The Hugh Davidson Cup that is presented each year to public school students is a tribute to this former school principal who was entered into the Sports Hall of Fame as a
Builder in 1984.
He organized many sporting competitions during his many years as Principal of Victoria School.
They called him the “Hard Rock” and there never was a more suitable moniker to describe this rugged little policeman of the ice lanes in the days when hockey players had to be rugged to survive.
John Dance played in the shadow of such great Collingwood stars as Rabbi Fryer, Jack Burns, Frank Cook, Harold Lawrence, Angus McKinnon and the Foulis brothers but it was his back checking and bodychecking that gave the stars the chance to shine.
He played junior for several years before he made the Intermediate club in 1911, the year after the Shipbuilders won their first O.H.A. title.
The team missed out in 1911 and 1912 but it was Dance who knocked down the obstacles and led the team to the championship again in 1913.
It was his greatest year. He skated interference for the big scores and took many a thump that was meant for the top scorers, Fryer, Burns and Lawrence, but his goal came in the big clutches.
Three times on the way to the final round, Dance came through with game winning goals. Collingwood won the first game of the provincial final against London Acadians 6-5 and Dance poked in the winner. London won 2-1 at home and tied the round. The third and deciding game played before six thousands fans in Toronto went to the Shipbuilders 3-2. Dance scored one goal and set up the winner.
Collingwood did not win another championship until 1918 and once again John Dance bore the brunt of the enemy attack. He hung up his skates in 1919 but he took them down again twelve years later. With his old teams mates, Frank Cook and Jack Burns, he came back to help the Odd fellows win the Collingwood Senior Hockey title. He was forty-three years old at the time.
John Dance died on April 14th, 1965, in his 77th year.
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.
Frank was born in Sheet Harbour, Nova Scotia on May 2, 1923 moving to Collingwood in 1970 with his wife Elsie (inducted 2004). Along with their family of 5 children – Frank, Norma, Donna, Clyde and Vicky, the Cruickshank quickly immersed themselves into Collingwood’s vibrant sports scene.
Frank’s resume as a supporter of Collingwood minor sports is impressive. His
accomplishments include:
O.M.H.A. Coaching I,II,III, IV and Referee I,II, III; Executive role in Collingwood
Minor Hockey for 7 years including President in 1979; Coach & Manager role in teams ranging from Atom to Midget for 20+ years; Chairman and member of the Youth Education Committee, Royal Canadian Legion 1980-83.
Throughout Frank’s active involvement he has been recognized as the recipient of the Andy Morritt C.M.H.A. Award in 1974, Royal Canadian Legion of Merit in 1980
alongside a Life Membership. In 1995, Frank was the further recognized with the
Legion’s Meritorious Service Award in 1985 acknowledged as the highest award
awarded to Legion members.
Frank’s dedication culminated in his membership within the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame on June 12, 1998 in the Builders’ category.
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.
Charles successful golf career spanned 5 decades from the 1930’s through the 1980’s.
As a champion track, football, rugby, basketball, curling and hockey player while attending Collingwood Collegiate, he was awarded the Senior Athlete Award in 1940. On the course, he won seven club championships + 20 tournament victories throughout his 50 year golf career. He finished 2nd in the Ontario Senior Championships in 4 consecutive years between 1964-67. In 1973, he won the International Senior’s Golf Society event at Gleneagles, Scotland.
In 1984 and 1985, Charles won the Canadian Senior Golf Tournament for golfers 70-74 years.
Connolly joined the Canadian Air Force before working with Ontario Hydro and the Credit Union bank.
Throughout his golfing travels, Charles recorded 3 holes in one!
The late John Cooper was tragically killed in a car accident in 1985. But through his induction to the Hall of Fame, people will remember him for his involvement in the sport of five-pin bowling.
He was a natural, said Randy Osburn, when he was 12 years old he led his league in triple average with a score of 716.
In 1966, John won the zone finals of the senior boys’ competition, and than the Ontario finals at the Plantation Bowl in Toronto. That qualified him for the Canadian Senior Boys’ Five Pin Bowling Championships in Vancouver, B.C.
When the competitions were over John returned to Collingwood as Canadian champion.
The next year John and Greg Huntley set a new record in Canadian bowling. The pair bowled for 50 hours and 38 minutes consecutively. Between them they rolled 9,877 balls. John knocked down 43,130 pins including 690 strikes, and Greg knocked down 38,837 pins and 472 strikes during the period.
John was not only an active bowler, he donated of himself the time to become program director of the Collingwood Youth Bowling Council in 1971. He was also an executive of the Blue Water Five Pin Bowling Association and the Georgian Bay Bowling Association.
Bowling was John’s prime sport, but he also enjoyed outdoor sports, golf, fishing and skiing.
John Cooper was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.
A few years ago, the Ontario Hockey Association singled out the Collingwood Jr. ‘C’ Greenshirts as its Team of the Century for capturing four straight provincial titles in the early 1950s.
One of the leading scorers on that first championship team was Len Cooke, a skilled left-winger who was an all-around exceptional athlete during his elementary and high school days in Collingwood. In a span of five years, Cooke would play on four Ontario-champion hockey teams, beginning with the Brown’s Taxi juveniles in 1948-49, followed by the Greenshirts, followed by the Intermediate ‘A’ Shipbuilders during their celebrated run to glory. Then in 1952-53, an employment opportunity brought him to Simcoe, where Cooke helped the Gunners beat out Collingwood for the OHA crown. “What mattered most about those teams was that there were no individual stars and everyone did their part, right down to the executive,” Cooke said. “There are a lot of good memories and great people involved.” The native of Honora Bay, Ont., which is on the north shore of Manitoulin Island, also excelled in baseball and football in his youth.
He managed Beaver Lumber and Cashway Building Centres around the province until retiring four years ago. Cooke is a keen golfer with a five handicap who boasts club championship trophies from Blue Mountain, where he dueled often with fellow 2004 Hall of Fame inductee, Brian Jeffery, along with Port Dover and his current home course, Brantford Northridge. “I’ve lived in a lot of different places but I always consider Collingwood my hometown,” Cooke added. “Memories slip by but I’ll always remember what a great nucleus we had for those Jr. ‘C’ Greenshirt teams.”
This evening, October 23, 2004, the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame welcomes Len Cooke as an enshrined member for his Athletic achievements.
There was also the duty of serving in the Canadian Armed Forces in 1944-45. “In those days, scholarships were not worth that much and you had to work as well as pay a lot for the schooling, and there wasn’t enough to support that at home,” he said. Among his achievements were high school records in the 100-yard, 220-yard, 440-yard, 880-yard and mile races, along with the broad jump and shot put.
He also won several regional and military events thanks in part to the tutelage of local native and star athlete Charles “Bus” Portland. Cook was a keen volunteer and organizer who served as CCI student council president, and with the help of Marion Clarke and Blue Mountain Resort founder Jozo Weider, established the inaugural Collingwood Collegiate invitational alpine ski meet in 1947. He worked, then managed at Walker Stores outlets across Ontario and would settle in the hometown of his wife Mary, Carleton Place, where his family would own a store for 38 years until selling it in 1995.
During this time, Cook also served as a town councillor from 1960-64 and chaired a committee that oversaw business development for this Eastern Ontario region. He has three children, Richard, Mary Jane and Melinda. His granddaughter, Alex Cook, attends the famed Nick Bolleteri Tennis Academy in Florida, and grandson Brock Matheson plays for Brock University’s varsity hockey team after a successful run with the Tier II Jr. ‘A’ Kanata Stallions. “I can’t say my family hasn’t been holding up the athletic end of the bargain,” he quipped. “It’s been enjoyable to travel and see them perform.” In his later life, Cook still rides 10 miles a day on his bicycle, and is an avid skier and recreational badminton player. “It’s not a competitive thing. I just like to stay active and healthy!”
This evening, October 23, 2004, the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame welcomes Wallace ‘Wally’ Cook as an enshrined member for his Athletic achievements.
Frank Cook was the greatest goalkeeper of his time stated Bill Hewitt, secretary of the O.H.A. for 60 years, when Frank died on June 6th, 1931, in his forty-second year.
Born in Midland in 1888, he was a member of the Midland Junior O.H.A. champions in 1907, lured to Collingwood in 1909 to lead the Collingwood Shipbuilders to their first Intermediate championship in 1909-10 against London. Three years later, Frank backstopped Collingwood to another Championship in 1913 followed by 3 consecutive titles in 1918, 1919 & 1920. In total, Frank played on six O.H.A. Intermediate title winning teams between Midland and Collingwood.
Near the close of the 1919 season, Cook and Rabbi Fryer, were both offered pro contracts with Montreal Canadians.
“It may be your last chances to make the big time” said Darcy Bell, manager of the Collingwood team.
“We can’t leave Collingwood with the team in the finals” said Cook and the Rabbi agreed.
After retiring in 1924, Frank rose from his sick bed to backstop the Collingwood Oddfellows win the 1931 Senior Town League title. The opposition scored three goals off him in seven play-off games.
It was, perhaps, a sentimental gesture, but it stuck in the hearts of Collingwood fans forever. From that day, the names of Cook and Fryer have been spoken in reverence.
Lou Marsh thought he was born twenty years too soon and said. “Had he chose to turn pro he would have been rated as one of the best N.H.L.”
As it was, Frank Cook dominated the amateur hockey scene for seventeen years from 1907 to 1924.
Less than 3 months following Frank’s return to the ice in 1931, the town was collectively shocked to learn of Frank Cook sudden passing, truly Collingwood’s greatest goalie and one of the town’s most respected citizens.