Category Archives: Inductee – Gender

1900 - 1929, All, Athlete, Builder, Golf, Male, Other

NORM RULE

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Norman Rule qualifies for Collingwood’s Sports Hall of Fame as a competitor and a builder.

This pioneer sportsman passed away in 1973 at the age of ninety-six, a member of Collingwood’s first hockey team organized eighty-nine years ago in 1894.

It was mainly through the organization ability of Mr. Rule that the first team came into being. He borrowed a pair of cricket pads and took over the goalkeeping duties behind such pioneer players as Ed Elworthy, Charlie Norris, a man who later became vice-president of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, Date Andrews, Reg Brown, later a wealthy business man in British Columbia, Fred Hopkins, who lost his life in Klondike Gold Rush in ’98, and Bill Toner, who had the honor of being elected Collingwood’s first hockey team captain.

Norman Rule could be classed as one of the town’s first all around athletes. He was a better than average ball player, an outstanding golfer and his name is on the Ontario Tankard Curling Trophy won by Collingwood in 1913.

His contribution to hockey alone rates him as a candidate for the Sports Hall of Fame but his real value came in the promotion and organization of sports in general. I have five individual trophies, all won by Norman Rule, stored at my home at the present time.

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

ROY BURMISTER

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They called him the “Hockey Traveler” and for a very good reason. During  the twenty-one years of his active career as an amateur and professional he  performed for no fewer than fourteen teams in six leagues including thee
seasons in the National Hockey League with the old New York Americans.

He was one of the fastest skaters ever turned out of this hockey town of Collingwood. He was 130-pound, five-foot-six, fifteen year-old little rabbit had a tough time making the 1921 Collingwood Junior team, perhaps the greatest junior club to represent Collingwood in O.H.A. competition. That was the year that the
Collingwood Bees almost knocked off the famous Stratford Midget, led by Howie
Morenz. They must have been good. Four members of that team Burmister, Bern
Brophy, Artie Clark and Clyde Dey went on to pro careers.

Roy starred for two more years with Collingwood junior and intermediate teams, went to the Owen Sound Greys in 1925, to Niagara Falls under the late Gene Fraser in the senior ranks in 1926 and that same season Niagara Falls became pat of the newly formed pro International League. He signed for eight hundred dollars and a job.

The New York Americans took him up to the big time from New Havens in 1929 and for the next three years he drew down N.H.L. pay while shuffling between the
Americans and New Haven.

It was a pretty good financial situation for Roy, as he beat a path between New
Haven and New York, but the shuttle service arrangement cost him a couple of
Americans League scoring championships. It seemed that every time he got up
there in the American League scoring lead, the Amerks ran into injuries and
back to the Madison Square Garden went Burmister.

In the succeeding years he played for Boston of the Americans League, London and Windsor in the International, back to the Americans loop with Philadelphia, Galt in the old Ontario pro league, two championship years with St. Louis in 1935 and
1936, then to St. Paul and finally closing off his career with Kansas City.

He came back to the amateur ranks in 1941 and played for Collingwood in the O.H.A.
Senior “B” series. So after two decades and over a thousands hockey games, Roy
finally called it quits.

How many goals did he score in that time? We will never know. Roy never kept track of them and it would take a team of researchers to go back over the books in six leagues.

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

JOHN BURNS

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No Sports Hall of Fame could complete without a special corner for Johnny Burns, one of the most courageous players ever to wear the Gold and Blue colours of the Collingwood Shipbuilders.

He never played for any other club but Collingwood and he was the driving force on the front line of a team that won five O.H.A. Intermediate championships in ten years from 1910 to 1920.

Playing junior hockey for three years before moving up to the intermediates, Burns teamed up on the forward line with Rabbi Fryer, Tom Collins and Jack Belcher in 1907.

That was Collingwood’s first year in the O.H.A. final and they lost to the famed Berlin Union Jacks.

IN 1908 Collingwood lost again in the final round, this time to the ancient rivals,Midland. But in 1910,13,18, 19 and 20 the Shipbuilders lifted the John Ross Robertson Trophy and a major share for the team’s success belongs to Johnny Burns. His deadly shot and playmaking ability was matched only by his dogged courage and his ice generalship.

A total abstainer, Burns kept some of the more exuberant players in line, especially the tempestuous Rabbi Fryer.

His career almost came to an end in 1909 when he was critically injured but Wiarton’ Bill Simmie in the O.H.A. semi-finals round. Burns hovered between life and death for many days. He not only recovered but went to star for twenty more years with the Collingwood Shipbuilders.

During his career he found time to coach ten junior teams, including the great Collingwood team in 1915, captained by Hall of Famer Reg Noble.

He was an artist in the rink corners, which let Bill Cook to remark after the Kingston-Collingwood Intermediate final in 1920. Going into the corner with Jack Burns is something to remembered coming out of the corner that time, with two fractured ribs.

Burns came out of retirement in 1931, with the late Frank Cook and Jack Dance, to help the Oddfellows win the Collingwood Senior League title.

He died in February, 1964.

 

1950 - 1969, 1990 - 1999, All, Builder, Male

WILF “SCUTT” BELL

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He was born December 11, 1912 in Grandview  Manitoba and moved to this area
at the age of 6. He married S.E. (Nellie) Brock in 1942 and together they raised four children, 2 son, Allan and Jim and two daughters, Betty and Barb.

For several years he was an avid curler and member of the Collingwood Curling Club.

Wilf was the patriarch of softball in Nottawa both as a player or as a coach or as a
manager. He played softball from early school days as a catcher. Few base
runners could beat his peg from the plate to second base, always hit well over
.300 and gave everything he had in every game, even if the game was exhibition.
This trait continued into his coaching/managing career. He was a member of the
ball team of 1925 and was still with them 50 years later.

He started the first outdoor skating rink in Nottawa. Bob Martin and Wilf drew hot
water from Smart’s Cannery on First   Street in Collingwood to flood the rink. He shared the dream of having a recreational park with ball lights in Nottawa and this
dream came true in 1969. He was a member of the Nottawa Recreation Committee
who without government grants, worked diligently to realize their dreams.

He was coach of the Nottawa Jardine Midget Club who won the Provincial Championship in 1967; they also won the Blue Mountain Softball title 3 years in a row. That same year the Nottawa Brocks Senior Ball Team won the All Ontario. Most of these players had played under the direction of Wilf in previous years. Therefore a village of 400 boasted two Provincial Championships in one year.

Five members of the 1967 Ontario Midget Championships, Don Gallagher (Collingwood Police Department), Bob Gallagher (Collingwood Police Department), Brad Leno, Les Draper and Dennis Rowbotham (Metro Police Department Mounted Division)became police officers. Jim Bell became a Veterinarian. Wilf also helped to
coach school teams under the direction of Joy Burkholder and Wayne Hartle. In
1977 Wilf coached the Nottawa Daals to the sixth championship in a row.

Wilf started his hockey career in 1960/61 as a manager. He managed teams coached by Dennis Robinson, Harvey Pearen, Cliff Rimmington and Bill Gurney. In 1967 he
managed the Legion Vets, who went on to become All Ontario Finalists, losing to
Leamington in a best of three series. He managed teams on which Paul Shakes and Randy Osburn played, both of whom went on to become NHL players.

Many of the boys managed by Wilf still play hockey today as well as on of his
coaches, Harvey Pearen, who plays on the Beaver Lumber Oldtimers over 45’s.

Wilf’s home was always open to the “young people” and many hours were spent
replaying the “games” until Wilf’s death on April 28, 1984.

1930 - 1949, 1950 - 1969, 1970 - 1979, 1970 - 1989, All, Builder, Hockey, Male

EDDIE BUSH

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Eddie bush is Collingwood’s most famous hockey export over the past thirty five years
and certainly the most colourful.

Eddie makes the Collingwood Hall of Fame on three counts-as a player, a coach and a
builder.

This brash, flamboyant, swashbuckling competitor came a long way since he made the Collingwood Junior as a kid from the other side of the east end track back in
the hungry thirties.

Bush was a winner right from the start. He hated to lose and he expressed nothing but contempt for anybody who took defeat too lightly.

He qualifies as a builder because it was Bush who revived hockey in Collingwood after it had sunk into the doldrums for more than a decade.

He put this town back on the hockey map in 1951 when he closed off his active pro career to give Collingwood three consecutive Junior “C” provincial titles and a pair of back to back Intermediate “A” championships missing a third one after a great series with the Simcoe Gunners. What a work horse he proved to be in those golden years of Collingwood hockey in 1951-52-53. Coaching the juniors, acting as player-coach with the Shipbuilders and still finding time to impact his great hockey skill and experience to the minor hockey teams from Pee Wee to Juvenile.

He turned professional with Detroit in 1938 and the sporting public knew all about it the first day he arrived in Detroit. Jack Adams was not too shocked with the flamboyance of his introduction because he had been exposed to the Collingwood elements years before with Reg Noble, Sailor Jim Herberts and Bern Brophy.

At any rate he sent Eddie to Pittsburgh and Kansas City for seasoning but he was back in the big time in 1941-42. The big fellow had his best season in 1943 and you will find his name in Stanley Cup records.

In the third game of the Stanley Cup finals the Wings beat the Leafs 5-2 and Eddie helped himself to a goal and four assists. That single game scoring record for a defenseman still stands. Bush looked to be on his way to a brilliant N.H.L. career, but, as in the case of Portland,  fate stepped in. Eddie joined the R.C.A.F. and when the war ended thee years later, it was just too late.

His playing career, however, lasted almost ten years more with Cleveland, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Sherbrooke and finally back in his old home town.

But he continued in the game that has always been his life as a very successful coach at Collingwood, Guelph, Hamilton, Pittsburgh, Memphis, Quebec, Richmond and the Kitchener Rangers. He got back in the N.H.L. as a coach for part of the season with the Kansas City Scouts in 1976.

He was a good football player, better than average ball player and expert at darts and is still pretty nifty with a dollar.

1930 - 1949, 1950 - 1969, All, Builder, Male

NORMAN BOADWAY

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Skiing in the Collingwood area has come a long way since 1935 when a group of public
spirited citizen had the foresight to see that this winter pastime would some
day put the town and the whole Blue Mountain District on the map.

The whole country was in the depths of the Great Depression when a hundred dollars
looked like a small fortune.

One of the men who realized that there was “Gold in them there, Blue Mountains” was the late Norman Broadway.

He came to Collingwood in 1918 after his discharge from the Royal Canadian Navy,
still recuperating from injuries suffered in the Halifax explosion.

The late John Smart and Norman were driving up from Toronto one Sunday night watching the avalanche of cars speeding back in Toronto from the ski resorts in Huntsville. Norman remarked. “We have bigger and better hills in Collingwood. Why can’t we get in on the action.”

It may have been an “off-the-cuff” remark but it triggered a dream that eventually came true a few years later.

Mr. Smart, who was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame, in 1978, and cut the Mr.
Boadway, lost no time in exploring the ways and means of getting the ball rolling.

They induced Fritz Loosli, a Swiss pro, to come to Collingwood and cut the first
trails after they negotiated a rental deal for the old Doherty property. An old log cabin was turned into a club house and the Collingwood Ski Club was eventually in business.

Now for a ski tow. The answer came when John David Eaton donated the motor from his wrecked Chrysler. The motor powered a wooden sleigh tow and the sleighs ere
built by the late Robert Morrill. The seats were built in Boadway’s cellar.  During the first winter, Norman operated the motor and John sold tow tickets. The tickets sold for ten cents each.

Through his connections as manager of the Collingwood Terminals Ltd. elevator, Norman got Senator Peter Campbell and Gordon Leitch, a pair of big time financers, interested in the development. The rest is history. The development of the ski trails was not the only cause pioneered by Norman Boadway.

He was the driving force behind the birth of the Blue Mountain Crippled Children’s
Camp and the first Collingwood Yacht Club and the founding of the H.M.S. “Hood” through the Collingwood Branch of the Navy League. He helped organize the Collingwood Horticultural Society and served for many years on the General and Marine Hospital Board.

His interest in curling included the donation of the Collingwood Terminals Cup in
the late thirties. Norman Boadway died in October, 1965, in his 67th year.

1980 - 1989, All, Builder, Male

FRED BROCK SR.

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This man was a driving force in having a referendum for the building of the Collingwood Community Arena in 1948.

He is placed in the Builders’ Category of the Hall, but was also a fine athlete. He was a long-distance runner and a swimmer in his younger days.

Mr. Brock helped form Collingwood’s Junior and Senior hockey leagues in the
1930’s, donating the trophies. He also organized Collingwood’s first swim meet.

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

GEORGE “CHUB ” BUTTERS

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Chub Butters could be classed as one of Collingwood’s best all around athletes because he excelled in track and field, hockey, football, basketball and swimming.
While attending the Collingwood Collegiate he won the Intermediate and Senior track and field  championships in 1932 and 1933. A foxy broken field runner on junior and senior high school football teams, he was a star half back with the 1933 Central Ontario Secondary Schools Senior champions in 1933 when his team defeated St. Catherines 12-9 in the final. Chub scored the winning touchdown.
In Inter-Collegiate track and field competitions he set school records in the 100 and 220 yard sprints and in the low hurdles.
His long amateur hockey career started in the old Collingwood Junior Town League when he captained the champion East End Club. At the age of 15, Chub made the Collingwood Junior O.H.A. team and after four years in junior company graduated to the Intermediate Collingwood Shipbuilders.
In 1937, he played for Geralton in the Northern Ontario Senior “A” series and then performed two seasons with Timmins in the same league. Returning to Collingwood in 1940, he played Senior “B” and Intermediate “A” for his home town until his retirement from hockey in 1952.
In 1951 he captained the Collingwood Shipbuilders, under coach Eddie Bush, to the provincial championship. He was outstanding in the finals series against Fort Erie.
He was considered one of Collingwood’s most outstanding swimmers and divers and in the summer of 1929, won the first Collingwood Aquatics Cup with five firsts in swimming seconds to Don McMinn, one of this town’s really great distance swimmers. He liked to remember how he played on the wing with Rabbi Fryer
when that great old timer played his last game against Midland in 1934.
He was also a better than average softball player with the Pros in the old Collingwood Softball League and he had a one-season fling at the game of lacrosse when the late Lou Dique tried to revive the game in 1927.

1930 - 1949, 1950 - 1969, 1980 - 1989, All, Baseball, Hockey, Male

JAMES “TUB” BARRETT

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James “Tubby” Barrett was one of the slickest stick handlers in  Collingwood’s long hockey history and one of the games most potent scorers.

Small of stature but as tough as a pine knot, the “Tub” made monkeys out of the opposing defensemen thirty years ago when the famed Collingwood Greenshirts won four consecutive O.H.A. Junior “C” titles and the Intermediate
Shipbuilders won two back to back titles in 1951 and 1952.

In his hey day he worked on a super forward line with Allan Morrill and the late Frankie Dance. The scoring records of this remarkable junior hockey trio will probably stand forever.

One night I saw this line rack up 37 scoring points in a 20-3 win over Barrie. Barrett collected five goals and nine assists, Morrill had six goals and six assists and Dance chalked up three goals and seven assists.

During the four-year reign of the Greenshirts in O.H.A. Junior “C” company, Tub scored 174 goals, 139 assists for a total of 313 points in 113 games.

The line of Barrett-Morrill and Dance scored 444 goals during that four-year span.

At the same time, Barrett and Morrill, took part in the Intermediate “A” play-offs in 1952 and 1953, adding two more O.H.A. Medals to their collections. They played no small part in the winning of the two Intermediate titles for Eddie Bush. Tub Barrett and Allan Morrill picked up six O.H.A. championship medals in four years-the record still stands.

Barrett started his hockey career with the Collingwood Midgets in 1945 and was a member of the star studded Collingwood Clubs, winners of the Ontario Juvenile title in 1949. He tool a fling in the Scottish League in 1954 but came home before the end of the schedule and finished that season with Bracebridge. He played two more seasons with Collingwood before calling it a career. We have no way of compiling an accurate record of Barrett’s goal scoring total over his brilliant ten year span, but a conservative estimate is four hundred goals.

His athletic prowess was not confined to hockey. Tub was a member of the Collingwood Midget baseball team, Ontario Midget champions in 1947, under the coaching of Brit Burns.

He was good enough to receive a pro tryout at a baseball camp in Toronto in 1949 as a catcher. From 1949 to 1952 he played baseball with Collingwood, Thornbury and Creemore and was a member of The Stayner O.A.B.A. Intermediate champions in 1957 and the Collingwood provincial finalists in 1958.

His shelf of silverware, with medals and trophies, representing provincial championships, include: one juvenile, four junior and two intermediate hockey medals, plus a junior and an intermediate medal for baseball at the provincial
level.