Category Archives: Sport

1980 - 1989, All, Builder, Male

LLOYD YOUNG

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“Porky” Young will not only be remembered as one of the most rugged and effective defensive players in Collingwood’s hockey history, but he earns a special niche in the Sports Hall of Fame as a developer of young players in the minor hockey system.

Apart from his rearguard work as a member of the Collingwood Intermediate Shipbuilders, he will long be remembered for his coaching with the famed Collingwood Cubs.

“Porky” took over the Collingwood Juveniles in 1948 and the following year brought this team to the Ontario title without losing a game. The Cubs had reached the finals against Port  Colborne on the previous year after a five-game series that ended
with a sudden-death game in Midland. The Port Colborne star was none other than
Bronco Horvarth, now a member ofCanada’s Hockey Hall of Fame.

“Porky” started out in the junior town league at the old park arena and quickly graduated to the OHA juniors in the early thirties.

When he jumped to Intermediate, he teamed up with the legendary “Rabbi” Fryer and later with another Hall of Famer, the late Lawrence “Dutch” Cain.  He played his best hockey against Owen  Sound and his rugged-body-checking style brought the wrath of Owen Sound fans.  His brilliant rushing style played a large part in the 1939 Intermediate “A” title, won by the Shipbuilders, under the coaching of the late Bern Brophy.

An active and energetic member of the new arena committee, he was instrumental in the bylaw vote which gave Collingwood the Eddie Bush Memorial Arena on Collingwood’s main street.  “Porky” and the late Fred Brock (also a Collingwood Hall of Famer) went door to door during the bylaw campaign in 1947.

In 1949, he was offered the coaching job for the Brampton Juniors but turned it down as he was about to take over a business in Dundalk.

He was a solid softball player in the Blue Mountain League and once won the batting championship and the Most Valuable Player award.

It should be pointed out that the championship juvenile team, built and coached by Young in the late forties, converted to the Junior “C” ranks as a team and won four straight championships.

Lloyd “Porky” Young was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame, in 1986.

1950 - 1969, 1970 - 1979, 1970 - 1989, All, Male, Skiing

WERNER ZOTTER

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Werner Zotter was born to ski in his native Austria, a country famous for champions down through the ages.

He came to Canada with his parents at the age of nine in 1953 and it was not long before he was recognized as an up and comer.

Werner practically lived on the slopes of theBlueMountainbut he found time to launch a modest minor hockey career. He was a better than average goalkeeper on several teams in the Collingwood Minor Hockey system.

In 1959, he won the Southern Ontario Zone championship, repeated in 1960 and won the Canadian title the same season.

A year later, Werner won the Zone title again and annexed the Alpine and Nordic titles with the Ontario Combined.

The same year he captured Junior championship and in 1962 was crowned the Ontario Senior Champion.

His greatest season was in 1966 when he won theOntariofour-way title (Downhill, Alpine, Jumping and Slalom), the Canadian Junior Alpine and his crowing achievement, the Wilkinson Sword Speed Trails atGeorgianPeaks. On that day he averaged eighty-four miles per hour in three downhill runs. It was a record that has never been broken to this day.

He won several competitions in theUnited Statesin 1967 and 68 and came back to win the Southern Ontario Alpine in 1969.

The next two years he coached Canadian Junior team in Trail and later was a ski instructor and coach at Broadmore, Colorado.

Werner spend  many summers in California but returned to Blue Mountain to work with his father in Zotter’s Ski Shop.

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

RON “KING” TAYLOR

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In Collingwood’s rich sporting history, Ron’s nickname “King” is acknowledged as one of the most used sports’ monikers in Collingwood. Born in Singhampton on November 6, 1936, Ron has lived in Collingwood since 1946. Ron has one daughter Polly and three grandchildren who continue to reside in Collingwood with Ron. A graduate of Victoria Public School and Collingwood Collegiate, Ron continued his studies at the Ontario Fire College – Gravenhurst where his distinguished firefighting career included Fire Chief for the Town of Collingwood. Ron’s passion for sports ensured his year-round participation. However, he excelled in hockey and baseball where his triumphs have resulted in his induction as a member of the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame on June 12, 1998 in the Players’ category.

In 1965, Ron was a member of the Collingwood Shipbuilders OHA Senior B Championship. On the ball diamond, Ron’s Stayner Motormen won the 1957 OBA Intermediate A Championship. Ron’s active interest in the fine details of the game allowed for his easy transition as a coach of the 1976 & 1977 Kinsmen Midget baseball teams. Additionally, Ron has worked behind the sporting scenes as a 17 year member of the Collingwood Parks and Recreation Board, Past President and Life Member of the Collingwood Kinsmen Club, and original member of the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame acting as a Director for many years. Ron played an instrumental role in the creation of Old-timer Hockey and the Masters Division Slo-pitch in Collingwood.

 

1950 - 1969, 1970 - 1989, 1990 - 1999, All, Builder, Male, Skating

JOHN THOMAS

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“Men weren’t supposed to figure skate back then”, said Thomas, “I just went about my business and did what I had to do, and what I wanted I wanted to be. I had a wonderful career. I met a lot of wonderful people over the years”.

Thomas was 1955 champion in the Northern Ontario Junior Mixed pairs. He was a 1956 Bronze Medalist for the Northern Ontario Junior Men’s competition. He was also champion of British Columbia Junior Men’s competition and a British Columbia Bronze champion in 1958.

Nationally, he won the Western Canada Silver Junior Men’s Championship in 1958. Thomas started the Stayner figure skating club in 1959 with the Stayner Lions Club. During his 19 year professional career, he spent a lot of time coaching and teaching in several towns. He said somewhere along the line he and his coach decided that mentally challenged children deserved the chance to skate. “We devised a method of teaching them, and it gave them something to strive for” said Thomas, “after being all over it was nice to give something back”.His aunt and cousin are also in the Hall of Fame as volunteer “builders” of sports clubs.

He skated until 1978, long enough to skate in an annual town skating carnival with his two daughters Sheri and Monica. He said that many things have changed since he last skated. He used to take his own luggage onto a Trans Canada (Air Canada) plane. He also said figure skating used to be an art, now it’s a sport!

John Thomas was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame June 17, 1994. John was honoured for his figure skating career and his work with the mentally handicapped.

2000 - 2009, All, Builder, Male

RON TIMPSON DR.

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Whether it’s been for the elite or recreational athlete or the junior hockey player, local resident Dr. Ron Timpson has been a physician and supporter of sporting activities for almost 50 years.

“It really started back in 1968 at the Olympics in Mexico when we had 100 kids running for Canada come down with diarrhea,” said Dr. Timpson. “Diarrhea isn’t usually a major problem, but when you’re representing your country the next day, it’s a problem.” Dr. Timpson, a Sarnia native, helped form the Ontario Medical Association’s section for sports medicine with Drs. Alan Bass and James Melvin in response to the need of medically support for those athletes. He became president of the OMA’s sports medicine body in 1974 and oversaw the Canadian Academy of Sports Medicine a year later, and was also a member of the five-person medical team who treated Canadian competitors at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. “Those were the first efforts at an organizational level of getting physicians who were involved with sports and had an interest in them together,” Dr. Timpson noted.

Junior hockey watchers in the area are no doubt aware of Dr. Timpson’s contributions to the sport at the grassroots level. He began his affiliation in hockey circles while training to be an MD in Edmonton with the Jr. ‘A’ Oil Kings and the WHA’s Flyers. He moved to Wawa, Ont. in 1962 and decided to help out with the Jr. ‘B’ team and the Northern Ontario league’s establishment. After moving to Collingwood, he would serve as the Collingwood Jr. ‘B’ Blues’ physician and consultant from 1969-81. With wife Ruth and three children, Dr. Timpson also farmed for several years in Duntroon. He became medical director of the Collingwood Sports Medicine & Rehabilitation Centre in 1991.

1980 - 1989, All, Builder, Male

JIM TROTT

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Minor Hockey in Collingwood has gained much from the dedicated work of Jim.
Outside of the community, the Ontario Minor Hockey system has also gained because of this dedication.
Jim was a member of the OMHA Executive Committee, from 1953 to 1957.  In addition to his time on the Executive Committee, Jim was also a certified OMHA referee throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s.
James Trott was elected to the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame – Builder’s Category in 1984.

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

RAY CREW

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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.

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

JIMMY “THE SAILOR” HERBERTS

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Collingwood has been the birthplace of many colourful sports characters over the past seventy-five years and the Sailor must rank high on the list.

We have always thought that he never received the recognition he deserved and apparently Connie Smythe thought so too.

When Jimmy died in 1968, Smythe said, “Herberts was the most underrated player in the N.H.L. because too much attention was paid to his fun loving antics. But he was one of the best of his era and a natural hockey player.”

He had a ten-year career with Boston, Toronto and Detroit and several years with International League clubs. He also took a fling at refereeing in the British Hockey League but his antics were just a little too much for the staid English hockey promoters.

He was a star right from the start in his rookie year with the Bruins as he scored seventeen goals and picked up ten assists in a 30-game schedule. This was a most remarkable feat when you realize that the goal production for the whole Boston team that season of  1925 was only forty-seven goals.

The  season of 1925-26 was his best. Playing between Carson Cooper and Hugo Harrington he scored 27 goals in 36 games and finished third in the standing behind the great Nels Stewart and Cy Denneny. In 1927 he finished fourth in the
scoring race and the Bruins made the Stanley Cup finals for the first time. The Ottawa Senators defeated the Bruins that season two games to nothing with two games tied. The Sailor’s contribution was three goals.

Jimmy moved on to Toronto in the middle of the 1928 season but although Smythe valued his ability, he  refused to put up with his frolicsome behaviour and his utter disregard for training rules. He finished his N.H.L. career with Detroit where he succeeded in helping Jack Adams to acquire a cluster of ulcers. He once upset the whole scoring structure of the league by claiming two points for one goal. In a game against New York Ranges he managed to recover his own  pass and score. According to Jimmy’s calculations an assist counted a point and so did a goal. Since he was the passer and the scorer it just had to be two points for Herberts. Of course, he didn’t get away with it, but he had the official scorer puzzled for awhile.

Herberts had that race gift of showmanship that kept his name in sport pages. A Detroit writer panned him once for failing to show up for a game. Jimmy was as mad as wet hen. Not for the panning. He was ruffled because the writer misspelled his name.

1930 - 1949, 1950 - 1969, 1970 - 1979, All, Male, Track & Field

ALEX MACMURCHY

The careers of many great athletes have been directly or indirectly affected by wars.

Such was the case of Alex MacMurchy, undoubtedly Collingwood’s most successful long distance runner who twice represented Canadain International meets and crowned his brilliant career by winning the Canadian and Allied Army Cross Country championship in Holland in 1945.

At the tender age of sixteen he had the brashness to enter a race against such top Canadian runners as Percy Wyer, Jim Bartlett and Jim Wilding over the full marathon distance of 26 miles, 385 yards.

He was matching stride for stride with the big guns until he tore off a running shoe between Washago and Orillia and dropped back to 25th place. He changed over to a pair of ordinary street shoes, passed sixteen runners and finished in tenth place.

A few months later he gave Scotty Rankine a good run in the C.N.E marathon.

The following year he won eight major races and finished fourth behind Dick Wilding, Bill Reynolds and Jim Cummings in the Hamilton marathon. It was his third marathon in two months. He rolled up another string of victories with the Forest Hill Recreation Club and then won the three-mile C.N.E. race over a field of the best runners of  Canada and the U.S.A. In the British Empire trails at Hamilton, he lost a shoe at the end of the first half-mile lap and finished in his bare feet, only five yards behind Rankine and Longman. He was considered a cinch to make the Canadian Olympic team in 1939 but the war cancelled out the 1940 Olympiad and Alex had already joined the armed forces.

1970 - 1989, 1990 - 1999, All, Football, Male

RYAN POTTER

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Back in 1974, running back Ryan Potter, donning CCI’s gold and black, dominated play in Simcoe County during his high school years, but had to ask for a tryout with the University of Western   Ontario Mustangs.

The first year I was at Western there were 45 running backs trying out for the team.  “It was ludicrous” said Potter.  “They ended up keeping six of us, and I was fortunate enough to be one of them.”  Potter went on to have a five-year career in the Canadian Football League, and at the time was only the second Collingwood resident to ever get that far – the first being Jack Portland.  But it was with the Mustangs that the tailback enjoyed his greatest success.

During his four-year playing career at Western, from 1978 -81, the Mustangs went 35-8 and won three consecutive Yates Cup Championships (emblematic of the Ontario university title).  Potter was awarded the Dalt White Trophy as most outstanding player in two of those championship games – ’79 and ’81.

He had 1,172 yards on just 130 carries and ranks 10th on Western’s all-time yardage list, despite being the only player among those top 10 who had less than 200 carries.

Ryan started his career at Western with two fellow-freshmen running backs, Greg
Marshall and Mike Kirkley, who would form over the next four years perhaps the
most dynamic threesome in Canadian university football history, said Larry Haylor, long time head coach of the Mustangs.  “We have always been motivated at Western by team goals and it’s testimony to Ryan’s character that he always placed team before self.”

In the 1982 CFL Canadian College Draft, Potter was chosen in the third round by
the B.C. Lions, who would later draft a couple of other Collingwood residents,
Scott Lecky and Reinhardt Keller.  He played for four years with the Lions
and one more with Calgary before calling it quits.

At CCI, Potter was the captain for two junior teams, yet he played only one year
of senior because of his age.  A two-way player, he won CCI’s athlete-of-the-year on two occasions.

Potter is married with two daughters and is a sales trainer for a pharmaceutical
company.  He recently moved to Toronto from Vancouver. Ryan Potter was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame in 1994.