ranks, other than town league,
due to business pressure, but he could have made the Intermediate “A” club anything up until his early thirties.

He possesses a wicket shot from the wing and was an artist at picking the top corner of the net from what seemed to be an impossible angle.

He was always up with the first three scorers in the town league but I think his greatest winning goal came on the night of March 12th, 1934. It was the third and final game of the play-offs between his West End club and the old Central Tigers. The
score was tied at 4-4 and Red had taken a rough ride for 58 minutes from a trio of rough customers-Don Haney, Frank Mirlees and Bill Calvert.

Red knew there was nothing to do but “take it” because Buck Walton was the referee and Buck was never one to quibble over a bit of rough stuff. It had to be a deliberate butt-end, a cross check across the mouth or a twenty-foot charge before Buck would hand out a penalty. The clock said 20 seconds to go when Red stick handlers through the entire Central team and blazed a shoulder high shot past Bob Patton for the winning goal and the championship.

That was the same year that the Town League All-Stars took on the Intermediate
“A” team and beat then 6-5. Red had a pretty fair share in that victory. He scored three goals, including the winner. The year 1934 was a pretty good year for Red from a sports standpoint. After starring on the championship hockey team he helped the old Collingwood Grads win the Blue Mountain Softball League title. He pitched five games for the Grads that season and also played centre field shortstop when he wasn’t on the mound. His batting average was exactly .400, second highest in the league.

Red was not the fastest pitcher in Collingwood softball history but he had perfect
control. In the outfield he could go back deep for the long hits or come in fast to pick low liners of his shoe laces. He could throw strikes from centre field to the plate. When playing the infield he dug everything out of the dirt between second and third and could knock the first baseman down with that peg across the infield.

In the many years I watched him play hockey and softball, I never once heard him
dispute the decision of a referee or an umpire.

It was the same when he played for the Collingwood Collegiate.

A steady block of granite on the line in football, a tough guard on the basketball team and a steady point winner on the track and field team. Red Fawcett was a gentleman and a sportsman. Need we say more?  He died in 1972 at the age of sixty.

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

VICTOR “VIC” ELLIS

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At age ninety, Vic Ellis is the oldest living member in the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame.

A lifetime of competition in many branches of sport, especially in golf and curling, has filled his home with so many cups and trophies that it now appears he has a corner on the silver market.

Born in Kimberly, Ont., Vic starred on baseball and soccer team before baseball and soccer teams in 1911, winners of the Grey County soccer cup.

Vic played on Collingwood baseball and softball teams for thirty years and was a member of the Collingwood senior baseball team of 1922, O.A.B.A. finalists and champions of the Georgian Bay League.

A school teacher in Collingwood for twenty years, Vic was the driving force behind the organization of the one-hundred member Tuxis Boys and Trail Rangers in the 1920’s.

A member of the old Collingwood Golf and Country Club and the Blue Mountain Golf Club for the past fifty-five years, he has been a perennial member of the Men’ Golf team and fifteen years ago won the Blue Mountain Handicap Trophy. In July 1943, he shot a hole in one for the first and last time in his golfing career.

However, this versatile athlete gained most of his fame as a expert exponent of the game of curling.

A past president of the Collingwood Curling Club, Vic has dominated the “roaring game” for sixty years.

Just two years ago he skipped the winning rink in the Markdale Mixed Curling tournament and in 1979 led a Creemore rink to the Quebec International Bonspiel Championship and the Marc-Hellaire Trophy.

This is a major curling feat at any time, but at eighty-seven, it was nothing short of a phenomenon.

Back in 1936 he skipped a rink in the Ontario Tankard competition and during his lifetime of curling won at least thirty trophies, including the Norman Rule Cup, the Currie Cup, the C.S.L. Trophy, the Enterprise-Bulletin Shield and the Chamber of Commerce Cup.

In 1956 he skipped the first Collingwood rink to ever score an eight end. It was a mixed team with Mary Colling, Evelyn Kean and Johnny Walker.

A lifelong member of the Smokey Island Hunt Club, Vic never missed a deer hunt in six decades.

His involvement in service clubs, charitable organization and the Masonic Order is legend. He has the distinction of presiding over all three branches of the Masonic Order in Collingwood. W Master of the Manito Lodge, “Z” of the Manitou Chapter and was first President of the Manito Shrine Club. Vic also served as president of the Collingwood Progress Club, chairman of the Victoria Order of Nurse, president of the Collingwood Curling Club, director on the General and Marine Hospital Board and a moving force behind the development of the Senior Citizen Club and the Meals on Wheels service.

His contribution to society was finally recognized two years ago when he was selected as the Citizen of the Year. His induction into the Sports Hall of Fame was delayed because of the rule that no person is eligible until after retirement. We had to waive that rule in the case of Victor A. Ellis – he is never going to retire.