Back at the turn of the century a Collingwood hockey coach watched a wiry red headed nipper weave back and forth through thirty or forty kids on a west end mill pond.

He wore a pair of beaten up spring skates and he carried a home made hockey stick. With that stick he performed miracles with a wooden puck. He only relinquished possession of that wooden missile when he felt like a rest.

That was the last time Ernie Fryer ever played on a mill pond. He was quickly injected into the line-up of the Collingwood Shipbuilders and for the next three decades he wrote his name across the record books of the Ontario Hockey Association.

He played his entire hockey in Collingwood with the exception of the two-season stint in Northern Ontario and a season with a senior club in Toronto.

He captained and spearheaded the Collingwood Shipbuilders to five Intermediate “A” provincial titles in 1910-13-18-19-20. He and Frank Cook turned down a pro offer from the Montreal Canadians mid-way through the 1920 season.

They said at the time that they could not leave Collingwood with the Shipbuilders on the way to a third straight championship. Of course, the amateur rate of pay was pretty good in those boom days of the early twenties.

The late Lou Marsh once said, “Rabbi Fryer was the greatest amateur player Iever saw. Everything he did in a hockey rink came natural.” Fryer was a legend in his time and he was still good enough to command star rating at forty-eight years of age. I saw him play his last game in Midland in 1934. He scored two goals and drew five penalties. He was his own policeman right to the end. When the final bell sounded, a thousand fans jumped the boards to shake his hand. The rest of the team was dressed and back in the hotel before Fryer left the rink. It was the first time I ever saw anything but fire in his eyes, but there were tears that night. It was the Rabbi’s finest hour.

We have no hesitation in inducting Ernest Fryer as the first member of Collingwood’s Sports Hall of Fame. He died November 15th, 1969. We will never see his like again.

We have often heard it said that Donnie Keith is one of the most mild-mannered gentlemen in Collingwood, until he puts on a pair of skates.

When he puts on a hockey uniform, it’s a different story.  He plays the game for keeps, gives no quarter and asks for none.  It has been like that for nearly 20 years since he helped the old West End Wildcats win the town league championship under Coach Reg. Westbrooke back in 1947.  He was the policeman on two great Juvenile teams when the Cubs went to the Ontario finals in 1948 and then won the title in 1949 without losing a single contest.

He jumped into the Junior “B” ranks with Guelph the following year and then spent two star-studded years with the Guelph “A” team in a league that boasted such coming NHL stars as Harry Howell, Lou Fontinato, Andy Bathgate and Dean Prentice.

He gained great respect in his knock-down, drag-out duels with the all time tough Fontinato.  Keith backed down from nobody and he took as much as he handed out.  Eddie Bush lured him back to Collingwood in 1951, and he was instrumental
in helping the Shipbuilders win a pair of OHA Intermediate “A” Titles.

He stayed with the Shipbuilders until the end of 1953 and then went over to the strong Meaford Knights.  His rugged-checking and accurate-shooting were the main cogs in Meaford’s OHA Senior “B” Championship.

That season he led the league in scoring and penalties.

Donnie played the last 10 years of his active career in senior company with Shipbuilders.  His OHA career spanned 20 years, but he is still starring with the Old Timers well into the 1990’s, along with such other old time Collingwood stars, as Robert Sandell, Don Rich, and Don Cook.

Don Keith was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame, in 1986.

The local sporting community was saddened when Don passed away 2010.

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.

Frank Cook was the greatest goalkeeper of his time stated Bill Hewitt, secretary of the O.H.A. for 60 years, when Frank died on June 6th, 1931, in his forty-second year.

Born in Midland in 1888, he was a member of the Midland Junior O.H.A. champions in 1907, lured to Collingwood in 1909 to lead the Collingwood Shipbuilders to their first Intermediate championship in 1909-10 against London. Three years later, Frank backstopped Collingwood to another Championship in 1913 followed by 3 consecutive titles in 1918, 1919 & 1920. In total, Frank played on six O.H.A. Intermediate title winning teams between Midland and Collingwood.

Near the close of the 1919 season, Cook and Rabbi Fryer, were both offered pro contracts with Montreal Canadians.

“It may be your last chances to make the big time” said Darcy Bell, manager of the Collingwood team.

“We can’t leave Collingwood with the team in the finals” said Cook and the Rabbi agreed.

After retiring in 1924, Frank rose from his sick bed to backstop the Collingwood Oddfellows win the 1931 Senior Town League title. The opposition scored three goals off him in seven play-off games.

It was, perhaps, a sentimental gesture, but it stuck in the hearts of Collingwood fans forever. From that day, the names of Cook and Fryer have been spoken in reverence.

Lou Marsh thought he was born twenty years too soon and said. “Had he chose to turn pro he would have been rated as one of the best N.H.L.”

As it was, Frank Cook dominated the amateur hockey scene for seventeen years from 1907 to 1924.

Less than 3 months following Frank’s return to the ice in 1931, the town was collectively shocked to learn of Frank Cook sudden passing, truly Collingwood’s greatest goalie and one of the town’s most respected citizens.