Category Archives: Sport

1930 - 1949, 1950 - 1969, 1970 - 1989, 1990 - 1999, 1990 - 1999, All, Golf, Male

CHARLES REEVES CONNOLLY

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Charles successful golf career spanned 5 decades from the 1930’s through the 1980’s.

As a champion track, football, rugby, basketball, curling and hockey player while attending Collingwood Collegiate, he was awarded the Senior Athlete Award in 1940. On the course, he won seven club championships + 20 tournament victories throughout his 50 year golf career. He finished 2nd in the Ontario Senior Championships in 4 consecutive years between 1964-67. In 1973, he won the International Senior’s Golf Society event at Gleneagles, Scotland.

In 1984 and 1985, Charles won the Canadian Senior Golf Tournament for golfers 70-74 years.

Connolly joined the Canadian Air Force before working with Ontario Hydro and the Credit Union bank.

Throughout his golfing travels, Charles recorded 3 holes in one!

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

WHIT HAMMOND

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Whit Hammond makes Collingwood’s Hall of Fame as a lacrosse player, speed skater and hockey player.
Eighty years ago he was one of the brightest stars in Canadian lacrosse but at that time he was raising no cheers from Collingwood fans. Wearing the colors of the Owen Sound Crescents he sank many a ball a Collingwood net and we were happy to see him move to Collingwood in 1908.
A fierce competitor at all times, he was a driving force behind Collingwood hockey teams for many years.
He played goal for the Shipbuilders in 1908, the first Collingwood team to reach the O.H.A. Intermediate finals.
His speed skating feats are legendary and as a speed skater he was indirectly responsible for starting a Canadian fighter on the road to the World Heavyweight Boxing title. That may sound like a kooky kind of a statement but it is true. Back in 1900, Whit Hammond and Noah Brusso of Hanover, Ontario, were considered to
be the best speed skaters in the country but they had never met in a race.
Brusso was charged with “ducking a match race with Hammond” and Brusso replied by accepting a match race with this remark. “If Whit Hammond beats me I will hang up my skates forever.” Hammond beat him in three straight heats for a trophy filled with silver dollars at Hepworth. Noah Brusso was true to his word.
He did hang up his skates and put on a pair of boxing gloves and changes his name to Tommy Burns.
It was a wise and profitable choice for the Hanover speed skater. A few years later on Feb. 23rd, 1906, he defeated Marvin Hart for the World heavyweight crown-the only Canadian ever to reach the pugilistic pinnacle.
Whit Hammond was one of the great athletes of his time. He died in Collingwood in 1959.

1970 - 1979, All, Builder, Harness Racing, Male

CLARENCE “SHORTY” LOCKHART

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The name of Shorty Lockhart must have top billing when Collingwood harness racing
history is written Horsemen like Paddy Stone, Joe Welch and Paddy Neville were
big names in the sulky game at the turn of the century but Shorty completed dominated the scene for thirty-five years. Born in Honeywood, Shorty farmed in the Osprey district before he took to harness racing seriously in his early twenties. His
first good horse Dorothy Peters, was an instant success and he always likes to
talk about Make Believe, a handsome trotter that won him forty races in a
single season.

As implicated by his nickname, “Shorty” is small of stature but his courage and determination offsets the size handicap. He needs nobody to run interference for him because the little man from the Osprey Hills has always been on his own.

One of his greatest triumphs was a victory with Sonny Creed against top drivers like Keith Waples, Dell McTavish and Harold McKinley. Three outstanding match races stand out in his memory; Two against his old rival, Honourable Earl Rowe at Greenwood with Make Believe and at Grand Valley with Dorothy Peters. His match race with Sonny Creed against Dr. Morrish’s – Lochlinvar King was staged before the largest crowed ever to witness a harness race at London Raceway.

Shorty has trained and owned more than one hundred trotters in his days. His ace pacers, Sonny Creed and Single Chips have carried him over the mile at 2.03 at one time ore another and A.W. Chips and McCarr Hanover have stepped it in 2.04 with Shorty in the sulky.

He has fine memories in the racing exploits of such fine horses as Dorothy Peters, Make Believe, Dr. Fleet, Laurentide, Prince Demon, True Spencer, Frisco Van R., Alex Hardy and Collingwood Boy.

Clarence “Shorty” Lockhart has left his mark on the big tracks like the Blue Bonnett and Richelieu in Quebec, Greenwood, Mohawk, Garden City, the old Thorncliffe and Dufferin in Ontario and Batavia and Hamburg across the border.

He just had to be No.1 in the harness racing section of Collingwood’s Sports Hall of Fame.

1970 - 1979, All, Builder, Male

WALTER ROBINSON

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Born in Streetsville, Walt Robinson came to Collingwood with his parents as a very
young boy.

He played hockey, lacrosse and baseball for Collingwood junior teams in the early
parts of this century but his mark was made as a coach and trainer.

Walt played and coached to win and he never tired to cover his contempt for laughing
losers. He regarded a loss as a team to show it on their faces.

He started coaching Collingwood hockey and lacrosse teams in 1910 but his greatest
success came in 1918-19-20 when he guided the Collingwood Shipbuilders to three
consecutive O.H.A. Intermediate “A” championships. Newly Lalonde
brought him up to the international Hockey League as a trainer with the Niagara
Falls Cataracts in 1930. He ended up coaching that team when Newsy quit in mid
season.

The Falls club disbanded and Walt went back to the O.H.A. where he brought the
Parry Sound Shamrocks to the Junior semi-finals.

For the next three years he was head hockey coach for the R.C.A.F. at Camp Borden
and twice brought the Flyers top the semi-finals.

He finished his coaching career with Collingwood in the early thirties.

On Walt’s recommendation, Leo Dandurand signed Jack Portland after only one year’s experience in Intermediate ranks. Portland starred for ten years in the National Hockey League and was a member of the  Stanley Cup winning Boston Bruins in 1939.

Walter Robinson died on June 23rd, 1968. He was seventy-eight.

1970 - 1979, All, Builder, Male

JOHN SMART

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The development of skiing at Collingwood has been a process that had been continuing since 1934. This was the formative year when the plans were laid for the first active winter of 1934-35.

A number of people were involved but the one who spear-headed the organization of the Blue Mountain Ski Club of Collingwood was John L. Smart.

He was not an active skier, but he was very active in the administrative area. He provided an influence that was needed to stimulate the growth of a sport that was need to stimulate the growth of the sport that was not yet considered to have other potential.

Mr. Smart was involved with the acquisition of land, the cutting and clearing of trails, the contact that was made with the Toronto Ski Club and the subsequent  collaboration, the installation and building of ski tows, and eventually, the placing of club activities on a business basis.

When the late Jozo Weider became involved with the Collingwood Ski area, Mr.  Smart worked closely with him, later serving as an officer of the Blue Mountain Ski Club incorporated.

Through the years, he played an important role in the affairs of the Collingwood Ski Club, giving wise counsel and encouragement when it was required.

John L. Smart was one of the few Collingwood men who had the vision to see the full value of skiing as a sport and as a local industrial enterprise.

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.

1980 - 1989, All, Builder, Male

ROBERT “ROSE” BUSH

Everybody has a secret dream, no matter how small, and everybody lives for the day the dream will come true.

For many people the dream of a lifetime never materialize but there is always that
hope that lies beneath the human breast.

But a lifetime dream did come true for the late Robert “Rose” Bush on June 23rd, 1978, when Bob Bush cut the traditional ceremonial ribbon to officially open the “Old Village Park” in Collingwood’s east end.

They couldn’t have selected a more appropriate citizen to do the honours because AA park for the east enders’ had long been Bob’s Slogan since he was first elected to council years ago.

The “Old Village” takes in that historic territory between Niagara and Raglan Streets and runs north and south from the waterfront to Shannon’s Bridge. Rose was born and raised in that hallowed section and had been regarded as the unofficial Mayor of the Old  Village for most of his adult life.

An outstanding athlete in his younger days, Bob Bush learned to skate on the east mill pond, learned to swim in the old stone quarry (the exact site of the Village Park) played ball in the rock strewn back lots, speared long neglected gravel road that was Raglan Street. When he was fifteen he vowed the east end kids would some day have a park of their own. That park is a reality now and it can stand as a monument to Robert “Rose” Bush.

The Rose took part in about every phase of sport and he kept the sporting fraternity well informed regarding the sporting scene as a columnist with the Enterprise-Bulletin, and in later years, with the Collingwood Times. He played hockey with the Collingwood Juniors after coming up through the town’s minor hockey system, starred on several championships softball teams and was the prime mover in the organization of that fabulous Collingwood Bearded Softball Team during the town’s Centennial year in 1958.

He was a better than average lacrosse player, a hard plunging half-back with the C.C.I. football team and a talented left handed baseball pitcher. In baseball he was a picture but when he switched to softball he became a left hand catcher-and a good one.

He started out with the old Trinity Live Wires around 1938 in the Senior Softball League but he switched to the Legion club after a couple of seasons and moved over to the Pros and helped brother Ed win two league championships.

Rose handled a pretty nifty lacrosse stick when the game made a short lived comeback in Collingwood around 1937.

Rose acted ad bench manager when the Collingwood Greenshirts were winning O.H.A. Junior “C” titles in the early fifties. His brother Ed coached the Greenshirts at that time and this arrangement created repercussion at times. Ed fired Rose about twice a month but blood was thicker than water and the dismissals lasted only from one game to another.

The Rose pulled on punches in his breezy column “Out on the Limb”. His
newspaper career was interrupted for three years during World War 11 when he served with the R.C.A.F. in North Africa, Italy and France. In later years, before suffering a stroke in 1975, he wrote another sports column in the Collingwood Times.

Bob died in 1980. He was fifty-eight.

1950 - 1969, 1970 - 1989, 1980 - 1989, All, Hockey, Male

CLAIRE ALEXANDER

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Born in 1945, this fine hockey player came up through the ranks of the Collingwood
Minor Hockey System.  He had played in numerous leagues previously but had
been rejected by umpteen more. On the strength of his booming shot, Alexander
once won a scoring championship playing Senior hockey with the Collingwood
Shipbuilders.

Following a nomadic Junior career, Alexander became one of the hockey’s last great amateur players.  After a brief stint in minor-pro hockey in the mid-1960s, he returned home to Ontario and took a job as a milkman, while continuing to star with local senior amateur teams. A skilled defender with a booming shot, Alexander led the Orillia Terriers to the Allan Cup , awarded to Canada’s top amateur club, in 1973

He turned professional with Knoxville and in 1972 the Toronto Maple Leafs talked Alexander into giving pro hockey another chance, and he joined their Central Hockey League affiliate, the Oklahoma City Blazers the following year. He was an immediate hit, as he scored 60 points and was named the league’s top rookie and top defender.

In 1974-75, at the age of 29, Alexander was called up to the Leafs, making his NHL debut at the age of 29. He finished the season with 7 goals (including a hat-trick) and 17 points in 42 games. He spent most of the next two seasons on the Leafs’ roster, posting 21 points in 81 games, and made his most notable contribution in the 1976 playoffs with 6 points in 9 games.

For the 1977-78, Alexander was traded to the Vancouver Canucks. He split the season between the Canucks and their farm team in Tulsa, but made a substantial  contribution with 26 points in just 32 games in Vancouver. The following season, he moved to the  WHA with the Edmonton Oilers, posting 31 points on a team featuring Wayne Gretzky in his first professional season. He then spent two season playing in Germany for a two-year term, later coaching a junior team there and another team in Switzerland the year after before retiring in 1981.

Following his retirement, the Leafs hired him to coach their AHL affiliate in St. Catharine’s in 1984. In 1985, his preference for a private life to raise his family resulted in Claire leaving the organization.

Alexander finished his career with 18 goals and 64 points in 155 career NHL games, along with just 36 penalty minutes. He also recorded 8 goals and 31 points in 54 WHA games.

He played on Toronto Metro Old-timers, world’s champions for 1983.

Nowadays, he cheers on his daughter Buffy, representing Canada in rowing for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Beijing will be the third Olympics for Buffy Williams, who won a bronze medal with the women’s eight in Sydney in 2000 and placed fourth in the women’s pair in Athens in 2004 with partner Darcy Marquardt.

Claire was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame in 1984.

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, Hockey, Male

BILL ALLAN

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Although he excelled as an all around athlete, Bill Allan’s hockey career made him a
real traveling man. Not counting his minor hockey activities, Bill played on
nine teams in three countries and two continents.

Born in Victoria Harbour, he played minor hockey in Midland before moving to Wiarton, where his late father served as government Indian Agent.

The Allan family moved to Collingwood in 1935 where Bill made the Junior team the
first time out. After three years with the Collingwood Juniors he moved north
with Don Jeffery to Pomour Mines in the NorthernOntario Senior “A” League.

In 1939, Bill and Jeff came back to Collingwood just in time to help the
Collingwood Shipbuilders win the O.H.A. Intermediate “A” championship
under Bern Brophy.

He moved to the Port Colborne Sailors in 1940 and in 1941 joined the R.C.A.F.
During his training period as a wireless operator he found time to perform for
the R.C.A.F. team and the Truro Bearcats.

Following his discharge after the war, Bill moved out to the Pacific Coast League where he starred with the Portland Eagles in the years 1946-47-48.

He was on the move again in 1949 and this time he crossed the Atlantic
to play a bang up defensive game for the famed Harringay Greyhounds of the
English League.

It was back to Collingwood in 1950 as the Shipbuilders went to the finals against Port Colborne. Jack Portland, just back from a long N.H.L. career, coached that team.

Bill teamed up with Eddie Bush as the Shipbuilders won the O.H.A. Intermediate
“A” title in 1951. A severe eye injury put him out of action for most of the 1952 season but he came back to finish up his career with the Shipbuilders, Intermediate “A” finalists in 1953. He commanded the Kiwanis Ai Cadet Squadron and coached minor hockey teams for a number of years.

Hockey was not his only sport. Bill Allan can be rated as one of the best softball
pitchers ever to perform in the old Blue Mountain League. He pitched on two
championship ball teams in the early fifties with the Canadian Legion and
Trott’s Pros.