Mike Brophy was one of the slickest stick handlers ever to come out of theEast End mill pond.

His hockey career lasted fifteen years, ten of them in the professional ranks. His athletic ability was not confined to hockey for Mike was a hard hitting football halfback, a softball pitcher and infielder of not and a much better than average golfer.

The size of his hands, like two Maple Leaf hams, always fascinated me. He could take a football from the centre, wrap his fist around the leather and sail through the line with both arms flailing. Mike played his first organized hockey with the Collingwood juniors in 1924.

In 1925, he was a member of an outstanding Collingwood junior club that unfortunately ran into the Owen Sound Greys in the first round. The Greys, with Cooney Weiland, Butch Keeling, Ted Graham and Dutch Cain, went on to win the
Memorial Cup.

Mike went to Owen Sound in 1926 and that club ended up in the O.H.A. Junior finals against Aura Lee. He turned professional with the Chicago Cardinals in 1927 and the next year found him in Hamilton in the old Can-Pro League under the coaching of Hap Holmes. The following year, Holmes moved the whole team to Cleveland in the International Leagues and Mike’s traveling days were over.

He became a hockey landmark in Cleveland and stared with that team for eight years until the end of his active career. During that time he helped Cleveland win the Calder Cup and three times led the league in scoring and made the All-Star team four times.

At one time he played with three other Collingwood born players on the Cleveland team-Reg Noble, Artie Clark and his brother, Bern.

Mike should have had a crack at the N.H.L in 1930 a deal was all set for a trade with Montreal Canadians but Holmes balked and kept him in Cleveland.

Mike never got the chance again. He organized, managed and played for the Pros in the first Collingwood Senior Softball League.

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.

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.