Category Archives: Year Inducted

SADIE HOUGHTON

The Blue Mountain Figure Skating Club has been on of the main attractions in the Eddie Bush Memorial Arena for the past 35 years (as of 1986), and the person almost totally responsible for its foundation was the late Sadie Houghton. She was an enthusiastic and accomplished skater herself and she lost no time in creating interest in the sport when the new arena was built in 1948. She found out the late “Mac” McDermid, the first arena manager, was once a member of the famed Granite Club of Toronto, and she immediately went to work on Mac to help with the formation of a club in Collingwood.

In 1951, the arena staged a benefit night for the General and Marine Hospital and Sadie make sure that several of her top skaters, including her niece, Joanne Houghton, Carol Brophy and Pauline Pitz were on the program. The skaters were an immediate hit with the crowd and The Blue Mountain Figure Skating Club was born with Sadie Houghton as the first president. The group became a member of the Canadian Figure Skating Association and Pauline Pitz and Joanne Houghton were the first two Collingwood skaters to pass the difficult Canadian Figure Skating tests.

Sadie remained as president of the club during its first four years and then was made honorary President for the rest of her life.

She spent most of her free time in the arena and made sure that every child got full opportunity to take part in the ice shows. Sadie died on May 17, 1960, at the age of 58.

Sadie Houghton was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame in 1986.

MARCELLA PLATER KEITH

Marcella Keith was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame in July, l984 through her exploits in Track & Field and Alpine Skiing.

Marcella was a recognized Track and Field Champion in 1946, 1947 & 1948 at meets in Kitchener-Waterloo, Owen Sound, Orillia. In 1947, she was the C.C.I. Girls Champion while in 1946 & 47 Marcella was 1st in C.C.I.’s inaugural Alpine Ski meet. In 1947, 1948 & 1949, Marcella was combined champion at meets in Huntsville, Own Sound & Collingwood.

Marcella was a graduate of Blue Mountain’s first Ski Patrol class in 1949. When not patrolling the hills to assist others, Marcella was crowned Collingwood Ski Club Senior Ladies Champion in 1963 & 1964.

The sporting community was saddened when Marcella passed away in November 2021

GRETA McGILLIVRAY

Skiing became part of Greta Jepsen’s life five years after she was born in the Caledon Hills and she followed the snow trails in competition and for pleasure for forty-five years.
A member of an athletic family, (her father, the late Svend Jepsen was once a star member of the Danish National Gymnastic Team), Mrs. McGillivray not only excelled in skiing but was proficient in tennis, swimming, gymnastics and figure skating. Ski training came natural as she skied two and a half miles to school every day in the wintertime from her Caledon home to Inglewood.
She went to work at Quebec’s Mount Tremblant in 1952 and started competing in all races in that area to gain rating with the Laurentian Zone. At that time there was no rating in Ontario. She won Class “A” rating with her performances at St. Savieur, Mount Gabriel, St. Jovite and Val Cartier.
Her first big victory came in the 1952 Tachereau, where she set a record. This success was followed by a Gold Medal win at Mount Tremblant and another record for women. In 1953 she competed in all the major Class “A” races-Ryan Cup, Canadian Championships, Kandahar-and finally was selected to go win the Canadian National Team to the North America and World Championships at Mount Mansfield, Stowe, in Vermont. At the world championships she placed thirteenth. In 1956 Greta won the Ontario Ladies Class “A” title and repeated in 1957.
She has won the Southern Ontario title six times and the Osler Bluff Senior championship on several occasions. Over the years she has taken a keen interest in the development of young skiers and at the present time conducts a cross country school two days a week in the winter months. Greta was been a valued official in local ski meets for twenty years – principally as a chief starter.
Mrs. McGillivray is very much into cross country skiing and she feels she is part of her beloved Blue Mountain. “There is no part of the Blue Mountain that is foreign to me. “I’ve criss-crossed its contours on foot and on skis and usually climb it three or four times a week. Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter- the Blue Mountain is my home” she stated recently. Mrs. McGillivray’s son and three daughters all competed for the Queen’s University Ski Team.
Greta McGillivray had come along way in the world of skiing since she cavorted over the hills of Caledon. She is a worthy and welcome addition to Collingwood’s Sports Hall of Fame.

 

KELLIE CASEY

In 1973, at the age of 8, Kellie Casey moved to the
Collingwood area with her family and promptly began
training for a career in freestyle skiing.

She attended school in Thornbury and Meaford before transferring to Collingwood Collegiate for Grade 12 and 13. At age 12, she decided that her main skiing interest was not freestyle but rather the challenging downhill events. She began competing in the Toronto Ski Club racing programs, her firm goal now was to be an Olympic downhiller.

In 1980, she made the Southern Ontario Division team. She graduated in 1982 to the Ontario team and began racing
internationally. Her top finishes in the Pontiac Cup series of 1982 and 1983 earned her a place on the development squad of the
national team in 1984. In 1985, she became a member of the Canadian
National Alpine Ski Team and began a regular tour of competition on the prestigious World Cup circuit. She competed and trained throughout the world, proudly carrying the name, Collingwood through many countries in Europe and America as well as into numerous major ski centres in North America. Injuries prevented her from a serious run at the 1984 Olympic Games in Sarajevo. In 1985, she placed 4th in Canada in the downhill. In 1986, she won the overall downhill title in the Nor-Am International series. In 1987, she vaulted into the 1st seed in the World Cup Downhill standings with 5th, 8th and two 12th place finishes in Europe just prior to the Olympics. She capped her bid for Olympic selection later that year with a 2nd place finish in the Canadian Championships.

At the Calgary Olympics on February 18, 1988 she was 7th out of the
starting gate. On a steep twisting high speed turn at the top of Mt. Allan she lost visual contact with the terrain and crashed heavily into a safety net. The resulting torn knee ligament ended her quest for an Olympic medal. Following surgery and extensive knee rehabilitation she returned to World Cup competition in 1989, still ranked in the first seed on the World Cup tour.

In 1990, during a downhill training run in Argentina, she sustained a back injury. This latest problem along with a still-imperfect knee was enough for Kellie to heed the medical advice, and call it a career.

Kellie attended the University of Guelph for a Bachelor of Commerce
degree, and Brock University for a Bachelor of Education. She has been a
special education teacher and a local ski coach for two decades. Her
passion is teaching youth at-risk and teaching Indigenous youth to
reconnect with their Indigenous ancestry while she does the same. She is devoted to her three children and still spends as much time as possible skiing with them.

Kellie still proudly calls the Collingwood area her home.

JOZO WEIDER

The name “Weider” will live as long as the Blue Mountain because that escarpment west of Collingwood will remain as a natural monument to Jozo Weider.

A former European ski champion, Jozo came to Collingwood from his native Czechoslovakia in 1940 as a ski instructor and manager of an area preliminarily developed but he Collingwood Ski Club.

He remained to mould this raw escarpment into a ski empire that is still growing
and will continue to grow with the passing years.

Bestowed with a remarkable sense of vision, perseverance in the face of adversity and narrow minded opposition, and a rugged physique, he literally stamped Collingwood on the map as a ski symbol.

Jozo Weider brought international skiing to Collingwood, and he constructed the facilities which made the Collingwood ski area equal in challenges to areas which had far greater natural potential.

There is no question, Jozo is rightfully the first of many Collingwood skiers to follow into the Sports Hall of Fame.

Jozo Weider – builder, promoter, athlete, artist, patron of the arts and dedicated citizen-he deserves a special niche in Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame.

JOHN THOMAS

“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.

HAWLEY “HUCK” WELCH

Fifty years ago the late Lou Stapleton made this remark when he watched a gangling,
square-jawed fifteen year-old schoolboy trot out on a football field for the first time.

“That kid will be a great football player some day”. Lou couldn’t have made a
more exact prediction because that kid was Hawley “Huck” Welch, who, after a brilliant career with Hamilton and Montreal was inducted into Canada’s Football Hall of Fame in 1966.

He did everything the right way when he performed for the Collingwood Collegiate that season but what impressed Lou most of all was the ease in which Huck sent up those long, smooth sailing spiraling punts with his educated toe.

Huck left Collingwood in his sophomore year and moved off to Hamilton. It did not take Huck very long to get established in that hotbed of football. He helped Delta Collegiate win two successive Ontario Secondary Schools titles and the Tigers picked him up at the end of the 1927 season. He never looked back.

The Tigers won Grey Cups back to back in 1927 and 1928 and the deadly right foot and broken field running of Huck Welch played no small part in the success of that great Tiger team. They still talk about the kicking duels between Welch and Ab Box of the Argos.

One Saturday afternoon Welch kicked three singles and Box kicked two. Hamilton won 3-2. Ted Reeve wrote in his column. “Ab Box kicked the ball clean over Hamilton  Mountain and Huck Welch kicked it back.”

He moved over to the Montreal Winged Wheelers in 1930 when Warren Stevens introduced the forward pass to Canadian football. He helped Montreal win the Grey Cup in 1931 and in 1933 crowned his great football career by winning the Jeff Russell Trophy as the most valuable player in Canadian Football.

He finished his career back in Hamilton in 1937.

Huck served with distinction as an officer in the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry in World War 11 and we had the pleasure of watching Huck and an all-star Canadian service football team beat the Americans in London=s White City Stadium in the spring of 1944. As a matter of fact we managed to pick up a bit of that 5 to 1 money the Yanks were tossing around.

JOHN “BUCK” WALTON

They called him a hockey policeman and there never was a better one than Buck Walton.

Never a fancy skater or a fast one, Buck made up for his lack of speed and finesse with his courage, stick handling and dogged determination.

He played on three Collingwood O.H.A. Intermediate “A” championship teams in 1918, 1919 and 1920 and on the runner-up team in 1921.

When the going got tough and the opposition started carrying the sticks high, the call went out for the “policeman”.

He never spared himself and he never made excuses. If he took a butt end in the corner there was no squawking from the “Buckaroo”

He just lowered his head and hit with everything he had. Buck took many beating but he handed out some pretty good lumps himself. No fast skating forward ever came in on Walton with his head down-at least not after the first time.

I remember the night, fifty-four years ago, when the Buckaroo took a bad on big Dick Simple, the great Midland star of that era. Dick stepped deftly aside and Walton took a Barnum and Bailey dive into the end boards. The crowd groaned as his head and shoulders crunched against the planks and his body slipped down to the ice. The legendary Rabbi Fryer skated over to the fans and called out “Get a dust pan and a broom!” Buck was on his feet in a minute, skated over to the bench, took a long drink of water, or whatever, and joined the affray again. Two minutes later he went from end to end and scored.

Back in 1915, he scored a winning goal in Hamilton that put Collingwood into the O.H.A. semi-finals round. He had been knocked out twice during the game. For twenty years, Buck Walton gave everything he had for Collingwood junior and intermediate teams.

Buck and Rabbi Fryer were lured out of retirement in the thirties and turned out to be bad decision.

In a play-off game between Collingwood and Camp Borden for the Georgian Baygroup title, referee Ernie Wortley fingered buck for five cheap penalties and the Buck lost his cool. He dropped his stick and went for the official, the first time he did that in his life. Fryer came to Buck’s assistance, although he really didn’t=t need it, and both players were suspended indefinitely by the O.H.A.

Two years later, Fryer made application and was re-instated. Buck refused to go hat in hand and said. “Let them keep the O.H.A. it’s only a pink tea party now, anyway. Next thing you know they’ll penalize you for spitting out your own teeth”.

He never was re-instated and I was always sorry about that. I tried to persuade him to apply for re-instatement just so he could retire with a clean slate. It was no dice. Buck was just too proud and that application for re-instatement sounded too much like begging to suit the Buck.

 

JIM TROTT

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.

ALBERT “AB” WALMSLEY

Albert, or Ab as he was better known, was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame on June 20, 1992, in the players category.

He was born in Collingwood, May 1, 1933 and at the time of his election to the Hall he was living in Collingwood with his wife Gladys.  They had three
children. Albert attended Collingwood Connaught Public School and Collingwood Collegiate Institute.

The list is long for this multi-sports athlete, thus the reasons for naming Ab to
the Hall of Fame.

A summary of his career is seen in the following:

– 1946-1960  Hockey

– 1947-1959 Baseball

– 1948          High school Track & Field

– 1960-1967 Fastball

He played juvenile hockey in 1949-50 moving up to Junior ”C” to be coached by Jack Portland and winning the OHA’s Junior “C” title.  Continued his “C” career until 1953 having played on all four Junior ”C’ Greenshirt championship teams-1949 -50 with Jack Portland; 1950-51, 1951-42, 1952-53 with Eddie Bush. In 1953-54, he played on the Collingwood Intermediate Hockey Team. In 1954-55, Ab was a member of the Meaford Knight’ Intermediate Hockey Club going to the OHA final before being ousted by Tillsonburg in the seventh game.

During the 1949-50 season while playing juvenile hockey he was scouted by Bob Davison, chief scout of the Toronto Maple Leafs and signed to an Option “C” form.
The following year he attended the Toronto Marlboro Junior “A” Hockey Team’s camp at Maple Leaf Gardens.

In fastball, he played on local teams until 1957 when he joined the Stayner Motormen’s OBA Intermediate club helping the team win the provincial title.  In 1958 and 59 he went to OBA finals with Stayner and the Collingwood Lions.  He also played with the Midland Indians and the Creemore Red Sox.  He ended his ball career playing with Collingwood clubs sponsored by GM Motors and the Tremont Hotel.

In 1948, while attending Collingwood Collegiate Institute he completed in junior boys’ track and field becoming the junior school champion in three events (880 yard dash, 440 yard and 220 yard) and finished second I the 100 yard dash.  He was named the overall junior champions.

Ab worked at the Collingwood Shipyards as a draftsman until the yard closed in 1986.

In Jan 2023, the Albert passed away in his hometown, Collingwood.