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.

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.

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.

If there ever was a Lady Byng Trophy for amateur hockey players, Ab Kirby would have won it ten years in a row.

Through a career of twenty years in O.H.A. competition, Kirby’s penalty record could be written on the head of a pin. Here was a player who exploded the Leo Durocher theory that “Nice guys finish last”.

Collingwood born Albert Kirby played on championship teams in the junior, intermediate and senior O.H.A. series with Barrie, Collingwood and Owen Sound
and he was always up there with the scoring leaders.

One of the high points in his great career came in 1939 when the helped the
Collingwood Shipbuilders win the O.H.A. Intermediate “A” title. In sixteen games he scored sixteen goals and assisted on sixteen others. He went through the entire series without drawing a single penalty.

This shifty little centre man never weighed any more than 135 pounds (soaking wet)
but he held his own with the hard bumping giants of that era. One of the best
stick handlers of his time. Ab never had to resort to rough play. He was a
gentleman on and off the ice. Like his long-time team mate, Eddie Bush, Ab learned his hockey basics on the East End mill ponds.

He made the Collingwood junior club at age fifteen in 1934 and the following
season went to the Barrie Colts. Barrie won the O.H.A. Junior “B” title and Kirby scored 30 goals in the regular season. He picked up seven goals in the five-game final series against St. Michael’s College.

He was back in Collingwood in 1938 but had to sit out most of the season after
MIDLAND PROTESTED HIS ELIGIBILITY UNDER THE RESIDENCE RULE.

Re-instated in ,1939, he played for the Collingwood Shipbuilders under the coaching of former N.H.L. star, Bern Brophy, and the Shipbuilders won the championship. Kirby played on a line with Alvie Wilson and Greg Coulson.

Ab scored six goals and had three assists in the five-game final against the Port
Colborne Incos. In 1940 he moved up to senior company with St. Catherine’s with
Collingwood team mates Don Jeffery and Dick Tracey. That team went to the
O.H.A. Senior “A” final against the Toronto Goodyears.

Kirby added a senior championship medal to his collection when he helped the Owen
Sound Trappers win the Ontario Senior title in 1947.

But he came back to his home town in 1951 when Jack Portland came back from a
ten-year N.H.L. career, coached the Shipbuilders and took them to the O.H.A.
Intermediate “A” semi-final round.

He finished his career with Eddie Bush and the Shipbuilders in 1952 and 1953 when
the Collingwood club won back to back provincial Intermediate “A” championships.

Ab did not confine his athletic endeavours to hockey. He was a better than average
baseball and softball player and had a hand in coaching midget hockey and baseball teams. He was Brit Burns’ assistant coach when the Collingwood Juveniles won the O.M.H.A. championship in 1956.

Along-time director in the Collingwood Minor Hockey Association, he served two years as president.