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.

Donnie Hudson never weighed more than 140 Pounds, but he had the heart of a lion and can be considered as one of the fastest goalkeepers ever developed in Collingwood.

Born in Collingwood’s South End, he came up through the Collingwood Minor Hockey system from atom to juvenile.  When he finished his active career about 25 years ago, he had amassed a total of six OHA championships.

His first provincial title came in 1949 when he shared goalkeeping duties with Murray Blackburn, under the coaching of Porky Young, when the Peerless Collingwood Cubs won the Ontario Juvenile title without losing a game.

Then came four straight Junior “C” OHA championships with the Collingwood Greenshirts.  A feat that has never been duplicated in OHA history.

The Greenshirts finally lost to Welland in the 1954 semi-final round.  Roy Connacher was coaching the Midland team that same year, Midland had qualified for the final against Welland and Connacher, asked for, and got permission to use Hudson after his own goalie was injured.  Midland won the title and Donnie Hudson won his sixth straight provincial championship.

Like most star goalies of that era, Hudson rarely left his feet, but it was his lightening-fast hands that gave him the edge on other goalkeepers.

We can safely say that he made more stops with his gloves than his pads or stick. For this reason he was not bothered by those troublesome rebounds that haunted other goalies.

Hap Emms wanted Donnie for the Barrie Colts in Junior “A” company, but he finally and reluctantly decided that at five-feet five inches he was too small for the major leagues.  He had tryouts with Guelph and Kitchener and played one season with Queens’ University.  He played one year with the Collingwood Shipbuilders in Intermediate “A” hockey before hanging up his skates.

Ill health ended his active career 16years ago, but on his return from Texas continued to assist as a coach in the Collingwood Minor Hockey system.  Donnie was also a better that average baseball player during the fifties.

One month before his induction into the Hall of Fame, Donnie Hudson’s succumbed to cancer after a long battle on May 3, 1986.  He was 52.

He was the most artistic body checker ever to perform for a Collingwood hockey
team and must be ranked with the best hitting defensemen of anytime-professional or amateur.

Bon in Newmarket but a resident of Collingwood for forty years, Dutch was the kingpin on the 1935 Collingwood Shipbuilders, winners of the O.H.A. Intermediate “A” championship.

Dutch played hockey under the principle that a good body check should be heard and not seen. There never was a better demonstrator of that principle.

“The bigger they are, the heavier they fall!” said Dutch, and during his career he dropped tons of hockey beef over scorers of arena ice surfaces throughout Canada and the United States.

He weighed only 155 pounds but the answer to his great hitting ability was in the
timing. Dutch never ploughed directly into the path of an onrushing forward. All he needed was a piece of him.

Cain played junior hockey in his native Newmarket and was a member of the Owen Sound Greys, Memorial Cup champions of 1924-25. That was quite a team-Cain, Cooney Weiland, Butch Keeling, Teddy Graham, Hedley Smith and Fred Elliot. The team picture of the Greys is in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Weiland Graham and Keeling went on to stardom in the N.H.L.

In the following years, up until 1928, Dutch played with Eveleth and Calumet in the old Central League. Calumet won the title in 1927.

A few years ago Cain was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in Minnesota. Dutch returned to Canada in 1928 to help South Porcupine win the Northern Ontario senior title and then played on championship teams in the Eastern League with Baltimore Orioles and the Bronx Tigers. He was selected as the most valuable player in the league in the season of 1934-35.

He moved back to Collingwood in 1932 and was about to call it a career when he was
lured back into uniform by the late Walter Robinson, then coach of the Collingwood Shipbuilders. Dutch teamed up with big Jack Portland on the defense. Portland
was a good pupil and went on to a ten-year career in the N.H.L. his last season in 1935 was a winner.

Teaming up with playing-coach Bern Brophy, he helped Collingwood win the Intermediate title for the sixth time since 1910. He died the day after the founding of the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame.

Ab Hughes was 30 years old when he began his National Hockey League career. That is considered to be an advantage age for a rookie but he stayed up there for three years with the old New York Americans and went on to a successful coaching career in St. Louis.

Born in Guelph, Abbie started as a junior with Collingwood and immediately caught the eye of a Toronto hockey scout who induced him to come to Toronto in 1917. He was only sixteen at the time but he starred with Aura Lee and helped that team win the Ontario Junior “A” title.

His career was interrupted for almost three years when he served with the Canadian armed forces in World War 1 but he took up right where he broke off and was a
member of the Collingwood Intermediate O.H.A. champions in 1920.

He saw a great deal of senior action with Toronto, Hamilton and Welland and then signed a professional contract with the New Haven Eagles and later played two years with the New York Americans in the N.H.L. in 1931 and 32.

Scotty Carmichael  (founder of the Hall of Fame) was one of a group of Collingwood fans who made the trip to Toronto to see Hughes play his first game as a N.H.L. pro in the new Maple Leaf Gardens in 1931. What a show he put on for the home town fans. Abbie scored two goals and the Amerks beat the Leafs 3-2.

In the late thirties he was signed as a player-manager of the team fledging St. Louis
team in the American Association. He is credited with educating St. Louis to the ice game as he held skull sessions with the fans between periods and before games and organized the first hockey school.