happy birthday, 1986: fuhrsie was late getting back in the net, and smitty just tried to cut the corner

MAY 1, 2018 / PUCKSTRUCK.COM/STEPHEN SMITH

 

It was his birthday, of course, happened to be. I can’t say how much that multiplied the misery for the man in question, if at all, or how much of a sting he still feels, 32 years on from that day in 1986 — like yesterday, April’s last — when, as a rookie defenceman for the Edmonton Oilers, he scored what has become hockey’s most famous self-inflicted goal, which I (obviously) don’t have to specify further due to how notorious it is, though maybe I should all the same (just to be clear) by naming the man now synonymous with putting a puck past your own surprised goaltender: Steve Smith.

Calgary was in Edmonton that long-ago day, playing Game 7 of the Smythe Division Final. Smith was 63 games into his career with the Oilers, who were hunting their third Stanley Cup in a row. He’d just turned — was still not finished turning — 23. The score was tied 2-2 when, at 5:14 of the third period, Smith found himself behind his own net, rapping the puck off Grant Fuhr’s leg, into that net, to score the goal that not only won the reviled Flames the game but eliminated the Oilers from the playoffs.

So, a big mistake. But other defencemen have done what Steve Smith did, in important games, as have lots of forwards. He’s the only one to have had his entire career as a hockey player reduced to a single misdirected pass. As recently as 2016, a writer in a major American magazine referred to Smith as having suffered “perhaps the most devastating embarrassment the NHL has ever seen.” Really — ever? How is it that his goal has become both the exemplar for hockey self-scoring and, for Smith, the act that has come to define an otherwise distinguished 16-year career on NHL bluelines to those of us who were watching the game in the 1980s? And how can that be fair?

 

I take this all a little personally. Smith is a player I’ve followed with special interest since he first skated into the NHL. At first my attention was almost entirely nominal. He’s not much older than me, and grew up in Cobourg, Ontario, just to the south of where I was in Peterborough. I ended up taller; he managed to win many more Stanley Cups than I ever could. It wasn’t hard to imagine his career as my own. No problem at all: I’ve got way more imagination, in fact, than I do actual hockey skills, so it was easy to fancy myself out there, numbered 5, in William-of-Orange/Oiler colours, alongside the most exciting players of the age, Gretzky and Messier and Kurri and Coffey.

Smith wasn’t exciting, but I liked his lanky style, which had just a hint, in those early years, of my own trying-too-hard clumsiness. I felt for him in 1986, and maybe even thought I could help him shoulder the burden. I couldn’t, of course — how could I? For a long time, years, any time I got on the ice for a beer-league game I did think demon thoughts about shooting the puck past my own goaltender midway through the third period. I never did it, though I’m pretty sure some of my teammates expected me to, also — especially the goaltenders.

•••

Smith’s old goal is old news, but it’s also (like everything else) as current and quick-to-the-fore as your Google search window. Search (go on) and the page that beams up with an efficiency that’s easy to mistake for eagerness shows Smith prostrate on the ice after the goal and tearful in the dressing room.

The goal has eternal life, of course, on YouTube. Funny Moments In Sports — Steve Smith Scores On Himself the footage there tends to be titled, and the commentaries run on and on. Some of them do their best to exonerate Smith —

Grant Fuhr should have been hugging the post when Smith attempted his pass

— while others are more interested in forensic dissections:

After about 50 viewings over 20 years, I finally see how it happened… Fuhr’s stick came downwards just as Smith passed the puck, and it went off Fuhr’s stick and in, Smith thought there was a lane there to clear it cause Fuhr’s stick was up at the time… does that sound right?

There’s every degree of pity, and plenty of character-witnessing—

Poor guy

if i didnt know any better it looks almost as if that was purposely done. but still i feel sorry for smith

this isnt funny

i played for steve smith. greatest guy in the world.

People enjoy the goal as entertainment —

lol you know whats funny. next season, when the oilers played the flames in the saddledome, flames fans would yell “SHOOOOT!!” when smith was behind his net looking for a play LOLOLOL. by the way, the 07 stanley cup was won by almost the exact same “anti-play”

and also count it as revenge —

Steve Smith is also the guy who made a dirty play that took Pavel Bure into the boards and hurt his knee. Bure was never the same again. Smith took out the most exciting player in the game at that time, what a jerk.

A conclusion drawn by some online commentators on the Smith goal?

oilers suck.

More formal reviews of what happened were plentiful, of course. Terry Jones was one who described the goal for newspaper readers the next morning with minimal drama:

When Steve Smith passed the puck from behind his net and hit goaltender Grant Fuhr on the back of his left leg, the puck bounced into the net, breaking a 2-2 tie and breaking the backs of the back-to-back Stanley Cup champions.

Jones wrote for The Edmonton Sun, so the headline went for maximum blare:

       BIGGEST BLUNDER EVER?

For a lede he went with “one of the biggest bonehead plays in the history of all sport.” There was a lot of that. Infamy is another  word that repeats through subsequent accounts of the goal, almost as abundantly as gaffe. Mentions of mortal wounds and witness protection programs follow on allusions to the caprice of the hockey gods. The Oilers’ collective overconfidence was seen early on as a contributing factor to what happened to them via Smith’s own goal, along with their arrogance.

Smith’s birthday featured prominently in the coverage, e.g. Rex MacLeod’s Toronto Star lede asserting that he will never forget the one in which he aged a lifetime.

Often recalled in the aftermath was the fact that Smith only played that night because Lee Fogolin was injured.

Flames’ winger Perry Berezan got the credit for the goal as the last Calgary player to touch the puck. “I think I am the only man in history to score a series-winning goal from the bench,” he said later. “I had dumped the puck into the Edmonton zone when I was front of my own bench, and I didn’t even see it go in. I remember how strange it was on the bench when the goal was scored. It was quiet. We were asking, What just happened? and guys were saying, Steve Smith bounced the puck off of Fuhr. It’s a goal!”

 

That’s a later take, so far as I can determine. On the night, Berezan was quoted as saying, “This is too unbelievable to be true” and “I couldn’t dream it any better.”

There was wide acknowledgement in those contemporary accounts that Berezan was the only native-born Edmontonian on Calgary’s roster, and that his birthday was Christmas Day, following which he grew up as an Oilers’ fan. Also: his uncle was the organist at the Edmonton’s Northlands Coliseum.

Berezan’s sympathy took year’s to emerge into the wild: until 2016, in fact, when Ben Arledge at ESPN The Magazine stirred the grave of Smith’s unmeant goal. This is the piece wherein you’ll see Smith’s mortification rated “the most devastating” the NHL has ever witnessed; other than that, it’s plausible. Berezan, interestingly, tells Arledge that he wanted to say something to Smith back in ’86, but he was 21, and some of the Flames veterans told him never to feel sorry for a beaten opponent, and so he kept quiet, not a word. “But,” he says, “I felt terrible for the guy.”

 

I doubt that Lanny McDonald was one of those unnamed veterans implicated here — that just doesn’t sound like Lanny. In the moment, right after it was over, McDonald made clear that Smith really had no choice in the matter. “When I saw the goal go in,” McDonald confided in the Calgary dressing room that night, “I couldn’t believe it. Then I felt it was meant to be. We did a lot of praying in this room and God finally answered our prayers.”

Huge, if true.

At the time, the Oilers seemed to have no inkling that He’d forsaken them. Over in their room, they were still focussed on the passion of Steve Smith.

“It’s not his fault,” Wayne Gretzky was saying after the Oilers had failed to tie it up. “One goal did not lose these playoffs.”

Rex MacLeod of The Toronto Star described him and several of his teammates as “red-eyed from weeping. “It was an unfortunate goal,” Gretzky said. “We tried not to let it bother us. We tried to keep our energy at a high level and I think we did. It was a big disappointment, but I’ve had a few before. It hurts when you’re good enough to win and you expect to win. That’s tough, but we lost fair and square to a team with a lot of heart.”

 

“I don’t think anyone in this room should be pointing a finger at another guy,” Gretzky also said. “I think you should look yourself in the mirror.

That raw-eyed 99 from just now I imagine standing there with his gear only half-off, naked to the shoulderpads, sadly sockfooted. But by the time Robin Finn of The New York Times got to studying him, he was showered and dressed. “His face freshly scrubbed and every burnished hair in place,” Finn wrote, “he stood and faced wave upon wave of microphones and pointed questions. He wore a white shirt and a brown tie flecked with dots of royal colors, and flecked, too, with stray tears. But Gretzky was in control, and the only evidence of his distress was in the fluttering of his eyelids as he politely answered all queries concerning his dethroning.”

Grant Fuhr said, “It was right on the back of my leg. I was trying to get back in the net, but I didn’t expect it to go through the crease.” He told someone else, “I can never recall a goal going in like that. You never expect something like that. I’m not real big on losing.”

Smith played not another second of the third period following the goal he scored on Berezan’s behalf. That was Edmonton coach Glen Sather’s decision, of course. “I feel sorry for Smith,” he told reporters when it was all over, “but I told him he can’t let it devastate him. He’s gonna be a good hockey player. I still think we’re a great hockey club, but I guess we still have some growing to do.”

 

Smith was devastated, but that didn’t stop him from facing the press. His eyes were wet and red, according to most accounts; Al Strachan, then of The Globe and Mail, has him “sobbing.” Either way, he would be roundly commended for failing to hide himself away. “Sooner or later I have to face it,” he said. Of course he was expected to explain what had happened. “I was just trying to make a pass out front to two guys circling,” an Associated Press dispatch has him saying. “It was a human error. I got good wood on it, it just didn’t go in the direction I wanted.”

Was there not one of those scribbling correspondents who might have stepped up to give the man a hug?

I guess not. Smith went on talking. “I’ve got to keep on living,” the papers all reported next day. “I don’t know if I’ll ever live this down, but I have to keep on living. The sun will come up tomorrow.”

 

It did, revealing new newspaper analyses of what Smith had wrought. George Vecsey of The New York Times called it a “true disaster.” Another reporter there tracked down Rangers’ defenceman Larry Melynk. He’d started the season as an Oiler, only to lose Sather’s confidence and have Smith supplant him before a trade took him to New York. “I would have fired it around the boards,” Melnyk opined. “Just stay with my game. Shoot it around the boards.” He wasn’t gloating, though. “What happened to him could have happened to anybody.”

There were examinations of what had gone wrong with the Oilers for every taste, including the worst possible. David Johnston of The Gazette felt sure that once “hockey pathologists” got around to conducting an autopsy, they would discover that the team had been suffering from “cancers” of both the soul and the mind, which would account for their having (“like Ernest Hemingway”) “turned their formidable weapons on themselves and committed suicide.”

•••

After I published my book Puckstruck in 2014, I had several conversations with passersbys at bookstore events who saw my name on the cover and lit up under the lightbulb that appeared over their heads.

Them: Hey. You played for the Oilers.
Me: No, no, not me, different guy. Better hockey player in terms of … everything hockey. And I go by Stephen, mostly.
Them: Oh. So you wrote Steve Smith’s biography?

No. That’s a book, so far, that’s still to be published. Smith hasn’t seen fit to/hasn’t had time for/has no interest in autobiographying — maybe one day? Several other frontline Oilers who’ve written memoirs have, of course, revisited that night in ’86.

 

Start with Kevin Lowe, whose autobiography/history of Edmonton hockey was guided by Stan and Shirley Fischler. Champions (1988) has this to say:

Steve Smith, our big young defenseman who had replaced the injured Fogie, was behind our net in the left corner looking to make our standard fast-break play. That means the puck goes up the ice pretty quick. Unfortunately, Steve kind of bobbled the puck a bit and he never did get good wood or a handle on it. Since he knew that the objective of the play was to do it as quickly as possible, he moved the rubber without having all the control he should. The puck just sprayed off his stick, hit the back of Grant’s left leg and went into the net. Just like that!

Here’s Jari Kurri, from 17 (2001), in an autobiography he authorized himself to write with Ari Mennander and Jim Matheson:

He tried a long cross-ice pass, but it bounced off the leg of Fuhr and into the net. Fuhr wasn’t hugging the post and Smith was a little too adventuresome. When the puck went in, Smith dove to the ice, covering his face, looking like he wanted the ice to open and swallow him up.

Grant Fuhr has published a couple of books of his own, starting with a manual for would-be puckstops, Fuhr On Goaltending, written with Bob Mummery’s aid and published in 1988. The Smith goal might seem like a perfect teaching moment for such a project as this, but there’s no mention of it, not on the page headed Asleep At The Switch, and not in Communication, either. “Be alert, concentrate on the puck, and stay in the game,” Fuhr advises in the former; in the latter, he specifically references teammates handling the puck behind the net. But only, as it turns out, to remind novice goalkeeps that a defenceman back there must be kept informed about incoming opponents. “Keep up the chatter,” he says.

 

In 2014, with Bruce Dowbiggin lending a hand, the goaltender published a fuller memoir. But Grant Fuhr: The Story of a Hockey Legend doesn’t go into even as much detail when it comes to “the lovely Steve Smith goal” as Fuhr did the night of. The playoffs, Fuhr concedes, ended on “a crushing note,” which marked “kind of a gloomy end to a gloomy month:” his father had died two weeks earlier. Next up: the Oilers were only a few days into their off-season when Sports Illustrated published an exposé alleging cocaine use by sundry Oilers, including Fuhr.

“That month,” he concludes, “kind of turned everything bad.”

Number 99 got his account out in Gretzky: An Autobiography (1990), which he crafted with Rick Reilly’s help. Here’s how they frame the goal:

Steve Smith was this big, good-looking defenseman of ours, only twenty-three years old, a future star, a Kevin Lowe protégé. He is a real smart player, but that night he made a mistake. He took the puck in our own corner and tried to clear it across the crease: the cardinal no-no in hockey. It’s like setting a glass of grape juice on your new white cashmere rug. You could do it, but what’s the percentage in it? Without a single Flame around, the puck hit the back of Grant’s left calf and caromed back into our net. Hardly anybody in the arena saw it but the goal judge did. The Flames suddenly led 3-2. It was a horrible, unlucky, incredible accident, but it happened. Steve came back to the bench and, for a minute, looked like he’d be all right. But then he broke down in tears.

The fact that Gretzky’s most recent book, 99 Stories of the Game (2016, assist to Kirstie McLellan Day), makes only passing mention of Smith, and none of his infamous goal, might seem to signal that the story has been wholly written, nothing more to say. Two books from 2015 undermine that notion.

 

I briefly held out some hope that Gail Herman’s Who Is Wayne Gretzky? might prove to be an existential tell-all by 99’s rogue therapist, but it’s nothing like that.

It is, instead, a handsome 106-page biography intended for younger readers. It’s abundantly illustrated by Ted Hammond and (if it does say so itself) “fun and exciting!” The young readers it’s intended for, I’d have to say, would be non-Canadian and hockey-oblivious. If you are such a youthful person, an 11-year-old, say, living on a far-flung Scotland Hebride that wifi has yet to reach, and yet still, somehow, you’ve developed a curiosity about hockey that so far hasn’t divulged what exactly Brantford, Ontario’s own paragon could do and did, then this is just the book for you, congratulations, and hold on: you are going to learn a lot about Gretzky.

You’re also going to come away with a full understanding of Smith’s renowned goal. Chapter 8 is the where you’ll find what you’re after on that count, the one entitled “Dynasties and Dating.” The latter has to do with what followed after Wayne went to a basketball game in 1987 in Los Angeles and this happened: “American actress and dancer Janet Jones came over to say hello.” More important for our purposes here is what happens two pages earlier, back on the ice as the Oilers battle for the 1986 Cup, and well, guess what.

 

To Herman, no matter what Steve Smith did, the puck had its own agenda:

Oilers defenseman Steve Smith skated to the net to stop a goal by the Flames. He tried to clear the puck. But the puck hit the Oilers’ goalie, Grant Fuhr, on the leg. Then it bounced into the net.

The graphic generosity Herman pays to Smith is worth noting, too: in Chapter Eight’s six pages, he features in no fewer than three line-drawings, which is as many as Janet Jones gets, just before she becomes Mrs. Gretzky in Chapter Nine.

The Battle of Alberta can’t compete when it comes to illustrations. But what Mark Spector’s 2015 history of the years of Oiler-Flame rivalry lacks in artwork, it makes up with what may be the definitive post mortem, devoting a full 15 pages to what happened that night in a chapter titled “The Right Play The Wrong Way: Oiler Steve Smith’s Unforgettable Goal.”

 

Spector begins by recounting how, in the immediate aftermath of what he calls “the worst experience of [Smith’s] life,” the wretched defenceman found a grim joke to offer. “I got good wood on it,” Spector has him telling reporters. “I thought the puck went in fast.”

Maybe that’s right. But looking back at the contemporary accounts, only the first phrase seems to have appeared in any of the immediate coverage of the game in the spring of 1986.

Reporters at the scene who took down “I got good wood on it” tend to have heard what came next as “it just didn’t go in the direction I wanted.” (Kevin Paul Dupont of The Boston Globe heard “but not in the direction I hoped.”) The original is self-deprecating rather than actually humorous, and doesn’t so fully support Spector’s framing premise that Smith was “having a laugh at his own misfortune.” It’s no more than a minor mystery, I’ll grant you. But given the descriptions of the mood in the Oiler room, and of Smith’s own demeanor on the night, I’m skeptical that anyone heard him jibing about the speed of the puck that night. From what I can glean, Spector’s amended version doesn’t seem to have shown up before a 2010 article of Jim Matheson’s in The Edmonton Journal.

Otherwise? Spector calls Smith another mobile defenceman who could fight and play. He describes him as gangly. He asserts that he took nothing for granted and (cleverly) not good enough to feel any entitlement.

 

Spector does provide a valuable service in breaking down just what Smith was attempting to do. As Kevin Lowe tells him, this was the Oilers’ new quick-up play designed to catch an opponent offguard as they dumped the puck in and changed. The centreman and maybe a winger would be waiting high up on the opposite boards, over by the penalty boxes. “You just went back and you almost didn’t look,” Lowe explained. “You just forced it up to the spot.”

But then: “Fuhrsie was a little late getting back in the net, and Smitty just tried to cut the corner a bit.”

“He’s gonna be a good hockey player,” Glen Sather said back on that April night, and so it proved. When the Oilers roared back in 1987 to win another Cup, Smith and his story arc’d to a perfect redemptive close. “A year after Smith’s mistake,” Spector writes,

after the Oilers had regained their place atop the hockey world with a seven-game ouster of Philadelphia in the Final, Gretzky made a classy gesture when he handed the Stanley Cup to Smith and sent him off on a celebratory whirl around the Northlands Coliseum ice.

It didn’t end there, of course. As noted on the Oilers’ own Heritage website,

Smith persevered and became one of the key players of the team’s drive for three more Cups in 1987, 1988, and 1990. Smith best year came in 1987-88, when he scored 12 goals, added 43 assists, and received 286 penalty minutes. Smith proved he was a tough customer, and the disastrous goal was nothing more than a fluke.

 

Gretzky has gone even further. Diligent, down the years, in making sure Smith’s name stays cleared, Gretzky has even claimed that the Oilers were actually fortunate to lose in ’86. “I know that sounds strange,” he’s reasoned, “but sometimes you lose for a reason. After that season, we made some changes, got hungrier, and stopped thinking we had sole rights to the Stanley Cup. Maybe Smith won us two more Cups. Who knows?”

Smith himself has said that the whole experience was life-changing. “It taught me humility,” he told Spector. Ben Arledge talked to him about this, too, in the ESPN piece. “I really believe that incident had a lot to do with making me a much humbler person,” Smith said to him. “It probably taught me more about humility than a person could ever learn. From that day forward, I sincerely cheered for people. I didn’t want to see people fail. I didn’t want to ever see people have that type of day.”

 

Mark Spector’s Battle of Alberta chapter comes with a fairly perfect ending, in which Smith tells of playing a subsequent pre-season game in Calgary. The fact that Spector doesn’t bother to date it could indicate that he (a) preferred to render it as legend as much as a fact or (b) couldn’t be bothered. It did happen, on a Tuesday night, September 25, 1990, in front of a crowd of 20,132 fans who, as usual, called for Smith to “shooooot” every time he touched the puck. Smith was prepared, having warned Oilers’ goaltender Bill Ranford that there might come a point in the game where he actually did just that. “And,” Smith told him, “you’d better fuckin’ stop it.”

And so it happened, in the first period, that Smith lobbed a backhand at Ranford that the goaltender did, indeed, save. Smith raised his stick to the Calgary faithful who, it’s reported, laughed.

“The whole place stood up and gave me a standing ovation,” Smith tells Spector. “It was kinda cool. For the most part, they left me alone after that.”

 

Source: Stephen Smith author of Puckstruck

"It’s rare to find a book that makes me proud to be Canadian" -Michael Winter 

 

 

COBOURG PLANT OPENS DOORS TO PUBLIC SATURDAY

Reprint from Cobourg Sentinel-Star June,1970

This is Winchester Canada's big week in Cobourg. The company and its 265 employees have just moved into their new 86,000 sq. ft. plant on Brook Road North, and on Thursday official dedication ceremonies will be held. This Saturday - June 13 - citizens of Cobourg and district are invited to visit the new plant and see how world-renowned Winchester and Cooey guns are made. Employees were the first to open the celebrations with a big family tour a few weeks ago.

On Thursday, with Cobourg resident and Canadian president and general manager John E. Feldhaus as host, the new plant will be dedicated at 2 p.m.. Attending will be Alex Carruthers, MPP, Durham, Russell Rowe MPP., Northumberland, Mayor Jack Heenan and members of council, with Rev. George Malcolm, St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church and chairman of the Cobourg Council of Churches giving the invocation. 

Special company guests in Cobourg will include Harlow Reed, executive vice-president and chief operating officer of the $1 billion-plus parent U.S. Olin Corp and William L. Wallace, Winchester Group vice-president.

The company has recently moved from its former plant in the town's west end, where it had been located since coming to Cobourg in 1929. Winchester Canada Limited sells a full range of Winchester guns imported from the U.S. as well as those made in Cobourg. There is also an ammunition plant at Cobourg. 

Beginning in Toronto as the H.W. Cooey Machine & Arms Co. Limited, in 1903, its founder was a machinery specialist. During World War I, the company produced small arms parts and other machinery, always conscious of quality and good design.

Just after the war Mr. Cooey himself designed the famous Cooey .22 caliber rifle which soon became well recognized across Canada as well as internationally. By 1929, there had been several expansions in Toronto and Mr. Cooey bought a vacant plant in Cobourg and the company came here. During World War II of course, war production was vitally important to the Cooey plant, and out came parts for guns as well as training rifles.

In 1961, when Mr. Cooey died the company was sold to the then Olin Mathieson Chemical Corp., under the Winchester-Western division. Several new lines were brought into company activity, a large expansion of plant and office space undertaken, and employment began to jump from under 100 up to today's 265.

Here's Winchester's Management team

Cobourg's Winchester plant is headed by an energetic management team with Canadian president and general manager John E. Feldhaus at its head.
Mr. Feldhaus joined Winchester Canada in October, 1968 after 18 years with the U.S. parent company. He is a graduate of Westminster College, Fulton, Mo., and has an MBA from St. Louis University, St. Louis, Mo. 

In 1950, he became a management trainee with the U.S. company, and moved successively and successfully through positions as a business research analyst, marketing assistant, assistant to division general manager, to marketing research manager, assistant director of sales to a 1967 posting as director of market planning. Just under two years ago, he came to Cobourg to head Canadian operations. In the community, he is a director of the Chamber of Commerce, and involved in church and Boy Scout activities.

Many of the other executives are also well known.
Charlie Thompson, director of manufacturing, joined the company early in 1967, and is a former materials manager at Canadian Trailmobile and project manager at Canadian Westinghouse. He is a professional engineer, graduate of Upper Canada College and University of Toronto. 

Frank Moore, director of marketing, has been with the company since 1962. He is in charge of marketing, sales and distribution of Winchester-Cooey firearms and Winchester ammunition throughout Canada. Under his direction also come product service, advertising and public relations, field force, customer service, market planning and the Quebec branch. 

Previously, he was a sporting goods manager in Vancouver, a merchandise manager for sporting goods in Winnipeg, then a Winchester field representative for seven years before becoming director or marketing last year.

Jim Morse, controller, has been two years at Winchester. He is in charge of accounting, analysis, office administration. Previously he was a financial analyst with Massey Ferguson and Ford of Canada. He is a graduate of University of Toronto with a BA and MBA. 

George Cook, manager of technical services, has been four years with the company, and is responsible for quality control and new product design and development. He was a toolmaker in the U.K., a gun fitter with the British armed forces, and a toolroom foreman in guided missile division of English Electric Company in the U.K.

Harold Nelson, industrial relations manager, since 1966 is known throughout the Cobourg community and is very much involved in a number of community ventures, including the IAPA, Cancer Society and Chamber of Commerce. He is responsible for the usual duties of personnel and labor relations, but also for a special duty of "community relations". Previously he was with Canadian Westinghouse in personnel work.

Bill Long, manager, ammunition manufacturing, has been with Winchester since 1962. He was in the Canadian armed forces from 1943 to 1959 and was then ammunition plant superintendent for Gevelot. He is commanding officer of the local Air Cadet squadron and a member of the education branch of the RCAF Reserve.

Costs $2 Million

Total cost of the new Winchester plant is well over $2 million. When work began on the 50-acre site last summer, costs were estimated at $2,198,000.

Ontario Development Corp, a provincial government agency, granted a $250,000 forgivable loan to help finance the project; the loan does not have to be repaid, provided the company meets certain conditions over a six-year period. It was provided under the province's "Equalization of Industrial Opportunity Program".

*********************

45 Winchester employees over 15 years with firm

Reprint from Cobourg Sentinel-Star June, 1970
 
Winchester Canada is proud of its many long service employees. While it has been a steadily growing company - now with 265 people or three times its figure of 10 years ago - there are still several who have been working with the company from its earliest years in Cobourg. Steve Niles and Walter Lloyd both started within a few days of each other in October, 1929 with H.W. Cooey Machine and Arms Company Limited. They now have nearly 41 years service.

George Dawe joined Cooey in 1931; Albert Dawe in 1934. By June 18 this year there will be 18 employees with over 25 years service. That's the anniversary date of Maurice Alderson's joining the company in 1945. There are 44 Winchester people with 15 years or over with the company; 54 with 10 years and over. Following is the list of present-employees with 10 years or over service with Winchester or Cooey, and the dates of their joining the company:

OVER 40 YEARS
1929    Steve Niles    Walter Lloyd    
OVER 30 YEARS
1931    George Dawe        
1934    Albert Dawe        
1937    Harold Mason        
1940    Harry Lamble    Howard Boundy    Hayden Lean
OVER 25 YEARS
1941    John Hilliard    Clarence Hynes    
1943    William Lingard  Laura Batchelor  Phyllis Cochrange
            Erwin Hie        Carson Andrews    Norah Wilby
1945    Neil Hobart      Albert Speirs         Maurice Alderson
OVER 15 YEARS
1946    Louis Davey        
1947    Ruby Kemp    Ruby Lean    Marion Long    John Ling        
1949    Mary Bourgeois  George Heeley   John Wielonda
            James Ford    John McEntee    
1951    John Kniff       Cecil Sherwin    Ruth Bolderstone
1952    Charles Dewey   William Wamsley   Herbert Kniff
            Helen Oliver   Phyllis Ling    Ralph Farrell
1953    Irene Dawe  Austin Gall  Reta Wood  Bernice Massey  Jack Bell    
1954    Edward Bell   Patricia Petruk    
OVER 10 YEARS
1957    Dora Boundy   Frank Ferguson    Edith Ford
1958    Arnold Holdsworth   Kevin Perrow    Grace Griffiths
            Hendricus Jacobs        
1959    Douglas Sopher    Henry Raggers    
1960    Owen Cooney        

*********************

Winchester Closing Will Change Their Lives
BY SUSAN EDWARDS

Reprinted from Cobourg Daily Star October 9, 1979

Winchester Canada in Cobourg is closing at the beginning of the new year. The assembly and manufacture of guns, rifles and ammunition presently employs about 300 people in a town of 11,000.

"The prospect of being unemployed bothers you," said a woman employee who asked not to be identified, "because you don't know what's next." The employee, a woman in her early twenties, works in the ammunition plant assembling and packing .22 caliber bullets. She has worked for Winchester in both the firearms and the ammunition factories for five years.

“You don't know how many shifts you'll be on," she said. “Right now I'm in a car pool with some people who work here and my babysitter knows my schedule." She lives with her husband and young child in a hamlet near Cobourg. They have their own home and have a small loan to pay.

"There are going to be a lot of us out there looking for work," she said. "Chances may not be that good of getting something right away. You put your name in a few places and wait and see."

Winchester Canada is the second biggest employer in Cobourg. According to the town's figures for 1977: General Foods Ltd. employs 925 people, United Tire 230, General Electric 210 and General Wire and Cable around 200. There are a number of smaller factories with work forces of less than 100.

The employee said that she will be looking for a job in a plant after Winchester closes. She likes working in a factory, she said. "The pay is better. You come to work, do your job, leave and you don't have to think about it ". Although she has received her notice - along with 46 other employees who will be leaving November 23 - she has not actively searched for work because there is a possibility that the manufacturing business may be purchased by another company.

According to Norman Cant, the director of operations for Winchester Canada, a company, so far unnamed, has offered to help finance a deal which would include the participation of both management and workers. A similar arrangement was made with the employees of Pioneer Saws in Peterborough a few years ago when it was scheduled to close.

Ever since the Winchester management announced on August 21 that the manufacturing and assembly plants would be phased out, Cant has been looking for a new owner. At the time of the announcement, Cant said that the company had three options to investigate for the disposal of the physical facilities. 

The first, he said, would be to find a group which would be interested in purchasing the business as an on-going concern. "We want to sell the plant with the equipment and the existing labor force."

The second, he said was to sell the plant, the machinery and the expertise of the employees to a metal wood industry.

The third option which he mentioned was to sell the company's assets, the buildings, which consist of two plants, one with 122,000 square feet and the second of 12,000 square feet, the equipment and the 63 acres of land, 32 of which are serviced, as separate parcels.

However, in August, Cant said that the management "was not ready to take that direction yet." It is November and he is still negotiating to sell the business.

Cant has a vested interest in finding a company to purchase the firearm business. As soon as he winds up the affairs of Winchester Canada sometime towards the end of February, he too will be looking tor work. Cant who is fiftyish and has a house and family in Cobourg said "I'm energetically seeking a new owner because that is the way I'm going to remain employed." He added immediately, "I firmly believe that this business could make a go of it."

His statement is not just wishful thinking. The H.W. Cooey Machine and Arms Company operated in Cobourg from 1929, the year it moved from Toronto, to 1961, when the Olin Corporation bought it and placed it under the supervision of the Winchester Group, whose head office is located in New Haven, Connecticut.

In fact New Haven is the place where the decision to close the manufacturing and assembly plants of Winchester Canada originate. The sales and distribution offices will remain open.

The Winchester Group is one of five within the multi-national Olin Corporation, whose head office is in Stamford, Connecticut. Apart from the Winchester Group which produces fire-arms, ammunition and components for military, industrial and recreational use, the Olin Corporation also owns chemical, paper, home, ski and water businesses in 23 countries around the world.

According to Cant, each group within the Olin Corporation. including the Winchester group, operate as a separate entity and must "stand on its own feet." Winchester however has not been standing firmly for a while. Duncan Barnes, a spokesperson for the Winchester Group in New Haven, said that the company has not shown a profit for several years.

He said that the group's losses were one of the reasons that Olin’s third quarter profit for 1979 dropped to $10.8 million from $18.3 million in 1978. He said that the gains in the other groups covered the losses in Winchester. The poor profit record of the Winchester Group, Cant said, resulted in a study in early 1978 of its world-wide operation in order to learn "what the company was doing wrong and what it was doing right."

The report, Cant continued. recommended that the group concentrate on manufacturing the higher-priced recreational firearms rather than guns and rifles throughout the price spectrum. The operation in Cobourg produces the lower priced Cooey range of firearms which, Cant said, no longer fits into the future of the Winchester Group.

Cant went on to say that because the lower priced firearms are being discontinued in the United Stales as well as in Canada, there is room in the American plants to make the Winchester rifles and guns which are presently assembled in Cobourg. The parent company's decision to specialize, Cant said, also fit with the fact that the assembly division of Winchester Canada became unprofitable when the Canadian dollar started to decline.

He said Winchester which was a net importer of goods was losing 14 to 17 per cent on the dollar whenever a shipment of parts for the Cobourg plant crossed the border and each time Winchester Canada transferred money to the Winchester Group in New Haven. Consequently, in August, Winchester Canada announced that production would be phased out in an orderly manner over the next few months."

One woman employee remembers that Tuesday afternoon. She said that they had heard a lot of rumors beforehand. "We thought the place had been sold and that the management had not told us. When we heard that it was going to close down we said That’s it."

Joe Leduc, a shipper, and the vice president of the International Association of Machinist-local 788 had also heard rumors before the announcement. He thought that there would be layoffs and cut backs, but not that the business would be closed down. He said that he was shocked when he heard the announcement. 

"Then after about two weeks I became disappointed. Disappointed because it seems that a multinational corporation has come into this country, taken what it wanted and pulled out. When the company fell onto hard times in Canada, it left." Perhaps, Leduc is luckier than most of the 207 people who presently work in the plants. As he sits on the union committee he will remain on the job until the end of the year.

Nevertheless, he will be out of work in January and despite an array of working experience which includes waiting on tables in a cocktail lounge, driving an ambulance, guarding prisoners and working in a garage, the 51- year-old Leduc thinks that he will have a hard time finding work. "It's tougher now to get a job,” he said. "My age will be a problem."

Leduc has not started to look for another job yet as he has not been given his notice - Winchester is giving 12 weeks notice to every employee - and he said it would be unethical to look for work until he has received it. Although he owns his own house outright and does not owe any money, Leduc doubts that he would be able to manage on less than his present pay cheque. 

"I don't think I live extravagantly or have a high lifestyle," he said, adding, "I live on the lean now." "I would take a job within a 25- mile radius of my house, he continued. "I don't want to move. I have worked all my life for the home I have now."

Winchester is trying to help Leduc and others find work. Allan Jeffers, the director of administration and personnel, said that the company has joined forces with Employment and Immigration Canada, and together they have organized two committees, one for salaried and one for hourly-rated employees to place people in new jobs. 

The committees are staffed by two members of the group concerned, two people from management and the chairman of the program, Mr. Clifford Cadd, an outsider with no interest other than to help. Jeffers said that the employees are asked to complete a questionnaire listing their skills and interests, then Cadd, he continued, "goes out and pounds on doors."

The company is also holding outplacement seminars for managers, technologists, and supervisors, who, too, will soon be out of work. Jeffers explained that the seminars are conducted by a representative from Olin. Their purpose, he went on, is to put people in the right frame of mind to find a new position through self-analysis and evaluation, resume and letter preparation and recruitment and interview plans.

Finally Winchester has taken the management from other local industries on a tour through the two plants to show them the variety and types of skills which their employees possess, Jeffers said. Jeffers is concerned about the problems the employees will face while looking for work. In the new year, he will be facing them too.

Although Jeffers, who is 40, married and has two children and a house to support does not want to be unemployed, he said that he was not frightened by the prospect "I'm going to be as positive as possible,” he said. “I will move if a good career opportunity develops. I'm not closing the doors to any job.” 

It has been the union, the International Association of Machinists, local 788, which has been actively seeking support from all levels of government for any company which purchases the firearm business from Winchester Canada. Ben Burd, the president of the union and the union committee has talked with Alan Lawrence, the federal minister for corporate and consumer relations and Larry Grossman, the provincial minister for industry, trade and tourism. Both promised unspecified aid to the company which offers to purchase the firearm business.

Burd and his committee have also approached the Cobourg town council to ask for a 50 per-cent reduction in municipal taxes for the first year or years to the company which purchases the business. Members of the council said that they thought the proposal had merit and that they would discuss it further. In spite of the efforts of management to find a buyer and the union to round up government support for it, the business remains unsold and the company is starting to wind down its operations.

Thirty-six people will he laid off on November 10 and 47 on November 23. By the end of December, all 207 plant employees will be out of work as well as about 30 of the office staff. In Cobourg with retail sales of approximately $50 million a year Winchester's annual payroll of $3.5 million will be missed; however, probably not as sorely as the individual pay cheques.

"I'm working now and getting a pay cheque," said one woman employee. "When I don't have my pay cheque, then I will know what it is like." Right now, when I go shopping. I don't worry about prices " she continued. "When I am through here, I will have to think about them."

 

Reprint courtesy Calibre Magazine 

For a variety of reasons, the history of the gun industry in Canada is somewhat abbreviated. While our neighbors to the south lay claim to such storied names as Horace Smith, John Browning, Eugene Stoner, and even one of our own in John C. Garand, Canada’s own experience in the realm of gunmaking has been generally sporadic and typically short-lived. Sure, we had the Ross rifle for a while there, but we all know how long that lasted. Then came John Inglis, who’s huge manufacturing firm did turn out massive quantities of legitimately excellent Hi-Power pistols and a myriad of machine guns for the Allied war effort… but now produces far less exciting products in the form of home appliances. And of course today we have Colt Canada, nee Diemaco. But even as difficult as Colt Canada’s, Inglis’, and Ross’ businesses ventures have proven to be, all have been predominantly federally-supported arsenal efforts. The civilian side of the industry has had an even tougher road to hoe.

 

Cooey participated in local parades; trucking racks of long guns around town

But a few decades ago, long before the socio-cultural political assault on gun ownership began in this country, one company rose from a single ignominious machine shop in Toronto to a mainstay of our national firearms industry: The H. W. Cooey Machine & Arms Company.

Like almost all great gunmakers, the story of Cooey begins with the story of a single man: Herbert William Cooey. After dropping out of an apprenticeship with the Grand Trunk Railroad and quitting a job on an assembly line, the then 23 year-old H. W. Cooey opened his first machine shop up at the corner of Queen Street and Spadina Avenue in Toronto in 1903, referring to himself as a “mechanical expert and practicing machinist.”

Cooey’s first plant at Spadina & York

By 1907 he’d proven his own (rather arrogant) statement to be at least partly true, when he took the wraps off an automobile of his own design that incorporated a couple innovative features, including a pre-heated fuel source and double exhaust valves. At the same time, he’d also proven a shrewd businessman, and after just four years in business the H.W. Cooey Machine Shop was forced to move across town into a larger shop at Bridgman and Howland Avenue in order to meet the demand for young Herbert’s talents.

But it wouldn’t be until the First World War that Cooey would turn his prosperous machine shop towards the manufacturing of firearms. Called into action to make various small rifle parts (including the folding peep sights fitted to the aforementioned ill-fated Ross rifle) and small-bore training rifles, Herbert Cooey’s firm rapidly set about gaining a reputation for building extremely high quality parts.

At the conclusion of hostilities, Cooey’s already successful firm found itself buoyed even further by their extensive war effort and the substantial funds it earned as a result, and Herbert wasn’t prepared to let the momentum slow. Having already seen huge successes from his time as a manufacturer of firearm parts for the Ross rifle, he began working on a complete rifle of his own design.

Debuting in 1919 as the Cooey Canuck, this single-shot .22 bolt-action rifle was an overnight sensation, and proved to be one of the most popular rifles of its time. Considered highly accurate but very affordably priced, the Canuck gained international acclaim in 1924, when the rifle won the Certificate of Honour at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Park; an industrial exposition created “to stimulate trade, strengthen bonds that bind mother Country to her Sister States and Daughters, to bring into closer contact the one with each other, to enable all who owe allegiance to the British flag to meet and know each other.” Winning a Certificate of Honour there was no small feat either; the Exhibition was the largest ever staged in the world in 1924, costing 12 million pounds and being attended by 27 million people.

Herbert Cooey and his wife, Suzannah

At the same time as Cooey’s Canuck was earning fanfare at the Exhibition, Herbert himself was working towards earning some accolades of his own at the 1924 Olympics held in Paris, France. Supplying the Canadian national team with the guns they would use in no less than 10 shooting events, Herbert himself shot with the Canadian men’s trap team, who would go on to win silver at the games.

By now the company known as H. W. Cooey Machine & Gear had committed itself to the manufacture of sporting arms, and changed its name to reflect that, becoming the H. W. Cooey Machine & Arms Company. Advertising the ever-popular Canuck (later renamed the Ace) in a myriad of papers and magazines, Cooey continued to put forth an image of excellent quality and wasn’t afraid to say so with ads that read “Make mine a Cooey – I want the best,” and “Don’t Take a Substitute.” But it was the ad in a 1922 issue of Rod & Gun Canada that perhaps best defined the Cooey rifle as “The ideal Christmas present for the red-blooded boy, whether he lives in the city, the town or the country.”

 

Cooey’s Single-Shot Rifles: The Cooey Canuck & Model 39

The Cooey Canuck set the stage for what would become, over the course of literally decades, one of the most iconic of Cooey firearms: The single-shot .22. Perhaps best known as the Model 39, this action would also come to be known as the Ace, the Bisley Sport, Model 75, and perhaps a dozen other models, brands, and assorted nomenclatures.

The Cooey single-shot .22 rifle would birth dozens of various models throughout its lifetime

The first of Cooey’s designs, this single-shot action that seems so rudimentary today was quite innovative when new, due in large part to the unique automatic half-cock safety. Billed by Herbert as a “patent pending system” (although there is no evidence of patents having ever been filed) this system employed a two-part bolt that used a half-cock notch on the striker assembly to retain the striker behind the bolt face when the bolt was closed, but did not actually bring the action to a fully cocked position. To do that, the shooter would have to grasp the tail of the closed bolt, and pull rearward. This engaged the striker upon the sear and completed the task of readying the rifle for firing.

As a result of this system, the Cooey Canuck was considered one of the safest rifles of its day, which combined with its diminutive calibre to make it popular among younger shooters and, more importantly, their parents. But don’t let that fool you: This is no toy. Although various models were obviously aimed at (no pun intended) younger audiences of the day, plenty of adults flocked to the early single-shot Cooey rifles due in no small part for their exemplary reputation for accuracy. Even today, well used examples are easily capable of shooting with accuracy that is on par with or better than many mainstream modern bolt-action .22s. And since they are some of the most simple, slow-shooting guns you’ll ever come across, it is highly unlikely that anything will have been worn out through too much use!

Simple, reliable, and safe, the Cooey made for an excellent gift for hundreds of thousands of young Canadians

By 1929, demand for Cooey rifles had outgrown the production capacity of Herbert’s facility at Howland and Bridgman, so the new Cooey Machine & Arms Company left Toronto in favour of a new facility in Cobourg. Taking over what was Cobourg’s largest industrial building and the former home of the Ontario Woollen Mill, the new building offered four and a half stories of square footage, and gave the firm the increased manufacturing capacity Herbert desperately needed in order to grow. And grow he did… by creating yet another iconic Canadian rifle: The Cooey repeater.

 

A Repeater Is Born: The Model 60 & Model 600

At the heart of Cooey’s new repeater was a new action, pictured here in the author’s Model 600, and easily identifiable by a new notch cut into the receiver to accept the cocking lug on the striker; Cooey’s first actual safety. With the rifle cocked, the bolt tail is pulled rearward and rotated, placing the cocking lug into the slot and preventing the rifle from firing. Coincidentally, as some of these more modern Cooey rifles wear, they can end up re-acquiring the automatic safety system of their forebears as the striker frustratingly ends up sliding into the safety notch upon closing the bolt. But that’s nothing that can’t be fixed! Furthermore, the half-cock notch of the earlier action was retained, allowing the rifle to be carried uncocked, but loaded and with the action closed.

The later Cooey Model 60 and Model 600 tube magazine-fed rifle continued the single-shot’s success

Of course, a faster action would be useless without a magazine to feed it, and at the time during which this Cooey repeater was being created there was no clear winner in the rimfire war; .22 Short, Long, and Long Rifle were all still commonly available and widely used. So, Herbert knew his repeater needed to be capable of carrying, chambering, and firing all three. And that meant one thing: He needed a tubular magazine. Slung below the action, with a removable follower, and a small loading port positioned forward and at the 6 o’clock position the Model 60’s magazine was long enough to swallow 11 rounds of .22 Long Rifle ammunition.

Marked as a Winchester rifle, this Cooey 600 was one of the rifles made after the Cobourg firm was purchased by Olin-Winchester, but before the plant moved to Lakefield

But that desire to remain compatible with three very different lengths of ammunition also meant that rounds would need to be fed from the magazine directly onto the bolt face using a Mauser-style controlled round feed. This brings us to yet another significant update to the venerable Cooey design; the dual spring-steel extractors on the bolt face. Wrapping around the top of the bolt, with protruding and bevelled claws stretching around the bolt face, this simple piece of stamped spring-steel allowed rounds to rise out of the magazine and be held affixed to the bolt face as the bolt was closed. The bevelled extractors prevented the round from rising too high on the bolt face, and the magazine below prevented the round from sitting too low on the bolt face, meaning the round would sit at approximately the right height to allow it to feed into the chamber, and the bolt to close behind it. During extraction, the dual extractor claws provided a ton of gripping area to pull the fired casing out of the chamber, and allowed the next round to push the fired casing up and out from between the spring steel claws, which would snap back around the loaded round now on the bolt face, allowing the cycle to repeat.

As one of Cooey’s most popular rifles, the Cooey Repeater (best known as the 60 and 600 but also having been available under numerous other names) was rugged and reliable, and brought the same level of accuracy Cooey’s single shot rifles were known for to a much more practical package. However, there is no getting around the fact that these are far more complex rifles, and they can be incredibly frustrating when they start to break down. Key parts to keep an eye on include the spring steel extractor, the magazine tube, and the follower. Usually, problems of unreliable ejection can be traced back to shooters too softly working the action, as the rifle’s ability to properly eject and feed rounds is directly related to the force with which the action is manipulated. However, be judicious in your heavy-handedness, as you obviously don’t want to beat the gun up unnecessarily.

The relatively unique Cooey action still works reliably all these years later, but parts can be difficult to source

Having created the wildly popular Model 60 repeating rifle in 1939, Cooey once again soon found himself embroiled in another war-effort economy. And again, he tooled up to support the effort, creating the Model 82 training rifle during World War II (which earned a contract for the procurement of 34,810 rifles by the army and R.C.A.F. Air Cadet Corps). Designed to mimic the look and, to a lesser degree, the handling of a full-size Lee Enfield rifle the Model 82 or M82 was little more than a Lee Enfield-style stock on a convention Model 39. However, the rifle’s historical relevance and relative rarity make it something of a collector’s piece today. And coincidentally, many are still in active service with the Royal Canadian Air Cadet Corp! But, just like in the months and years following World War I, the Cooey firm was keen to keep growing, and expanding their product offerings. So, with Herbert’s son Hubert taking on much of the design work at the company, the two Cooeys directed their engineering talents towards Cooey senior’s own passion: Shotguns.

 

The Model 84: Cooey’s Break-Action Smoothbore

It is somewhat fitting that one of the first guns designed by Hubert Cooey would also represent a massive departure from the Cooey tradition of rimfire rifle manufacturing. However, as disparate as a smoothbore may have been from Cooey’s bread and butter, Hubert was obviously raised in the Cooey culture and so knew that any shotgun bearing the Cooey name needed to marry practicality, reliability, and value. The best solution? A single-shot break-action.

The Cooey 84/840 is a Canadian gem; handling very nicely and proving incredibly robust

A massive change from the usual Cooey production, the Model 84 debuted in 1948 as a svelte and compact single-shot break-action shotgun in .410, 28-, 20-, 16-, and 12-guage. Simplicity was at the forefront of Hubert’s mind while creating the 84, as the simple single-shot design kept the lockwork separate from the action and required the shooter load the gun and then cock it in a separate action unlike many other break-action shotguns. As a result, shooters were expected to keep the gun broken or uncocked until ready to shoot, so there are no external safeties. Barrel lengths varied greatly from 26” to 36” long, and although early models were restricted to 2-3/4” long chambers, later Model 840s (the nomenclature change denoting guns made after the 1961 acquisition of Cooey Machine & Arms Co. by Winchester) had 3” long chambers.

The ethos of simplicity is even more evident in breaking the Model 84 down. Unlike most other break-action guns, there is no latch under the fore-end to secure the forestock to the barrels; instead it is simply held in place by spring tension. Simply pulling the forestock away from the barrels releases it. From there, the gun is further broken down by opening the action (which, coincidentally, can be done by pushing the lever left or right) and pulling the barrels off their pivot, like one would any other break-action.

Breaking down simply, and with so few moving parts, many 84 and 840s remain in use today

The Model 84 and 840 remained exceptionally popular throughout the gun’s 31-year production run. Over 1.9 million of these shotguns would leave the Cobourg factory before the Cooey brand was mothballed, and Winchester would follow up on the 84/840’s success with their own Model 370, 395, 168, and 37A; all based upon Cooey’s design. And it’s not hard to see why. With a slender receiver, a reliable action, and an excellent balance it is a very sought-after shotgun.

Unfortunately, tragedy would befall the Cooey family in the late ‘50s, with Hubert passing away suddenly and unexpectedly in 1957. Herbert would come out of retirement to head the firm that bore his name for a few brief years before selling Cooey Machine and Arms to the Olin Corporation in 1961, shortly before his own death in the February of 1962 at age 80. Two years later, Olin had already placed Cooey under the management of their Winchester-Western Division, and Cooey would launch their most successful design to date; a design that combined the firm’s knowledge of rimfire rifles with the more modern desire for a reliable semi-automatic repeater. That rifle? The last rifle a Cooey would design, and the only Cooey product still in production today: The Model 64.

 

The Model 64: Cooey’s Continued Living Legacy

Officially launched in 1964 (the same year Ruger launched the 10/22), the Cooey Model 64 had roots in the mid-50’s, when Hubert Cooey recognized Cooey’s need for a semi-automatic repeater to join their strong bolt-action lineup.

The Savage 64, originally known as the Lakefield 64b, was the last gun design penned by a Cooey

Borrowing heavily from his father’s work on the Model 39, Hubert took a similar bolt, receiver, and trigger design and matched it with a simple direct-blowback system operated via a small action spring mounted to the tail of the bolt assembly. Then, he fitted the trigger group with a simple lever-style safety not unlike that found on the Remington Model 700 (introduced in 1962), and designed a simple but effective 10-round box magazine from which the blowback action would reliably feed.

Still made in the Lakefield plant, where much of Cooey’s manufacturing equipment and staff went, the Savage’s design is almost unchanged

Unfortunately, as simple as the gun was, Hubert would die before the project was seen through to completion. Likewise, Herbert would find himself somewhat overwhelmed when he returned from retirement to take command of the company once again after his son’s passing, a fact that many indicate as a key motive behind his sale to the Olin Corporation. But Olin, the conglomerate behind Winchester, recognized the value in Hubert’s design and ordered Cooey to put the lightweight and simple Model 64 into production to give the brand something with which to compete against the likes of the Marlin Model 60 and equally new Ruger 10/22.

Like all Cooey firearms, the Model 64 was immediately regarded as simple, efficient, reliable and most of all, a bargain. Even ten years after its introduction the Model 64 would still be available here in Canada for less than $50. Sadly though, even with the long track record of producing excellent products, it wasn’t long before political and labour issues forced the closure of Herbert’s long-lived Cobourg facility in 1979. But, through some fortunate happenstance, the machinery and hardware used within the Cooey plant would find a new home down the road in Lakefield, Ontario with the aptly named Lakefield Arms Company; a company where many former Cooey employees would also find their next job.

In continual production for decades, the Savage/Lakefield 64 is one of only a handful of Canadian-made guns on the market today

But Lakefield Arms didn’t just get Cooey’s hardware. They also got the rights to Cooey’s Model 64. So, with the machinery moved and many of the same people manning it, Lakefield Arms retooled the production line and began production of their own Model 64; the Lakefield Arms Model 64B. Even after Lakefield Arms was purchased by Savage Arms in 1995 the production of Hubert Cooey’s Model 64 continued right up to the present day. Now known as the Savage Arms Model 64, it remains one of Savage’s most popular offerings, with no less than six different sub-models currently available.

Before Cooey was dissolved entirely, it is estimated that approximately 12 million firearms would leave Cooey’s various factories. From 1919 until April 1961, production schedules remained a relatively steady 20 firearms per day, which increased dramatically when the firm was sold to Winchester, who in turn replaced the Cobourg facility’s aged machinery with modern hardware. This increased the plant’s production capacity to 2,000 firearms per day. Over 67 different models of firearm would fill the Cooey catalog eventually, with numerous other firearms produced for other brands such as Hiawatha, Iver Johnson, Winchester, Mercury and various others.

While most Cooey designs are relegated to the history books, Savage’s 64 keeps at least one Cooey design in production

That Cooeys are basic, affordable guns cannot be debated. But there’s something about them. They are part of our nation’s shooting heritage. For many of us, they’re the first guns we ever laid hands on, and undoubtedly for many more they will provide a similar service again as we introduce our own young ones to the shooting hobby. They’re rugged, they’re reliable, and they represent a time in Canada’s past when it wasn’t untoward to give a young boy a rifle for his birthday. So if you happen to be lucky enough to own one of these rifles, hold onto it. Look after it. And use it. It’s what they were designed for.

Source:   https://calibremag.ca

 

 

HISTORY OF THE LAKESHORE MINOR BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION

The birth of the Lakeshore Minor Basketball Association (LMBA) coincided with the debut of the Toronto Raptors NBA franchise in the mid 1990’s. In its infancy, the youth league had one division of young adolescent players distributed among 4 teams. Initial financial support from local businesses and service clubs allowed the organizers to provide equipment and uniforms.

Over the course of the first decade, the league began to expand as it drew players from across Northumberland County. The league’s expansion was made possible through the generous support of the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board as divisional play took place at Port Hope High School, as well as Cobourg District Collegiate East and West. Presently, the LMBA conducts all house league games at Cobourg District Collegiate (CCI).

 

One of the factors that spurred the growth of the LMBA was that it drew upon a considerable pool of highly skilled older teenagers and adults to coach and fill other roles. Many of these people would not customarily have had the opportunity to contribute to a youth basketball programme that existed outside of the school system.

Through the years, the LMBA has drawn upon the leadership of numerous highly qualified and committed individuals that spurred the growth in player registration as well as improvement in programme delivery.

Initial founders and mainstays included Jim Birch, Keith Woods, John Hayden, Tom McIelwain, Tom Cable and Glenn Tozer. During the latter years and up to the present, key longstanding leaders and innovators have included Scott Fraser, Paul Van Laren, Eugene Todd, Will McCrae, and Paul Allen.

Over the course of its existence, the LMBA has achieved numerous significant milestones. In 2002/2003, the LMBA introduced the Lakeshore Lynx, its first Ontario Basketball Association (OBA) Rep team coached by Eugene Todd and Paul Allen. These two coaches guided the 2003/2004 Under 13 team to a provincial championship and repeated their success with the 2007/2008 Under 17 team.

 

2003 - 04 Lakeshore Lynx Major Bantam Ontario Cup Champions. Front row: Josh Oakman Allen, Charlie Davis, Chris Mullen, Robert Frame, Nick Wilson, Graham Gillies

Back Row: Paul Allen (Coach), Drew Tozer, Steve Holmes, Brad Trumper, Mike Traini, Jon Forget, John Gillies (Assistant Coach/Manager)

 

While the competitive programme was developing, the LMBA leadership undertook a series of house league initiatives. The expansion of the programme for younger players was possible due to the LMBA providing financial support for the installation of height adjustable baskets and the provision of an electronic scoring table at Cobourg Collegiate East.

Subsequently, the Executive expanded the house league programme to include the Under 10 age group. In 2012/13, the LMBA presided over promotional efforts to draw more girls to the programme.

In recent years, the LMBA established numerous educational sessions for coaches and players including Saturday morning activities and summer camps led by Jesse Young, the former captain of the Canadian Men’s National Team.

 

In 2019, the LMBA had 3 competitive teams and about 250 players registered in the house league whose ages ranged from 7-17. The growth in registration has been particularly strong in the younger age groups. Looking to the future, the organization has committed to improving upon the retention of female players by offering specific programming aimed to improve their confidence and engagement.

The LMBA is fortunate to have a very enthusiastic base of supportive parents, a dedicated and capable leadership and a skilled pool of eager coaches. The house league also benefits from having carded officials to referee house league games. One of the defining characteristics of the LMBA is the maintenance of its vision and guiding principles. The focus of the programme continues to encourage the learning of the rules, improving physical fitness and of course, having fun playing the game.

 

The Lakeshore Minor Basketball Association has proudly established itself as one of many impressive youth athletic programmes that currently serve Cobourg and the surrounding area.

 

 

 

Rugby football in Ontario goes back to the 1870s. In those early days it was really a university sport. Until 1903 teams in the Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU) played rugby union football rules. In 1903 the ORFU adopted the “Burnside Rules” (Google it). These rules created a football game much like the game played today in the CFL and NFL. By 1929 the British Rugby Union of Ontario had 8 clubs around Toronto and Hamilton. In November 1929 Quebec beat Ontario in an inter-provincial game.

 

During the 1930s the number of Ontario rugby clubs more than doubled. That growth was dulled during the war years. Following a very successful recruitment drive a meeting in September 1950 saw the start of a new Ontario rugby league. Through the 1950s clubs formed across Ontario including Peterborough, Kingston & Oshawa. By the early 1960s there were Western, Northern & Central divisions. In 1979 the Eastern Ontario Rugby Union joined the Ontario Rugby Union. By the early 2000s there were 4 Unions: Eastern Ontario Rugby Union, Niagara Rugby Union, Toronto Rugby Union and Southwest Rugby Union.

 

Rugby is a fairly recent addition to Cobourg sports. Rugby first made its appearance in the Cobourg area in 1985. Rodger Harp, then the head of Physical Education at CDCI East convinced a rugby playing teacher by the name of Bob Richards to organize a rugby team at the school. The following year Tom Jackson followed suit starting a boy’s rugby team across town at CDCI West.

 

Typical of many other high school sports in the area, a great cross-town rivalry developed between the two rugby programs. Many years later it would be this cross-town high school rugby rivalry that would be the spark needed to create the Cobourg Saxons Rugby Football Club. In 1992 St. Mary’s Secondary School would add a boy’s rugby program under the direction of Rob Majdell and Ray Heffernan.

Rugby was viewed traditionally as a sport for boys and men. Although the sport traces its roots back to 1845, it wasn’t until the late 1970s that Canada would begin to see its first women’s rugby teams. During the late 80s and early 90s there was slow but steady growth in women’s rugby in Ontario.

During the mid 1990s, girl’s rugby surfaced in Cobourg high schools thanks the courage of a couple of female students at CDCI West and St. Mary’s Secondary school. During this time Don Thompson was coaching both the senior and junior boys’ teams at the West. Don was fortunate to have an enthusiastic student, Laura Stevenson, volunteer as team manager for the boy’s program. In 1993 Laura persuaded Coach Thompson to start a girl’s rugby team and thus began girl’s rugby in Cobourg.

 

Across town a feisty young student named Kirsten Gallagher, worked her way onto the St. Mary’s varsity boy’s rugby team! St. Mary’s teacher Mike Killoran, also a rugby player, was so impressed with Kirsten’s guts and determination that he was inspired to start a St. Mary’s girl’s rugby team for the 1994 season. Two years later Bob Richards would help develop a girl’s rugby program at CDCI East.

Up until this point rugby was only played locally at high schools. A few Cobourg natives had gone on to play rugby at university and college. Many of these players were looking to play rugby in the summer to remain competitive when they returned to their respective post-secondary schools. However, without a local rugby club they were forced to travel to Oshawa, Ajax or Peterborough; or give up summer rugby altogether.

Two of those young players, Mike McMahon and Scott Jenkins would return to their old high school eager to help out Coaches Don Thompson and Bob Cairns with the rugby program at CDCI West. With the help of McMahon and Jenkins, Coach Thompson started what would turn out to be an annual event, the West Vikings Alumni Game. The Alumni game saw the Senior Vikings players take on Vikings Alumni in a friendly match. In years to come this annual event would prove to be an important catalyst for the Saxons…but more about that later.

 

1993 had two significant events as far as Cobourg rugby history is concerned. St. Mary’s Secondary School would start their rugby program under the direction of Rob Majdell and Ray Heffernan. Meanwhile Chris Hawley and Bob Richards would form a boy’s junior rugby team and enter it in the Toronto Rugby Union (TRU). The team was aptly named the Cobourg Ghosts after the famously successful local gridiron team of the 1940s and 50s.

Jenkins and McMahon both now playing rugby with Oshawa Vikings would offer help when they could and Don Thompson would come out to the occasional practice too. The team competed in the TRU for two seasons and then, for whatever reasons, was abandoned.

It was 1996 when Dina Davis, Steve Barlow and Bob Richards established a women’s rugby team--the Cobourg Crash. Dina had been playing rugby on a very competitive Ajax Wanderers women’s rugby team while Bob was also playing men’s rugby with the Wanderers. Steve Barlow had cut his rugby teeth at CDCI West and would go on to play rugby in college.

Girl’s rugby at all three high schools had become quite competitive and there was a good base of players on which to draw from. The Cobourg Crash continued until, in 1999, it amalgamated with the recently formed Cobourg Saxons Rugby Football Club.

 

Meanwhile, the aforementioned Alumni games that Thompson, Jenkins and McMahon would organize yearly were becoming a much looked forward to event-- as much for the friendly competition as for the social afterwards. At these socials McMahon and Jenkins would encourage others to follow them to Oshawa to play summer rugby with the Vikings. As these numbers grew over the years, talk on the car rides home naturally led to the idea of starting a club in Cobourg.

By this time McMahon and Jenkins had found themselves on the executive of the Oshawa Vikings and were getting a good appreciation of how a rugby club operates. And of course Bob Richards was always eager to discuss the future of club rugby in Cobourg.

McMahon began discussions with the Toronto Rugby Union to explore the option of forming a men’s rugby club in Cobourg. The idea was gaining momentum but if they were to start a rugby club they would first need to determine if there was enough interested players. In late spring of 1997 McMahon and Richards organized a rugby match between the alumni of CDCI East and CDCI West.

The event was well attended by players and spectators alike. From the numbers of players involved, and the spectator turnout it was obvious that Cobourg could sustain a rugby club. A large social at Kelly’s Homelike Inn followed the match and it was there that McMahon made the announcement that he had started the process of establishing a Men’s Rugby Club in Cobourg.

 

On December 22, 1997, the first General Meeting of the Cobourg Saxons Rugby Football Club was held in the dining room of Kelly’s Homelike Inn. The executive included Mike McMahon (president), Bob Richards (coach), Aaron Allen (fixtures secretary), Scott Jenkins (treasurer), and Betty-Lynn Bird (secretary).

Not wanting to turn any players away from the club, it was decided that the Saxons would enter two men’s teams in their inaugural season. The executive of the Toronto Rugby Union was sceptical that the small town and new rugby club could sustain two men’s teams, but they eventually relented to the rare request.

To say the Saxons’ first season was a success is an understatement. The Saxons 1^st XV would play their first 5 games and not relinquish a single point! The Saxons 2^nd XV were also very competitive and would be undefeated in their first 5 games as well.

Damien Keenan, then president of the Toronto Rugby Union would contact McMahon part way through that first season to discuss moving the Saxons 1^st XV up a division. Both Saxons men’s teams would finish the 1998 season atop their respective divisions with the Saxons 1^st team going on to win the Toronto Rugby Union Division 4 championship for 1998.

The following year, as mentioned previously, the Cobourg Crash would join the Cobourg Saxons to form a rugby club with both men’s and women’s teams. Junior boy’s rugby was added a few years later followed by junior girl’s rugby.  Several seasons later Simon Maranda and Bob Richards, after playing with the Ajax Wanderer’s old-boy’s, went about organizing a team of over-35 Cobourg ruggers.  This team would be known as the Cobourg Saxon’s Old Boys (the SOBs). 

 

Cobourg Saxon’s Rugby Football Club continues today. In 2014 the Saxons began offering Under 10 flag rugby. They expanded the minor rugby program the following year to offer flag rugby for Under 6 through to Under 10 as well as Under 12 introduction to contact rugby.

In 2017 the Saxons organized the Cobourg Saxons Beach Rugby Festival, which at the time was the only event of its kind in Ontario. Based on the rapid growth and success of the Saxons Minor Rugby program, the Saxons were named the Ontario Rugby Union’s Minor Rugby Program of the year for 2017.

The Saxons can boast several team honours but they also take pride in the numerous players who have been named to regional, provincial and most recently national teams. 

As the Saxons minor rugby developed, it exposed the sport to more and more people. As a result, the Saxons have recently added a women’s touch rugby team named the Cobourg Saxons Dirty Dames. This was one of the first women’s touch teams in Ontario. The Oshawa Vikings have since added a women’s touch team as well.

After decades of using local school pitches, the Saxons found a home with the development of a rugby-specific playing field at Westwood Park in Cobourg. This was a joint effort between the Town of Cobourg and the Cobourg Saxons Rugby Club.

Significant Events in Cobourg Rugby History

• 1985  Boys’ Rugby is introduced at CDCI East
• 1986  Boys’ Rugby is introduced at CDCI West
• 1992  Cobourg Ghosts Junior Boys Rugby Team is established (The Ghosts would fold after 2 seasons)
• 1993  Boys’ Rugby is introduced at St. Mary’s Secondary School (SMSS)
• 1993  Girls’ Rugby is introduced at CDCI West
• 1994  Girls Rugby is introduced at SMSS
• 1996  Girls Rugby is introduced at CDCI East
• 1996  Cobourg Crash Women’s Rugby established
• 1997  CDCI West vs CDCI East Alumni Game
• 1997  Dec. 22, Cobourg Saxons established with its first General Meeting at Kelly’s Homelike Inn, Cobourg 
• 1998  Cobourg Saxons field two Men’s teams, both teams are undefeated in the first 5 matches of the season. Men’s 1^st team does not relinquish a single point in the first 5 games. Saxons 1^st XV win Division 4 Toronto Rugby Union Championship. 
• 1999  Saxons Men enter the Millennial Cup as the lowest seed and defeat the Toronto Welsh and the Toronto Buccaneers. The Saxons eventually are defeated in the semi-finals by Lindsay R.F.C.
• 2000  The Cobourg Crash and The Cobourg Saxons merge as the Cobourg Saxons Rugby Football Club
• 2000  The Junior Boys Saxons host the club’s first visiting Tour – St. David’s College from Wales.
• 2003  The Saxons Old Boys (SOBs) over 35 men’s team is added
• 2004  The Senior Men host their first visiting Tour – Royal Holloway, University of London from England.
• 2009  The Senior Men embark on the club’s first overseas Tour to London, England.
• 2013  Saxons add Under 10 boys minor rugby
• 2014  Saxons add Under 6, Under 8 and Under 12 to complete their Minor Rugby compliment
• 2015  Saxons add Saxons Dirty Dames Women’s Touch Rugby Team
• 2016  Owain Ruttan selected to Canada U19 Team, scoring 2 tries.
• 2016  Brandon McLeod selected to Canada Maple Leafs Sevens Team
• 2017  Keagan Read and Josh Barss selected to Canada U18 Team. Read would score 2 tries for Canada
• 2018  Owain Ruttan selected to Canada U20 team
• 2018  Josh Barss selected to Canada U18 Sevens team, scoring one try
• 2018  SMSS Senior Boys win OFSAA Provincial Rugby Gold
• 2018  Adam McNee selected to Canada U18 Sevens team
• 2019  Mason Flesch selected to Canada U20 team, scoring one try
• 2019  SMSS Senior Boys repeat as OFSAA Champions
• 2020  Mason Flesch selected to the Rugby Canada National Development Academy
• 2020  Noah Flesch selected to Toronto Arrows Academy Program
• 2021  Mason Flesch on April 17 makes his professional rugby debut with the Toronto Arrows of Major League Rugby 

 

 

Cobourg Celebrates 1987 Sesquicentennial

In 1987, Cobourg celebrated its 150th birthday (Sesquicentennial). A committee was formed in July of 1985 charged with the mandate of delivering a high quality and interesting 150th birthday celebration. Chairman of the Committee, Ralph Zarboni, describes in the book, Cobourg 1837- Sesquicentennial -1987…. “Thirty very talented people came together to create a program designed to remind Cobourg citizens of their heritage and history, and to make them aware of excellent future prospects. The celebration has, for the most part, achieved its goals. The nucleus committee of 30 expanded into some 250 representing all segments of the community, including many of our neighbouring municipalities.” 

Members of the Committee were: Ralph Zarboni, Chair, William Gadd Publicity, Bruce Margles Treasurer, Ruth Woods, Secretary, George Borthwick, Bill Daly, Norm Duncan, Lew Griffith, Marion Hagen, Helen Hawke, Ed Haynes, George Jeanneret, Bob Jenkins, Dr James Johnston, L. Col. Robert Lucas, Bob MacCoubrey, Don Macklin, Wayne Milroy, Dean Pepper, Eleanor Pifher, Ross Quigley, Most Rev. R. Seaborn, David Sheffield, Bonnie Sheridan, Ron Templer, Ross Tressider, Peter Tulumello, Roger Williams, Bob Wilson, Col. Ced Haynes, Linda Jacobson, Mark Finnan and Mike Korol. 

78 events comprised the Sesquicentennial program including: 
 * Cobourg Waterfront festival
 * Old Fort Henry Guard visit
 * Royal Canadian Horse Artillery Military Parade, show and exhibit
 * Art in the Park
 * Royal Visit: The Duke and Duchess of York
 * Cobourg Boy Scout Reunion
 * Hot Air Balloon Race (sponsored by General Foods).
 * Fiddler on the Roof, (a performance by Northumberland Players)
 * F18 Airshow
 * Sesqui Parade
 * Downtown window decorating and sidewalk painting 

As part of the celebrations a Sesquicentennial book was published (Ed Haynes Chair, John Spilsbury Editor, Cecil Davies Art Director, and committee members, Dr. James Johnston, Barbara Cameron, Col. Cedric Haynes, Col. Gordon King, Percy Climo, Roger Williams, Jean Haynes). A sesquicentennial resource book to preserve the history of Cobourg for future generations was placed in all public and separate schools in the Northumberland and Newcastle Board of Education (Helen Hawke Sesquicentennial Education Committee Chair, Barbara Garrick Chair, Ron Cameron, Yvonne Green and Wayne McCurdy committee members). 

The Cobourg Commemorative Dollar produced 25,000 mined silver dollar coins approved as legal tender within the town limits for the entire year as well as gold coins valued at $10, not legal tender (General Chair Georges Jeanneret, minted in Alberta, Royal Canadian Sea Cadets Skeena). The Sesqui Calendar, as a promotional fundraiser sold for $5 and produced by the Cobourg and District Historical Society provided 365 historical entries pertaining to Cobourg’s past. Pictures were provided by the Cobourg Colour Camera Club (Charles A Hagen was Calendar Compiler while Thomas W. Hawke was Project Chair, Lois Ann Verney, Photography, Peter Delanty and Bill Gadd committee members). 

The sports community played a part in the celebrations as well. Ross Quigley served as Chair of Cobourg’s Sesquicentennial’s Sporting Events Committee which included:  
 * January 6, 1987 - International Boat Show Sesqui Exhibit – Cobourg Chamber of Commerce, CYC
 * June 21, 1987 - 44 cyclists (19 from Cobourg) participated in a 150 kilometre bicycle tour. Cyclists came from as far away as Penetanguishene, Oshawa and Belleville. It was sponsored by the Cobourg Cycling Club Tour – Dave Singfield, Chair, Pamela and Henry Joachim, sponsored by Complax Corporation.
 * The sesquicentennial Fishing Derby under the chair of George Cortesis extended over a prolonged period commencing June 22 and ending July 5, 1987. John McIvor of Cobourg emerged triumphant, landing the 30.6 pound chinook salmon after a battle that lasted three quarters of an hour. He caught the fish near Shelter Valley Creek and won an electric trolling motor as the winner of the Derby. The official weigh-in took place at the Cobourg Marina. 

 * June 26-28,1987 – C.L. Dingy Regatta – Barbara Johns, John Turner, Nick Weyman, Chair, Committee: Ralph Curtis, Dan Goldring, Ed Billing, Jarl Northwood, Marilyn Macklin, Steve Swift, Ben Veenhoff, Alan Hallworth, Don Macklin, Peter Stirling, Donna Curtis. 
 * June 27, 1987 - Galloping Ghosts Football Reunion which consisted of over 230 participants coming to Cobourg to participate in the Sesqui Parade, dinner and dance. Former players came from as far away as Vancouver, the Caribbean, Montreal and the United States to join in the fun. Committee members were: Bus Edwards, Chair, Ken Cooper, Paul Currelly, Jack Newton, Ed Haynes, Bernie Flesch, Audrey Burdick, Ireland Quigley, Jim Redmond, Homer Seale, Chub Downey, Ken Medhurst. This was one of the most popular sesqui events. Many of Cobourg’s older citizens will remember Cobourg’s most famous sports team that won 3 Canadian or Dominion Championships, 8 Ontario Titles and operated in Cobourg from the 1930’s to the 1950’s and led by President/Manager Fred Dufton. 

 * July 3 -5. 1987 -Can-Am Keel Boat Regatta- Barbara Johns, Chair, John Turner, Jarl Northwood, Steve Swift, Alan Hallworh, Henry Meinster. 
 * July 4, 1987 – Highland Games held at Donegan Park and included 20 pipe bands and numerous heavy events and highland dancing. 21 athletes registered in the heavy events which included the caber toss (56 and 28 pound), stone throw and hammer throw in both the amateur and professional class. Another event was the road races. As part of the Timex-Toronto Star Road Race Series ’87, 182 men and women participated in the 3K and 8K races. Runners travelled from Sudbury, Ottawa, New Jersey and Sault Ste. Marie to compete against local participants. Jim McIlwham from Cobourg won the 8K race in the 50-59 age category. The committee members included Harry Gardner – President, Mary Gardner, Secretary, Ron Cameron. Race Director, Gord Hunter, Heavy Event Coordinator, Dr. Paul Caldwell. 

 * July 26, 1987 - Cobourg Sesqui Lawn Bowling Tournament – Bob Fulton, Chair. Headed up by Gord King and Wally Reid. The event took place at the Cobourg Lawn Bowling Club in Victoria Park. The club ran two major tournaments in 1987 – The sesqui tournament and a tournament to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the club’s beginning. 54 bowlers, some in colourful period dress were led in a parade around the Greens by Don Diminie with his bag pipes. A Spider then followed and was won by Art Jones. Teams of Trebles then played a 12 end game and stopped for refreshments of tea, punch and cake donated by Ladies’ President Alma McKendrick and Mens’ President Wally Reid and cut by Mayor Angus Read. A second 12 end game followed and at the finish most of the costumed participants agreed that long skirts, waist coats, collars and ties were not nearly as comfortable, especially in such hot weather, as our present day dress code. The ladies winner was Alma McKendrick, the gentlemen winner was Ron Wicks, the high score with 2 losses – 19 points went to Gordon King, Doris Stephens and Agnas Haas, the treble winners were Bob Fulton, Doug Coyle and Bruce Screaton. (info taken from a report written by Al Hoskin, Jetney Chair)

 * August 7, 1987- Sesqui Celebrity Pro-Am Golf Tournament – Dick Garrison, Jim Bovaird, Chair. This event took place at Dalewood Golf and Country Club. 600 volunteers and committee members coordinated 28 celebrities, 26 pros and more than 100 local amateur golfers to celebrate Cobourg’s Sesquicentennial and raise money for the Cobourg Youth Activity Fund and the Children’s Wish Foundation. The event raised approximately $30,000 in money and prizes. Many NHL hockey players, referees and linesmen attended along with other significant personalities. Spectators were encouraged to attend both the tournament on the 7th and the silent auction on the 6th (which generated $4,000 for Children’s Wish Foundation). Shuttle buses were available to transport guests to view Jacques Villeneuve’s Formula 1 car, a Carling 1928 Mercedes Antique Truck on Display at an antique car show and to meet the Toronto Sun Sunshine Girls.  
 * August 8, 1987 – Muskoka Water Ski Show – Don Macklin, Chair, Linda Jacobson, Dean McCaughey, Carl Vaida, Steve Mancusco

 * The 8th annual Quench Run sponsored by General Foods occurred on August 15, 1987. Racers ran distances of 4.7 and 10 kilometres in men, women and open categories. The 10K run attracted 200 runners and the 5K “fun run” had 90 that included five categories within each race. Cobourg’s Jim McIlwham captured the Senior’s category in the 10K run. Proceeds from the event went to the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Race Director Bill Hart.
 * August 15, 1987 - Sesqui  Regional Swim Meet – Bob Jenkins, Chair, Layton Dodge, Cobourg Family Y. The event took place at the Cobourg Family “Y” Centennial Pool and brought recognition to many of Cobourg’s fine young swimmers. The Cobourg Y Waves swim team consisted of 48 swimmers and 3 coaches, Glen Bryan, Janet Bran and Sean Andrus. This was the Waves’ first time to host a swim meet which consisted of 76 races for children 8 and under to 17 years of age. Teams who attended the meet were from Port Hope, Napanee, Ajax and Bowmanville. All participants received sesqui ribbons. Three Cobourg swimmers, Todd Simpson, Kyle Elder and Ann Marie McCormick received medals for high pointgetters in their respective age groups. Donations from the Sesqui Committee provided awards for the event. (excerpt taken from Deborah M. Elder Cobourg Y Waves Parents Committee.)

 * August 15, 16, 1987 – Sesqui Soccer- Cobourg Soccer Club’s 10th Annual Pepsi Tournament took place on the various pitches at Donegan Park, CDCI East field and the Industrial Park fields. 49 teams including 6 from New York state competed in 71 games over the two-day event in the squirt, atom, mosquito, peewee, bantam and junior divisions. Cobourg Junior Selects were undefeated in the tournament but due to a tie did not accumulate enough points to advance to the final in their division. Cobourg Spoolon Bantams were the most successful local team, losing in the finals to Newmarket. Kingston won the Peewee division, Peterborough the Mosquito and Oakville the Atom division. Roy and Pauline Cashin, Chair.

 * August 22-23, 1987 – Legion Sesqui Softball Tournament – O.A.S.A. Provincial Peewee “B” Division – This event occurred as part of the sesquicentennial celebrations and consisted of 8 zone winning teams from Napanee, Kemptville, Aurora, Unionville, Nanticoke, Port Perry, Smithville and host Cobourg. Napanee won their 2nd straight Ontario title versus Unionville. Norm MacDonald, Chair, Lionel Gutteridge, Linda Bevan, Sports Officer Bob Robison, Gary Smith, Dick Turpin, Steve Sleeper. **Background info** The legion has been sponsoring minor softball in Cobourg since 1958 when people like Lionel Gutteridge, Tom Savage, Jack Bevan, Cedric Smith, Layton Dodge and many others got together and formed a softball league for children of ages from 6 to 15, it has been going ever since. (taken from excerpt in Sesqui binder) 

 * August 22-23, 1987 – Countess of Dufferin 100 mile Yacht Race – Gord Atkinson, Chair, Mike O’Grady, Dan Goldring, Don Macklin. 
 * The Arabian and Western Horse Shows held at Donegan Park on Saturday and Sunday September 26 and 27th was sponsored by the Arabian Horse Association of Eastern Canada and the Northumberland County Riders. A wide variety and exotic costumes attracted a large turnout of spectators who witnessed a high degree of horsemanship competing in 32 events. Bob Jenkins Chair, Esther Johnson, J. Barton, Doug Routh, Pam VanZelzen.
 * November 7, 8, 1987 – The Cobourg Figure Skating Club presented their 5th annual skating competition and sesquicentennial ice show called “Skate Cobourg ’87” – David Cook Chair. The skating event featured skating stars such as Gary Beacom for local audiences to enjoy. 144 registered skaters including 60 local skaters participated in the 28 category sesquicentennial themed show/competition. Local skaters exceeded in the competition and included Jennifer Harper placing first in the Novice Ladies Competition, Melissa Knight, first Juvenile B Competitive Ladies, Sara Haukioja first in Beginner girls and Geoffery Mercer first in Beginner Boys. **Background History **….  (The first Cobourg Figure Skating Club began in 1949 with Mr. Ed Bovay as its President. The first of many Skating Carnivals was held two years later, in 1951. In the early 1950’s, summer skating schools were held in the Cobourg Memorial Arena. Two notable skaters attended at that time; they were Don Jackson and Toller Cranston. The Cobourg Figure Skating Club moved to Pad II after its completion in 1977. All club skating and test days are held in Pad II. (unknown author))***

 * Cobourg Community Hockey League: On November 21-22 the CCHL staged a successful bantam rep team hockey tournament with 24 teams participating. Niagara-on-the Lake captured the A series title with a win over Bowmanville. Cobourg Wholesalers reached the playoffs of the tournament winning 3 straight games but were eliminated by the Championship team, Niagara-on-the Lake. Gord Stevenson, Chair, Layton Dodge, Peter Campbell, Ken Petrie, Wayne Wiggins, Brian Keighley, Bill Elliott. **Background History**( The first meeting for the Cobourg Church Hockey League was called on December 3, 1934 and the idea of minor hockey was conceived by Rev. Father Wolf, a priest at St. Michaels Parish. The 1st President was Bob Jackson. The first year saw 125 boys sign up for minor hockey. There were four churches involved: St. Peters, St. Michaels, St. Andrews and Trinity United. Cobourg Minor Hockey was played on natural ice up until the season of 1949-50 when a new artificial ice Arena was built, now the kids of Cobourg and surrounding area could even play hockey in the Summer. On August 17, 1953, the Cobourg Arena burned down four years to the day it was built. Colonel Gordon King and his Arena Board along with volunteering citizens cleaned up the damaged building. Because the ice plant was undamaged, a new building was put up in the same site, with a better more comfortable and safer building. In 1960/61, season 388 boys signed up to play minor hockey; as the numbers continued to grow, the CCHL began sending teams to play in Colborne and Grafton. In 1974/75, the youngest President of the CCHL, Jack Greer came up with the idea for a 2nd ice Pad. A building fund committee headed by Jeff Rolph was formed and on April 1, 1977, Pad II Arena was officially opened, this was due to many people donating many hours to help Minor Hockey. The Cobourg Church Hockey League became the Cobourg Community Hockey League that same year (author unknown).) **

 * December 20, 1987 Olympic Torch Relay -sponsored by Town Council. 6,214 Canadians carried the torch from St. John’s Newfoundland across the country to Calgary for the 1988 Winter Olympic Games, a total of 18,000 km. 88 local citizens carried the torch for 1 km each and were selected at random from 2.5 million Ontario applicants. Three separate events occurred in Cobourg to celebrate their sesquicentennial and the arrival of the torch. Five Cobourg residents and the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 133 received Celebration ’88 medals at a ceremony outside of Victoria Hall for their contribution to sports prior to the torch arriving. Two athletes, a coach, a sports volunteer and an official were recognized. Runner Jim McIlwham and figure skater Jennifer Harper were honoured as Cobourg’s athletes of the year. McIlwham, holder of 8 Canadian running records for his age group was the outstanding male athlete and 13 year old Harper who earned a bronze medal at the 1986 Canada Winter Games, the outstanding female athlete.  
Others recognized were volunteer Marjorie Vandershaaf for her involvement in the Parents’ Athletic Association program at CDCI West high school and the Special Olympics; Paul Currelly for his contribution to amateur sports and in particular his involvement in girl’s softball for over 30 years; and Bruce (Red) Alexander who received his medal for officiating and his involvement in Church League sports including hockey, baseball and football for more than 30 years. A two hour production entitled “The Games of Winter” was staged at CDCI West and in the evening, the Concert Band of Cobourg presented a sesqui Christmas pops concert at Victoria Hall. These events celebrated the Olympic Torch arrival as well as rounding out the Sesquicentennial celebrations.  

The Sesquicentennial celebrations were a huge success in bringing the community of Cobourg and surrounding areas together. The sporting community played a large part in this celebration. As quoted from the book, Cobourg 1837-Sesquicentennial-1987, Chairman of the Sesqui Committee, Ralph Zarboni states the following:   
Mayor Read, Town Council, service clubs, business and others have been most supportive; giving unreservedly of their time and talents. This in itself, is a measure of the type of town Cobourg is!!! I take pleasure and pride in thanking all those contributing to the some 78 events that have comprised our Sesquicentennial program. I would like also to extend congratulations to the thousands of citizens and visitors who participated with enthusiasm.
We should all be most happy!!!

Ralph Zarboni

Sources:  Cobourg 1837-Sesquicentennial-1987;  The Cobourg Daily Star 1987 edition; Minutes, Sesquicentennial Committee

 

NINE DAYS IN MAY

May 13 to 21, 2017 - The RBC Cup: The “Canadian National Junior A Championships” played throughout the week of May 13 to 21 at Cobourg Community Centre. 

The teams qualifying included the media darlings and favourites to win, “Brooks Bandits” from Alberta (West 1) featuring Cale Makar who was touted to go in the top ten in this year’s NHL draft. Also winning their way to the championships were the “Penticton Vees” of BC (West 2) who finished second to the Bandits; the OJHL’s Trenton Golden Hawks (Central) who defeated the Georgetown Raiders in the Dudley Hewitt Cup; the “Cobras de Terrebonne” from Quebec (East) and the host team Cobourg Cougars who were swept by Trenton back on April 6th.

The Cougars finished the preliminary round in first place by defeating Trenton 3-2 in OT; a 3-2 OT loss to Penticton and a 6-1win over Terrebonne; then defeated the Bandits 5-2 who choose to rest their top five players including their goaltender Mitch Benson and defenseman Cale Makar. In their semi-final game the Cougars defeated Penticton 3-1 to meet the Brooks Bandits in the championship final on May 21st with puck drop at 5:30 before a sold out house. The game, televised on TSN was everything it was expected to be with an exhilarating 3-2 overtime Cougar win when at 8:21 Nick Minerva one-timed it past goaltender Mitch Benson from the point on a pass from defenseman Matt Bumstead after Brenden Locke won the face-off in the offensive zone and Josh Maguire got the puck back to the blueline. 

Jamie Huber opened the scoring for Cobourg in the first and Brooks’ Connor Jean tied it up. The score remained tied until deep into the third when Bandits captain Nick Prkusik scored a big go-ahead goal with 8:31 left to play. Brooks was closing in on an RBC Cup victory in the third period when Cobourg's Ryan Casselman arguably scored the most important goal in Cobourg Cougar history when he buried a rebound from a Brennan Roy shot with 1:07 to play in regulation time to tie the game sending it into OT. The CCC exploded!

The rest was history for the Cougars, who went on to win their first championship as a Junior A franchise—a national one at that, which was their first since capturing the 1974 Ontario Junior C title. Goaltender Stefano Durante earns the top goalie award and is the final MVP. Spencer Roberts was the leading scorer and top forward for the tournament. Nick Minerva’s stick and gloves are enshrined at the Hockey Hall of Fame.
(Written with notes from Jeff Gard)

A number of graduates from this team moved on to further their education through hockey. Goaltender, Stefano Durante is playing for American International College's Yellow Jackets. Brennan Roy, Jesse Baird, Spencer Roberts and Cobourg native, Josh Maguire were recruited to UOIT by former Cobourg Cougars coach, Curtis Hodgins. Brenden Locke committed to Cornell University and Quinn Syrdiuk to McGill University. Sam Dunn of Hamilton Township played for the QMJHL's Ramparts before joining St. Mary's University Huskies in Halifax and Nick Minerva committed to Aurora College in Chicago. Assistant Coach, Corey Beer is now the Head Coach of the Timmins Rock of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League.

 

 

AN 1863 CRUISE ON LAKE ONTARIO 

* Extract from a talk by Archibald Lamont delivered to the meeting of the Cobourg & District Historical Society October 1995
* Sources at end

Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen.

You have a playground at your front door and this talk is about a great adventure on and around it long ago. Sailing about on Lake Ontario for pleasure and fun undoubtedly was a sport  soon after the  arrival here of people of European ancestry and possibly much earlier than that. There is one record dating from 1801, though C.H.J Snider tells us that "the first private yacht mentioned on Lake Ontario  "... was offered for sale in 1832." Since those  early days, there have been many thousands of cruises throughout the Lake, but very few stories exist describing their details. On August 3 of the year 1863, the Yacht BREEZE set out from the Royal Canadian Yacht Club on a cruise that resulted in a diary full of delightful detail. It is the purpose of this paper to pass on some of that delight to you. The diary today is in the National Archives of Canada, a gift to the Nation from George and Arthur Beddington, great nephews of the diarist.

 

BREEZE  ARRIVES AT COBOURG

I'm  going to start with an excerpt from the diary dealing with the arrival of the Yacht BREEZE at Cobourg on August 4 of 1863. Cobourg and some of its citizens figure prominently in the diary, many people being mentioned by name. Here is the arrival:

"At 8h a.m. we ran between Cobourg piers and met the RIVET'S dinghy taking her crew out to bathe. We were still at breakfast <but> two or three of us went on deck to get the anchor ready just as we entered the inner harbour, but were too late. Burrell, not knowing the way the boat carried with her,  luffed up too sharp, a puff of wind struck us just before, and so we ran straight into the wharf. Luckily, our bowsprit head was higher than the wharf so the bobstay lifted us. Loafers on the wharf shoved it off, and we anchored all right between RIVET and PALMETTO. The boats in harbour were the PALMETTO  and ZOUAVE of Hamilton, the BREEZE, RIVET and DART of Toronto, the ARROW, GORILLA, WIDEAWAKE, KITTEN and JOHN A. MACDONALD of Cobourg."

"After a pipe, I attired myself and went into town to call on the inhabitants. Did the Barrons, Chattertons and MacPhersons, the proverbial Cobourg hospitality flourishing like a green bay tree. The others loafed about town. All assembled at noon for tiffen except Morrison, Hancock, and Duggan. Mr.  Barron and Mr. Street visited us."

"Delicious as ever, in the afternoon many of the Cobourg girls assembled on board the RIVET. I joined the crew and we had a jolly sail; put down two buoys to mark the course. We had twenty four on board all told, not bad for a 16 ton boat. There was plenty of wind and little sea, so everyone enjoyed it immensely. We got in again at half past six, and I rowed myself on board the BREEZE just in time to join the rest at dinner. Just as we finished dinner, the Cobourg Band came down and getting on board the JOHN A. sailed about the harbour playing melodiously the while. All Cobourg turned out to stroll on the pier and enjoy the cool evening breeze. It was very free and easy and also very charming."

"(Just after midnight, we) returned from the hut of one Crusoe - no relation to Robinson - a "big bug" or sachem in these parts. To the sea rovers gave he a nautch, likewise beer. Many of the younger and fairer natives were present in their ordinary costume, reserving the full effort of their most gorgeous apparel for the ensuing night. Tattooing does not prevail along this coast. The religion is unknown and it matters not, but I have been credibly informed by some of the more ancient and unmarried females that their fair juniors are much given to the worship of a mysterious deity called theossifer."

In this short piece, we have learned some various things -what the Cobourg establishment did for entertainment, who some of that establishment  were, what boats were in the harbour, how the BREEZE came to town, what our diarist thought of the Cobourg girls, and so on. 'The Crusoe" mentioned was one of the local establishments, his "hut" was a big house, a "nautch" is an entertainment, and "theossifer" is "the officer". The diarist was engaged in arch humour in the whole of the paragraph.

BREEZE came to town because the people on board her were on a holiday cruise, and because Cobourg's fourth annual sailing regatta was taking place. They had four happy days ahead of them, but before I tell you of those days, I should tell you about the actors.

 

BAINES THE DIARIST AND HIS FELLOW OFFICERS

Our diarist was Henry E. Baines, 23 years of age, Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, stationed at Fort York. Baines was at Fort York because of the reinforcement of that fort brought about by warlike threats against Canada issuing from the United States. I mentioned above that he belonged to an institution that regarded the Americans with some contempt, a view that derived from the fact that officers in the Royal Artillery considered themselves to be the elite of the elite, and thus superior to all other mortals. Besides, the Americans were the potential enemy. Baines was an experienced yachtsman, with his own small sailboat, and crewed in the Yacht DART for a summer cruise around the Lake in 1862. Like all Royal Artillery officers of the time, Baines had an intensive education in observations, in writing, and in illustration. All of these abilities were brought to bear in his preparation  of the  diary, as you will see. Baines incorporated into his diary many watercolour and other sketches and an unmistakeable joie de vivre and readiness to take life as it comes, as shown by his reaction to the events of the Regatta Ball. Three years after his wonderful cruise, he lost his life in line of duty at the big fire in Quebec City, dying a hero to the whole populace of that city.

Baines was on leave from his duties for one month while he enjoyed the cruise of the Yacht BREEZE on Lake Ontario. With him for the whole duration of the cruise were two other officers at the Royal Artillery, Lieutenants Woodfull and Harvey, and a law student, Fred  Duggan. All were under 25 years  of age. In addition to these, for the leg from Toronto to Cobourg, they had aboard four other military officers, who, with the owner and others, I will tell you about, made a total of twelve people!

Reading about that crew of young men on holiday so long ago is delight. Youthful spirits burst forth from the page, as they plunged into the cold water first thing in the morning to "bathe" or at other times, enjoy the company of young women. They made their way around the lake, signing, fishing, observing, bathing, enjoying the company of women at times, dealing with difficulties. Many have followed, but I doubt that any have enjoyed themselves more. The diary records that "none of us were possessed of any particular nautical skills, but we pulled well together, and took things as they came."  In other writings, I have referred to the crew of the BREEZE as "The Happy Warriors". And so they were.

Of them all, we have but one specific picture, sketched by Baines. One morning, "Harvey got into the dinghy with a towel and a big sponge and,  having disrobed, indulged in a regular sponge bath. He looked so pretty that we cast off the painter and set him adrift in order to have a good view from a distance. He looked like a mermaid, only rather more so."

 

THE YACHT BREEZE

For the cruise in 1863, Baines' boat was the Yacht BREEZE and his skipper Dr. Edward M. Hodder.

The Yacht BREEZE, was a wooden boat of 17 tons, cutter-rigged and deep-draught. She had no radio, no record player, no engine - no such things even existed. When the wind fell to nothing, she could only stay and wait where she was until more came along. Of the cabin arrangement, Baines says little, except that "To each man was assigned a resting place. The Commodore had the aftermost berth on the starboard side, I the one forward on the same side, Woodfull opposite the Commodore, and Duggan the one forward on the port. Mellor turned in with the Commodore, and Harvey spread a mattress between the berths on the floor. His were the most comfortable diggings of all, as, no matter which tack we were on there was no chance of his falling out of bed... As our uniform cases reposed in the cockpit, we were forced to adopt some dodge to enable us to have an accessible depot for tobacco, pipes, clothing and small deer generally below. Our plan was to raise the mattress and insinuate our stores beneath it so as to make a pillow. It was a crafty move, but from it came great grief to me hereafter."

BREEZE was built in Toronto in 1862 for Dr. Hodder, who had great hopes for her on the racing  circuit. However, despite that she was reported in the  newspapers as "very carefully built with the latest improvements faithfully carried out in model and rig... she had not fulfilled the expectations formed of her by her builder and owner. In time, as her points are better understood, she may exhibit an improvement." In fact, she didn't. Dr. Hodder   
abandoned BREEZE to another owner in 1868, and acquired a bigger vessel. BREEZE at some later time unknown to me, was "lost off the mouth of the Humber River," according to Snider.

 

COMMODORE  HODDER,  SKIPPER/OWNER OF BREEZE

Early  in  the diary,  describing  the  preparations  for departure,  the diarist  describes  "all hands acting as stevedores and the Commodore working and superintending like two." Other than this comment, and a sketch, he says nothing about his skipper. That is a pity, for there is a great deal to be said about the man. A sketch in the diary shows him during a stop at Presqu'ile, somewhat heavy, grey-bearded, his crew surrounding him, and his boat lying at anchor. Dr. Hodder was a big man not only physically, but also mentally and in the management of boats.

At the age of eleven years in 1822, Hodder went to sea as a Midshipman in the Royal Navy, serving with his father, Captain Hodder, R.N. His service in the RN. was cut short by a wish to study medicine. By the time of his death, his name "was a household word in Toronto. Skillful, cautious, affable, and handsome, he was a universal favourite." And no wonder, for the good Dr. Hodder was indefatigable. A practicing physician, he was also Coroner of Toronto, president of various medical bodies, a leading member of the active staff of two hospitals, a co-founder of a medical school, and dean for  some years of another.

With all his professional engagement, though, Dr. Hodder still found time to indulge his love of the maritime life, and indulged it whole-heartedly until  his death in 1878. Longer than any other, he was Commodore of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club for a total of over twenty years; from 1856 to 1878, there were few years in which he was not the lead man in that club.

He never forgot his early experience in the Royal Navy and was obviously a careful and competent captain of his vessel. When BREEZE approached  Weller's  Bay (Consecon Bay) in 1863, we can be sure there were no good charts showing this area in detail at the time. Even had there been charts,  they would no doubt have been unreliable, for that shore is a lee shore and there are shifting beds of sand on it. Never mind. The Commodore knew exactly what to do, "... having anchored and lowered head-sails, the Commodore and Burrell took the dinghy and lead line and proceeded to examine (the) opening. Soon returning, they reported it practicable." Those were exactly the procedures used by the great maritime explorers in the days not long before Hodder's experience as a midshipman in the R.N. Commodore Hodder knew his business very well indeed, and used his knowledge to help others.

At the time of the diary, the chart of the lake in general use was one produced in 1850 by Lt. Frederick L. Herbert, R.N., and published in Toronto. It gave soundings in the lake at large, but told nothing of the harbours and ports frequented by mariners. The Commodore, evidently unhappy with the lack of information available as guidance to the harbours, produced a little book in 1855, entitled THE HARBOURS AND PORTS OF LAKE ONTARIO. On the cover of his book, he describes  the contents as having arisen "from recent surveys and personal observations." His professional medical responsibilities show through his avocational interest when he writes in the preface to his book "it will gratify me, if through any effort of mine,  a single life is saved, or the smallest craft that navigates this noble lake is preserved from wreck."

With the book, he was not finished. At the time of its publication, he says that he has himself "visited every Port, with the exception of the Sackets Harbor and Port Ontario." By 1866, he had visited all, with no exceptions, and published a chart of the Lake that included the harbours for the 'first time. Baines doesn't say much about the activities of The Commodore on the 1863 cruise of BREEZE. It seems likely that he was off sounding the harbours in which they found  themselves, checking previous information he had developed and finding new things, all with the 1866 chart in mind.

 

"SHIP'S STAFF" OF THE YACHT BREEZE

To assist him in the running of his vessel, Hodder employed  a professional seaman, the pilot, "Burrell, a strong weather-beaten fellow." Says the diarist of him "This latter was a good type of the better class of Lake hands. During the summer season, he sails in one of the large schooners  that carry freights or corn grain or lumber from one lake port to another and occasionally ventures on a coasting voyage to Halifax or St. John. His wages might be $35 or $40 per month. In the winter when the navigation of the Lakes is rendered impossible by the cold, he betakes himself northward to the unsettled districts and traps the smaller wild animals for the sake of their skins. With tea and tobacco, he said, he could rough it anywhere, and I believe him. These Canadian sailors have a good deal of the American versatility in their composition. He was a most useful fellow on board, knowing nearly every harbour on the Lake thoroughly, and being a good seaman, though he was not accustomed to small craft. This made him distrust the ship and hesitate about carrying on a good deal at first, but latterly he gained confidence enough and made the most of her."

With two such men as Hodder and Burrell running BREEZE, it really is surprising to learn that, in the course of a three week cruise, they managed  to lose two dinghies to bad weather. But they did indeed.

For cabin duties, BREEZE sailed with a Private Miles aboard, but at Cobourg Miles was discharged for unstated reasons, and another "boy answering  to the name of Alfred was shipped and instructed  to make himself generally useful. A cadaverous loutish looking fellow, requiring constant stirring up, he saved us a deal of dirty work in the cleaning and cooking departments".

Finally, the ship's staff included Mellor, the Commodore's young son.

                                                I
THE STAY IN COBOURG

As we have heard, BREEZE arrived in Cobourg on August 4. Figuring prominently there in the shore-side activities of the next few days was the Globe Hotel, on the northeast corner of King and McGill streets. Built in 1848, it was touted as the "finest hotel between Toronto and Montreal, "a description  somewhat at odds with Baines' description of the ballroom. Its reputed grandeur did not save it, for it burned the year following Baines' visit.

From the diary, here is the whole of Chapter 3 describing part of the stay in Cobourg: 

"Awoke at six on the 5th, with many flies buzzing and biting. The morning bright and warm, no wind, bathed off the pier head. Oh, how warm that water was! Then clear up ship and breakfast at 8 a.m., pie, rolls,  ham, beef, tea, coffee, all well punished. Then a pipe. The second-class yachts, i.e.,  those under ten tons, started at 10 a.m.  - SLUG, just brought from Rice Lake on the cars, WIDEAWAKE, ZOUAVE, PALMETTO and KITTEN. We then took eight ladies on board, drifted out a little way, then a long rolling swell off the Lake and no wind - so hot! We got in as soon as we could and saw the first class yachts start at 1 p.m. The start was effected in this way. All the competing boats were moored on the lee of the windward pier with their mainsails up in order previously determined by lot. At a given signal their headsails were hoisted and they were towed out by the bystanders.

They got off well but the GORILLA being first had the advantage of a little puff of wind and gained a good start on the others, maintaining her lead until the end of the day. The others were the ARROW, JOHN A. MACDONALD, RIVET and DART. There was a light wind from the South. All day the race lasted, the wind at times falling altogether, then exerting itself enough to give a feeble puff for a few minutes, after which it became calm as before. It freshened, however, enough to bring the GORILLA in before the time allotted for the race had elapsed, but died away immediately, leaving the RIVET just outside.   Had the breeze lasted ten minutes longer, the RIVET would have saved her time and won the race. The WIDEAWAKE carried off the second class prize."

"The band played on board the JOHN A. as before and we loafed with many ladies on the wharf till they all took themselves off to dress for the  ball.  Mrs. Stewart, the Misses Hodders, and Miss Coewell arrived by steamer from Toronto and were forthwith conducted to the Globe. Harvey had taken a room there and I dressed in that. I had to go down to the bar to procure a ticket. It was crowded with loafers more or less drunk, smoking, chewing,  and spitting like Yankees." 
                                                                                               
"The ball room was dismal, insufficiently lighted, and papered with dark green and brown; it look like a cavern. The music was bad, the floor was bad and the supper was bad. The girls were good though and that covered nearly all the sins. I was bored into leaving at two. I stood at the door of the hotel talking for a few minutes when I noticed two gentlemen coming down stairs in each others arms and head foremost. About half way down the undermost hitched his leg in the bannisters and remained in suspense, while the other shooting ahead picked himself up and walked away. Imaging this to be a custom of the country, I remained quiescent and observant. Presently some bystanders disengaged the obfuscated and entangled gentleman  and took him into the bar, whence he speedily emerged followed by a fist. This time he fell soft on a group of loafers who scattered in confusion. Much noise and talking but nothing practical ensued so I went home to bed. This was not the only row that night."

 

"6th August. Could not manage to get up as early as usual this morning. I had, however, my accustomed tumble in off the pier head, and performed my toilette satisfactorily. I was fortunate enough to possess a small bag in two compartments originally intended for shaving tackle but now made to carry brushes  and soap. This I slung to a towel and always took with me when I went to bathe. I scrubbed my hands and cleaned my teeth while swimming in the lake and brushing my hair was an agreeable pastime on the road back. When bathing off the yacht we used a tin basin turn and turn about for any soapy ablutions. One small mirror was provided by the commodore and it always  turned up providentially on our nearing any port with a town attached to it. Elsewhere it remained perdu as nobody ever looked for it. After bathing this morning, I went to a barbers, got myself shaved, and then joined our party at breakfast at the Globe. Then a pipe and a prowl into town.

About midday the ladies gathered to the ship and we ran out some seven miles to the southward to watch the race. It was a good sailing day with plenty of wind and unfortunately a proportionate amount of sea running.   Several of the ladies yielded to the weakness of their dear little interiors but we never mention names. Mr. Lanon, Harvey, Woodfull and Dugmore,  gathered around the weather shrouds and did vocal melody "an it were any nightingale". The unfortunate RIVET was becalmed between two other boats some few hundred yards on each side of her, both of whom had plenty of wind, so when at last a cat's paw came her way, she put about the returned to port. We soon did the same and disembarked our precious freight."

"Then the Toronto party all dined together at the Globe and spent a very pleasant evening at Judge Boswell's. Music and dancing, strolling on the lawn, and sitting on the steps, very sociable and jolly. About one a.m., we all strolled down to the pier to see Mrs. Parsons off to Toronto. The boat from Kingston came in at two looking very pretty with her long row of cabin lights and coloured lamps on each paddle box. Farewells over, I turned in aboard the BREEZE."

 

"7th August.   Matutinal swim, breakfast at the Globe. The Breezers and ladies from Toronto assembled at Judge Boswell's at eleven. Traps and quadrupeds were collected and we started for Rice Lake. Arthur Boswell, Bogert and I took the last thing on wheels and disappeared. It was a kind of gig drawn by the spectre of a horse who appeared ready to go on his knees every day and beg that twenty four hours more life might be vouchsafed to him. We came up to some others of the party at a public house (or tavern) about halfway, called Cold Springs. To them we accounted for having brought our beast so far by saying that he luckily fell to pieces near where another of the same class was grazing, so we mended him up with odd bits from this other. The road was pretty and changing its character constantly, now winding along the foot of a hill, now through deep woods, then emerging into open cultivated country with farmhouses  scattered  about. There was interest enough to carry us through the twelve miles without our feeling bored.

It was a blessed hot day, threatening rain now and then but the sun always prevented the clouds carrying out their intention. When we arrived at Gore's Landing we found all assembled in the hotel planning boating expeditions. The greater part of us got on board a small yacht and stood out into the lake. There was a light breeze just rippling the deep blue water. Some thirty miles in length, the lake only averages a breadth of three. It is fed by three good sized streams, the largest of which, the Otonabee, falls into it nearly opposite Gore's Landing. The Trent, its great effluent, runs out of the East end into the Bay of Quinte at Trentport.

But the chief beauty of the lake is its islands. I do not know how many there are but they are all very lovely, covered with trees to the water's edge, they show every variety of tint and colour in their foliage, and stand out well from the more distant wooded capes or tawny meadows on the Northern shore. The peculiarity of this lake to English eyes is the wild rice which grows in the deep water and lifts up its pale green feathery head in thick profusion through beds a mile and more in length. Round the islets and across the rice beds we cruised till the wind fell and left us fairly becalmed in a rice bed on our way home. A friendly tow brought us to our mooring and we prepared for dinner noways loth. Three of the party had been fishing and had caught some fine black bass, two of which weighed about 4 lb. each. The first dish at the dinner table was Maskinonge,  the king fish of these lakes. It is more like a gigantic pike than any other English fish. This dish received due attention but did not at all interfere with the rights of those which followed it. The beer was good and plentiful and all things went happily. Then pipes and I made a rough sketch of the lake from the hill by the hotel."

"By this time shawls were being brought out and the horses were put to. Fred Duggan was offered to us in exchange for Bogert who was wanted to make up a quartette in another carriage. We examined the amount of sitting down room required by each of us (three in a gig, you see) and consented.  Our dilapidated ground plan of a horse soon fell in rear of the others though we started him with a spurt and by the time we got to Cold Springs it was dark and raining."

"Damper and darker it grew till we could no longer say whether we were on the road or not but had to give the perfidious old beast his way. He, being probably incited thereto by the fresh smell of a hedge or rather creepers over a snake fence, for hedges are not in this country, meandered along till suddenly one wheel went down, the other up, and we found ourselves in a heap on the ground. Having taken a wrong turn on entering Cobourg, it was eleven o'clock before we reached Judge Boswell's. What a lot of tea we continued to drink when we had been wrung out and hung up to dry. At last we were forced to cry hold and I returned to the yacht. On my way down, I looked into the Macpherson's where dancing and generally jollity were going on. Wet, dirty, and tired, I presented myself in the ballroom and the very fact of the large patch of mud on my quarter which I thought the worst part of the business proved my excuse, for an upset story accompanied by such stern evidence covered all my sins, lateness and disreputable dishclout  appearance into the bargain."

"It is perfectly marvellous how things that under ordinary circumstances you would never dream of getting into accommodate themselves to all one's personal peculiarities when on a cruise."

"Judge Boswell's coat fitted me a merveille at tea and I was equally at home in one of Jim Macpherson's at the party. After a while, I found myself too limp and tired to be up to the mark so obtained permission to depart. The yacht was some three or four yards from the wharf so I went to the hotel and had a pipe. Then the ladies had to be put on board the steamer for Toronto. It was blowing and there was a pretty heavy sea running out in the lake. Consequently, it was three in the morning when the steamer touched the wharf. No berths could be had but Clarkson and Cobden went off with the ladies and we trusted to them to manage. Just had time to run ashore before the gangway was hauled aboard. Then back to the hotel, loitering a moment to watch the great lights of the steamer in the long slow heave over each wave till they grew less and less and then went behind the thick black veil of darkness and rain."

 

"8th August.   As several of the visitors attracted to Cobourg by the double event of regatta and ball had departed, I easily obtained a bed at the hotel.  Not being likely to enjoy one again for some time, I made the most of it, and breakfasted pretty late. It was dead calm. I went down to the harbour and had a pipe. Then Fred Duggan turned up and we watched the drooping flags and motionless clouds. Consulted Burrel but got no hope from anything. There was a wee wee steamer, about as big as an ordinary row-boat close to us. She had crossed the lake from Rochester, where we met again. A small house in which were two apartments was built in her by way of cabin. Aft was the engine and forward two bunks. In the bow a regular flagstaff with the Stars and Stripes floating from it. If four fellows had taken her flag, one at each corner,  they could have wrapped the boat in it and carried her off bodily."

"At last we got tired of watching her manoeuvre and concluded to search for the commodore; ran him to earth at Judge Boswell's. We agreed not to go out because there was no wind to take us out, and went through the town in search of tin-ware, fishing tackle, etc., etc. Having bought all we could buy, we marched through the streets carrying kettles and pans in regular procession to the ship. We dined on board at six. By the time our pipes were out, Bogert came down attended by ladies. Then the steamer from Toronto arrived; Bogert was put on board and somehow or other we all found ourselves in sailor costume spending the evening in the Judge's drawing room. That night everyone slept on board".

"9th August. At half past six, we shook ourselves out of our blankets and proceeded to tub. Woodfull and I took the dinghy to the west pier and had a bracing swim in the clear cold water. While we were dressing and doing toilette, a man having the appearance of a half drunk cobbler arrived accompanied by two small boys. He was very loquacious and inveighed against the uncleanly habits of the Cobourg populace who preferred a basin in their own rooms now and then to a daily swim in the big lake. His own lavatory tendencies he explained by saying he had been a soldier and then gave us many curious and interesting details of the bathing parades at Gibraltar. Furthermore, he informed us that every English soldier was obliged to learn to swim, and that now regular skating parades for the troops were held in Canada during the winter. We were hungry, and preferred breakfast to acquiring more knowledge so wished him good morning and returned to the ship. After breakfast, we warped out of the harbour under sail. The wind was light but steady from the Southwest. Goodbye to Cobourg."

 

The Cobourg Sentinel of 1863 reported "Mr. Wallace was the first of our citizens who risked capital in yachting, and to him we are especially indebted for the many pleasant days we enjoyed during the past few years. We congratulate our townspeople on this late addition to our reputation and should they succeed in bringing back that "Prince of Wales Cup" to Cobourg, we assure them their claims to make Cobourg the capital of the Yacht Club cannot  be resisted, and their right to have the flag-ship, now in Toronto, removed to Cobourg harbour is indisputable."

Like all towns, Cobourg had its establishment. It appears from the names cited by Baines in the diary that Commodore Hodder was well acquainted  with it, and we can readily imagine the good natured, though sharp, awareness he had that his hosts were envious of the position of the R.C.Y.C.. Henry and his fellow  crewmen, little involved in the jockeying of their betters, would have been delighted with the establishment families they went to see, for most of them had daughters to meet and party with. Thus, "Judge Boswell" (George M. Boswell) mentioned several times, was a County Judge, 54 years of age, with home at Lowwood. Others of the roster from the diary or the newspaper accounts were:

•  A.G. Boswell (the "Arthur" of the diary), Barrister,  29 years of age.
•  H.G. Boswell, Division Court Clerk, 24, with two servants.
•  W.J.  Stanton, Solicitor, 23, with three servants. Agent for a large life insurance company.
•  F.W. Barron, Headmaster, 48. Daughters Emily and Agnes. Barron was a "jolly, plump, little man, quick-tempered, but warm-hearted and kind". He had a yacht of 14 tons (on Rice Lake?) Archibald Lampman ('the Canadian  Keats') was one of his students.
•  G.S. Daintry, Gentleman, 48. Daughters Emily and Jane. A singer on occasion, for he is reported at one gathering to have sung 'The Fine Old English Gentleman', and the newspaper account went on to characterize him, saying of him that "he himself is  a most  perfect  specimen."  Daintry was Lessee  (proprietor) of the Cobourg and Peterborough Railway.                                                                                          •
•  R.D. Chatterton, Deputy Clerk of the Crown, 56. Living at Havelock.
•  D.E. Boulton, Barrister, 44, a Colonel in the militia, with three servants. Daughters Emily and Mary. Boulton was Chairman of the Board of the school  of which Barron was head.

The older of these members of the establishment were 'from England, as were Commodore Hodder and his Royal Artillery crewmen. That they were the establishment is clear from the newspapers of the day; Guillet's scrapbook of clippings recites many of their doings. That they were very English too is also clear - at one dinner it is reported they were served "The  Roast Beef of Olde England".

Poor Cobourg! Try as it might, it couldn't overcome geography. Toronto had the protected harbour and the population and the money centres and the politics - everything in short, and the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, that "flag-ship", stayed there safe and secure against Cobourg's machinations.

 

THE  HAZARDS OF THE LAKE

"Lake  Ontario is a noble sheet of water on a calm summer day, blue with the deep ultramarine of the Mediterranean, changing in a fresh breeze to bright sunny green, with drifting purple cloud shadows, and as the gale grows fierce rising into the power of black blue waves crested with flashing white foam. It is hardly in any one aspect distinguishable from the outer sea." Those  words, with which Baines started his diary, will bring an emotional response from all who have sailed the lake. They also establish Baines as an observant man with pronounced artistic leanings.

The month of August 1863 was a difficult one for boats on Lake Ontario, whether large or small, and BREEZE had its share of those difficulties. Here is  what was  recorded in BREEZE on August 11: "At about five o'clock pm, we were nearly off Long Point, the wind was steady and there was nothing to do. All at once, the sky clouded over to the South West. We watched it earnestly and it soon became evident that a pretty heavy squall was coming up.   We took in the jib and double reefed the mainsail. One squall passed astern of us towards the North East. After a very short consultation, the mainsail was lowered and hurriedly stopped. Then the wind fell nearly calm. All the sky was dark with a strange blue tint over it. First drifted above us a long line of pale gray clouds with broken streaming edges. Then out of the South West burst three flashes of lightning flooding the whole sky with intense brilliancy.

While our eyes were still dazzled with the flare of the last, the squall burst over us. <There was> a sudden violent gust of wind then <a> steady hard blow with thick streaming rain. We knew well enough that coats were useless so met it in shirts and trousers only, barefooted too. It deluged us at once. The wind was so violent that we could not keep our faces to it. The dark lake changed to a pale gray with the crests of the
waves marked in broad lines of dull blue. Everything on board was snug and fast, Burrell at the helm. We drove through the water under our foresail sheeted down close at a grand pace. We made a stout rope fast to the dinghy and paid out some five or six fathoms that she might be clear of our counter. Harder and harder it blew and still we drove before it. A large schooner away to the southward caught it hot and heavy. She let go everything but the fore staysail with a run and kept the same course as ourselves:

"Presently the sea got up, following us at first in short broken waves, which by degrees grew into long regular masses of dull green water like billows at sea. The dinghy was terribly tossed about. At last a wave slewed her on one side, the painter slackened, then tautened suddenly. The staple was torn out and our poor little boat was left alone on the wild sea to shift for herself. The first fury of the squall was now spent but it still blew a gale and the sea grew heavier. From North, South, and East, the lightning flashed incessantly,<and> overhead the thunder crashed at short intervals. All the sky was black except one very beautiful break to the west ward: a clear space amongst the clouds orange golden over the blue trees of Prince Edward,  reddening upwards to the bright edges of the storm a narrow space of pure white rack beneath which the broad shield of the sun floated in light. Over against this stretched the full arc of a perfect double rainbow... 

"The squall was heavy on the lake. The steamer from Toronto unable to make Cobourg ran on to Kingston. The BANSHEE from Kingston put back with her bulwarks carried away. Off Port Hope, the RIVET lost her mast and with difficulty got into Cobourg half full of water."

August in 1863 was a bad time for storms on the lake. The one just described occurred on August 11. On the 20th, the 22nd, and 24th, they again experienced very bad weather; their second dinghy, acquired in Kingston, was lost on the 20th. The storm of the 22nd resulted in the loss of the schooner FLEETWING off Cobourg. She overturned when struck by a squall, drowning the Captain's wife, child, and steward.

On the 24th, they took off early, after an austere breakfast;  Baines' account of the morning is short: "We all rose at five. It was blowing pretty fresh so we decided on breakfasting at our moorings. Eggs and a biscuit and a half a piece were ready at seven. At eight o'clock, we were underway carrying the storm jib and two reefs down in the mailsail. When outside, we found the wind was south south west and not so fresh as we had expected. Then we set the topsail. It blew harder as we got on and we took two reefs in the mainsail and set the storm jib again. By this time, we had got past Pultneyville, a small village which struck me as being rather a good type of those generally seen along the lake and I made a sketch of it accordingly."

"To the northward of us was a propeller who did not appear to be making good weather of it. When on our gaining tack we rather 'whipped' her but we lost  again when we stretched inshore, which was occasionally necessary as the wind was against us. BREEZE encountered other boats and ships rather frequently  on the lake. Says the diarist "Many a huge steamer built in tiers like the Tower in Babel in old pictures, churns up the blue water, leaving a broad pale foam track as it rushes from port to port. Many a tall white schooner bears to Eastern marts the wheat of Michigan or corn from the waving plains of far Wisconsin. In rough unwieldy raffs the massive logs of pine and cedar from the depths of many a dark Canadian forest journey slowly to be broken  up under the classic heights of Quebec; and amongst all these flits from time to time some trim clean-sailed yacht, like a bright careless butterfly hovering in the midst of the busy respectable denizens of a farm yard'.

On a stroll at Oswego  he reports:  "Woodfull, Harvey and I pursued our peregrinations to the end of the wharf whence we counted twelve schooners  leaving the harbour at nearly the same hour." Many such schooners, returning to Oswego in storming conditions, failed to make the entrance  and ended on the rocks.

 

VISITING AMERICAN PORTS IN TIME OF WAR

After stops in Kingston and Prince Edward County, BREEZE visited various American ports - Sackets Harbor, Oswego, Sodus, and Charlotte (Rochester). To see into the depths of the diary's records of those ports, remember the diarist's background. The important facts are that he was an officer in the Royal Artillery, and was stationed at Fort York in Toronto. Canadian newspapers of the day were full of news of the war going on in the land to the south. The Globe reported on it regularly in detail on the front page, under the banner "The American Revolution", The Leader under "The American War." Dispatches, reports, letters, editorials, were endless in their examinations. We can imagine that talk and chatter in the messes of Fort York in Toronto, the examination of professional matters, the rumours - and the possibility of involvement.

Baines was in Toronto because of the threat from the south. In 1861, the British mail steamship TRENT had been stopped on the Atlantic by an American warship, and two Confederate diplomats taken from her. One of many consequences of the big hoorah that followed was the strengthening and extension of the defences of Fort York, including the addition of seven heavy artillery pieces. To serve those guns properly, several brigades of the  Royal Artillery were posted from England and newly stationed at Fort York, and Baines arrived. As mentioned earlier, the Royal Artillery was an elite regiment, and considered by its officers as the elite of the elite. All the rest of the world were much lower in the scale of worth and value, especially the Yankees.

The contemporary concern about the American threat was soundly based, it seemed, for loud and marshal! sounds, with much breast-beating, did emanate from various American quarters, repeatedly. Said the Globe editorially on August 1 "... many good people are greatly exercised by the threats of the New York Herald that when the war is over, the Republic will proceed to polish off England and France."

What is a good and loyal officer of the Royal Artillery to think, what to do, in a climate of such a kind, one that promises that his professional abilities may soon be called on? Even on leave, Henry responded, though gently. Passing the exposed railway line on the shores of the lake just out of Toronto,  he sees and writes that "enterprising Yankees" could do it in with little trouble. "A moonlight night, a spade, and a bag of gunpowder are all they want,"  says he.

Henry wasn't finished; cruising amongst the despised Yankees provided opportunity for another role, as spy. Much of what he reports at Sackets Harbor can be seen in this light, in addition to that of the ordinary tourist's curiosity.

 

Apart from his spying, here is some of what he had to say about Sackets: "We found ourselves anchored nearly in the centre of a wretched little harbour lined with rotten quays and rotting vessels. One large schooner on the stocks and another smaller one newly launched were the only signs of real shipping about the place. On our left as we entered the harbour was a big barrack on high ground. Remains of a breastwork along the edge of the low cliffs here and there gave it the semblance of being fortified, but we saw no guns. In front was the town, and on the right the wharf with the ship house and behind it a small promontory with a few good houses on it. As soon as we had made ourselves decent we proceeded  ashore. The Custom House was opposite us and we landed just below it. To our left was what appeared to be a guard house from the number of soldiers lounging about. A long-haired round-shouldered dirty set of fellows they seemed. The Customs office was shut up, but a contiguous loafer 'guessed the officer was to the hotel'. This  being close by we proceeded thither and found a big square house with solider-pervaded verandah, but no excise officer.

Up and down the single street of Sackets Harbor we searched for a butcher, all in vain! One store labelled 'Meat Shop' we came upon but it was closed. A fearfully dreary place it seemed to be, two thirds of the shops shut and no one in the remaining ones. All over the town, clustering in knots at the hotel, loafing, chewing, and liquoring, we found soldiers. They belonged to a corps being raised in the country whose headquarters are at the barracks on the hill.   Their costume consisted of black felt hat looped up on one side with black feathers on the other, and gilt cross muskets in front, blue jacket with yellow braid and blue trousers with yellow stripes. Pink stripes we saw too but I am inclined to think they were not regimental. Their boots were of many patterns and some wore spurs. They were called the McClellan Cavalry, but were not horsed as yet. Saving these we hardly saw a man in the street and but very few women. Nothing approaching to a lady. The attractions of the town were soon exhausted. The hotel, large, dirty and bad, produced no beer."

At the end of the War of 1812, fifty years earlier, the Americans had had a big ship a'building at Sackets; she was the U.S. NEW ORLEANS, a very big ship indeed, as she was intended to carry 120 guns. At war's end, she was not yet finished, and the Rush Bagot Treaty proscribed such vessels on the Lakes. Despite the treaty and following their old precept - "Trust in God and keep your powder dry'' - the Americans kept their big ship against an evil day. Who knew when she would be needed again! A big house or shed was built over her against that future need. The Happy Warriors from the yacht BREEZE visited the big ship in its big house, climbing the ladders alongside the ship. In doing so, they got out their pen-knives surreptitiously and tested the timbers. Says the diarist "I carefully stuck my knife into occasional timbers and satisfied myself that she was not good for much. She is in fact rotting from old age."

While at Sackets, too, they made a tour of the Fort, talking at length with some of the officers. Baines' military observations were primarily that there were sufficient guns facing the sea to "secure the harbour against any attack by sea", but that other guns were "totally unserviceable." At Oswego too, he had comments about the Fort, albeit brief, and not as thorough as a really good spy would have made them. I can imagine him, rather satisfied with  his findings, reporting them to his superiors on return to Fort York, though I expect they were well known to the responsible authorities anyway!

 

AN UNHAPPY DAY AND END OF THE CRUISE

Going  on, they came to Charlotte, the port of Rochester, and lay there for a day. The diarist's account of how he stowed his clothes under his mattress was brought to a point on the arrival in Charlotte. Says he "At three o'clock we had moored alongside a low wharf just below the railroad station and steamboat moorings. Having made the ship snug, I proceeded to get out my best and only decent suit of clothes, which had been stowed away under my mattress as before described. I was much pleased at discovering that a bottle of varnish kept in the adjoining locker had broken from its moorings during our recent tossing and streaming through the intervening bulkhead had thoroughly saturated my coat and, not to put too fine a point upon it,  pants. Of course, my hands were covered too as well as whatever else was in the neighbourhood of the locker. The varnish was an oily black liquid used for the stays and ironwork of the ship."

Despite the disaster, they had a great time sight-seeing in Rochester. Then it was off across the lake to home and the diary's last words "The cruise was over."

 

THE DIARIST'S LAST DAYS

By 1865, the military threat posed by the United States had receded, and there was no further need at Fort York for Baines and many of his fellow artillery officers and men. He left to join the garrison at Quebec City, taking passage as far as Montreal in the passenger vessel MAGNET. Baines wrote a poem, a nostalgic bit of doggerel, about this end to his sojourn at Toronto. It was in some degrees prophetic, as he wrote the words "No more for me the breeze may blow." He was soon to die. Leaving Toronto on board the MAGNET, 23 May 1865, he wrote,

"Far back the low smoke trailing lies, 
Back streams the broad white foam, 
And backwards still I strain my eyes 
Toward our three years home.

A black streak on the clear calm sky,
White on the deep blue lake -
'Twixt lake and sky thoughts backward fly,
From foam below, from cloud on high
Their two-fold hue they take.                                                                                                          I

Through dark regret for all I leave,
For hands I clasp no more,
There gleam fresh hopes my fancies weave
For all that lies below.

No more for me the breeze may blow, 
From sky so clear, o'er lake so blue, 
Perchance I n'er again shall know
A life so calm with friends so true.

As in those years that ran their sand,                                                                                        
In bright grains dropping day by day
Where fair Toronto lines the strand
With masts and spires far away.

So far away,  and now more far, 
Still farther growing - fading still,
The lake verge rises like a bar
'Twixt me and them - they fade until                                                                                         

They die in distance and the sky,
Rests all unbroken on the lake -
Three years die with them - so, Goodbye
New life begins as old links break.

But still where'er my fate may lead, 
By Indian palms or dear home shore, 
No quiet dreams at even fall,
Old forms will rise - old voices call;
Thee past will claim my heart and ah!
The dear old time be mine once more."

"He was soon to die," I reported above. He did so on October 27, 1866, in the General Hospital Convent of Quebec City. On Sunday morning  of October 14, when a serious fire was threatening Quebec City, military and naval units were called out, Baines amongst them. He led a demolition crew,  attempting to establish firebreaks. In one building, premature ignition of the charge resulting in serious injuries to Baines and his sergeant. Lovingly nursed by sisters of the General Hospital Convent, he developed tetanus and died in their care. His death led to an explosion of grief, public and private. There was a great public funeral with a major procession of all local dignitaries and authorities, and a large monument was erected in his honour in the cemetery. To this day, his picture delivered by his best friend, Lieutenant Harvey, hangs in the Hospital Convent and Sister Cloutier has written me, saying "Je puis vous dire que son souvenir s'est perpetue en notre communaute jusqu'a ce jour''."

We know a little of the future of Baines' fellow officers in BREEZE, those Happy Warriors. Woodfull went on to another fifteen years as a surgeon in the Artillery. Baines best friend, Lieutenant Harvey, rose over the following 26 years to be Lieutenant Colonel, having served in various parts of the Victorian British Empire. I'm sure he never forgot his friend, Baines, nor the cruise of the Yacht BREEZE with its high jinks and happy days at Cobourg.

 

SOURCES

•   "A Month's  Leave; or The Cruise of the Breeze", a diary authored by H. E. Baines, in the National Archives in Ottawa.
•   Contemporary newspapers of Toronto and Cobourg, in the Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library.
•   Papers in the General Hospital Convent in Quebec City.
•   Papers in the possession of Arthur Beddington of Toronto.
•   Archives of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club.
•   Archives of the Cobourg and District Historical Society. 

*  Image at top - Early map showing relationship of Cobourg to York/Toronto and Kingston courtesy Cobourg Museum Foundation

 

A NOTE OR TWO

The Baines Diary has over twenty watercolour and half a dozen black-ink sketches. Slides showing some of these were presented at the talk.

In editing the Baines Diary for present-day audiences and readers, a problem arises similar to that facing publishers of some of Shakespeare's work.    Should language offensive to the present times be retained or not? In the Diary, Baines speaks in a belittling way of women, of black people, and perhaps of others. In this transcript of 1995 talk about BREEZE, I have chosen to retain Baines words as he wrote them. The implied views that result from this are Baines', not mine.

 

 

 

Cobourg Cougars Junior B 1965-1971

 

The Cobourg Cougars made their entrance onto the hockey stage in the fall of 1965 joining the Eastern Ontario Junior B Hockey League. Community minded businessmen, Clarke Sommerville and Jeff Rolph, provided the means to put the team on the ice while Ken Medhurst and Dick Robinson provided the team leadership. The nucleus of players was recruited from Cobourg’s two-time OMHA Midget AA finalists.

 

Teams in this league included Oshawa, Trenton, Belleville, Kingston and Peterborough. Cobourg ended the season in sixth place with 4 wins, 3 ties and 23 losses. The top 5 Cobourg scorers were Brian Gillis (30 points), Brydon Elinesky (27 points), Gus Bambridge (24 points) Gord Kelly (22 points) and Bill Ryan (18 points).

Goaltender, Rick Austin, faced an average of 37.2 shots per game. It was a tough inauguration but better days were ahead. Age, experience and recruiting would all play a part in the coming fortunes of the team.

 

The 1966-67 season saw the Cougars achieve 40 points over the 30 games schedule with 19 wins, 7 losses and 2 ties. Leading the scoring parade that year was Gord Kelly with 59 points followed by Brydon Elinesky, Brian Gillis, Steve Harold and Paul Herriot.

With two seasons under their belt, the Cougars made their mark during the 1967-68 season. Finishing first in the regular season with a record of 19-9-4, the team was eliminated in the group final by the Oshawa Crushmen.

Average attendance at the Cougars home games was over 900 and 3500 fans took in the group final at the Oshawa Civic Centre. Gord Kelly continued his scoring magic, finishing the season with 83 points while John Gray followed with 80 points. It is notable that John Gray, Gord Brooks and Dennis O’Brien all went on to have careers in pro hockey.

 

Paul Gutteridge was the leading scorer for the Cougars in the 1968-69 season with 55 points followed closely by four-year veteran, Gus Bambridge with 54 points. The Cougars ended the regular season with a record of 12-16-2.

Alan Fenton would go on to complete a hockey scholarship at Colgate University while Mike Kelly has had a long and storied career with the OHL Guelph Storm, the OHL Windsor Spitfires and the Italian national hockey team. To read more about Mike Kelly’s hockey career check under 'Stories' on the cdshf.ca website.

 

After a pro hockey career, Ron Smith returned to his hometown of Port Hope where he served as a councillor and Mayor. Larry Thompson, who had 32 points on the season, went on to play the next two years with the OHL’s Niagara Falls Flyers and the Oshawa Generals.

Gus Bambridge has continued to contribute to hockey through his many years as a linesman, referee, supervisor of officials and instructor for the OHA, OMHA and OHF. In 2004, Gus received the Ontario Hockey Federation’s Officiating Award for contribution to the game, officiating skills and what they put back into amateur hockey within the branch.

 

With the loss of key personnel, the Cougars experienced some tough times, finishing the 1970-71 season with a record of 7-15-4. During this last Junior B season, the top scorers were Bruce Sherwin, Peter Kelly and John Lunn. Topping the charts in penalty minutes were Ray Bevan (142), Kevin Lowe (122) and John Lunn (112).

With the realization that interest was decreasing and costs increasing, the Directors determined that participation in the Central Ontario Junior C league was a viable option in hopes of making the team more competitive. 
 

COBOURG COUGARS CELEBRATE 50 YEARS

1965/66 – 2015/16

On January 28, 2016, the 1965 Cobourg Cougars were honoured and celebrated by the Cougar faithful and the OJHL at a red-carpet pre-game ceremony by the present-day cougars wearing replica jerseys of that inaugural season. A reception was held prior to puck drop which included a meet and greet with coffee and cake, distribution of replica jerseys, anniversary pucks and ball caps plus a copy of the original team photo. Members of the ‘65 Cougars present were: Coach Ken Medhurst, Frank Godfrey, Bernie Comeau, Gord Kelly, Paul Massey, Gus Bambridge, Keith Boundy, Brian Gillis, Brydon Elinesky (C), Rick Austin, Eric Buttar, Bruce Nicholas, Reg Stevenson, Steve Harold, Gord Stevenson, Paul Herriot and special guest Gord Brooks. Not present were Bill Ryan, Doug Campbell and Scott Campbell.

Below are some articles written by the late Layton Dodge in the Cobourg Star (a predecessor to Northumberland Today) back in 1965.

 

This story by Layton Dodge was originally published Sept. 1, 1965

Plans are proceeding for Cobourg to return to the junior hockey wars after and absence of two years.  Last week it was announced, following much speculation, that Cobourg intends to apply for entry into the new Junior ‘B’ Hockey League which is in the works for eastern Ontario this winter.  Announcement of a junior club being formed came as no great surprise but the decision to seek junior ‘B’ instead of ‘C’ status caught most local hockey boosters off guard. If Cobourg is accepted--and club officials already have assurances from OHA convener Jack Devine of Belleville that there is nothing standing in the way of it at the moment--then they will join a newly-formed alliance with Whitby, Peterborough, Belleville, Trenton and Kingston. 

Directors of the fledgling Cobourg club are Jeff Rolph and Clark Sommerville. Dick Robinson will be the manager and Ken Medhurst the coach. Medhurst is reported to be looking for an assistant.  

The team, it has been learned, will be partially subsidized by Cobourg Construction. 

Manager Dick Robinson said Friday that the decision to go ‘B’ rather than ‘C’ stemmed from the shorter travelling involved. If Cobourg went ‘C’, they would be grouped into a league with Picton, Napanee, and Gananoque. Mr. Robinson also commented that it was the intention “to hang on to local ‘B’ possibles who might go elsewhere to play hockey.”

Nucleus of the team will be personnel from the Cobourg Midget teams that reached Ontario finals the last two years. However, all players in the Cobourg-Port Hope area will be welcomed to tryouts, tentatively scheduled to get under way the early part of October. Most of Cobourg’s home games will be played on Mondays.  

 

This story by Layton Dodge was originally published Sept., 22, 1965

Cobourg officially became a member of the enlarged Eastern Ontario Junior ‘B’ Hockey League Monday night.

A four-man delegation--consisting of manager Dick Robinson, coach Ken Medhurst and directors Jeff Rolph and Clark Sommerville--attended a meeting in Belleville and, after hearing what both the ‘B’ and ‘C’ leagues had to offer, came to the conclusion that they had no other alternative but to go ‘B’ this season.

Cobourg officials decided to apply for a ‘B’ franchise several weeks ago but in the past weeks there were indications that they had a change of heart and would drop back into ‘C’ instead. However, that was ruled out as geographically impossible at Monday’s meeting when they learned that Royal Military College in Kingston and either Madoc or Stirling were possibilities in the ‘C’ setup along with Gananoque, Napanee and Picton. 

The local juniors will play in a group with Kingston, Belleville, Trenton, Peterborough and Oshawa. 

There was quite a hassle over the length of the schedule, Oshawa’s Wren Blair leading the argument for a 40-game slate. He was supported by Trenton and Kingston representatives.  

Cobourg, Belleville and Peterborough held out for a shorter 30-game calendar. It was finally resolved when the latter three teams agreed to play two 4-point games, one at home and one away, with each other. They will each play a total of 30 games, meeting each opponent six times. 

Oshawa, Trenton and Kingston settled on a 34-game schedule with no 4-pointers. They will play an extra home and home series with each other to make up the difference in points.  

The Cobourg team will have only two weeks to prepare for its league opener October 29 at Belleville since ice won’t be in here until the middle of next month. First home game will be November 1 against Quinte City club.  

ICE SHAVINGS - Group will play all-star game the first week of January with proceeds going to the OHA Emergency Fund... One outside referee and two local linesmen will be used for league contests... Top four teams will make playoffs. 

 

This story by Layton Dodge was originally published Oct. 6, 1965

Unlike the last Junior team which operated here for four years, the new Cobourg Junior ‘B’ Hockey Club will have its own special identity. 

The club officials, huddling last Tuesday night at the home of manager Dick Robinson to lay the groundwork for the 1965-66 season, decided that a catchy team name was desirable.  

It was thought that a nickname beginning with the letter “C” might be preferable since it would tie in nicely with Cobourg. The name “Cougars” was finally selected.  

The team management also decided to adopt at theme song, as yet unselected, as a means of raising team spirit. The record will be played every time the Juniors come on the ice for a game this season.  

Sweaters and socks already have been ordered. They will be basically yellow with green trim, the same colours associated with Cobourg Construction which is partially subsiding the team.  

A slate of officers was drawn up as follows: Jeff Rolph, president; Clarke Sommerville, secretary-treasurer; Dick Robinson, manager; Ken Medhurst, coach; Tom Lewis, trainer; John Lavis, special promotions; Layton Dodge, Dick Robinson, publicity; Larry Windover, assistant coach; “Vince” Massey, equipment manager. 

With the team’s proposed budget at over $2,800 and receipts likely to be around $800 short of that figure, it was decided to promote a 50-50 raffle in the hopes of raising most or all of that amount. 

Season tickets will go on sale shortly for $10 apiece, entitling the holder to 15 admissions during the regular schedule. 

All players who make the team will be given medical examinations by Dr. William Page before the first league game October 29 in Belleville. As another safety precaution, head helmets will be a compulsory club rule. 

Cobourg juniors will play in a league this season with Oshawa, Peterborough, Belleville, Trenton and Kingston.

 

This story by Layton Dodge was originally published Oct. 27, 1965

Cobourg’s own space shot into an unknown, unexplored world of Junior B hockey will be launched Friday night at Belleville. 

All systems are A - OK for the flight takeoff of Cobourg Cougars. Their only goal at the moment is that the four - month journey will end in a happy landing. 

Hometown boosters will get their first look at Cougars in orbit in the 6-team Eastern Ontario Junior B Hockey League Monday night at 8 o’clock when Belleville plays the return game at Cobourg Arena. 

The opening home and home series is an important one since both games are four - pointers. A sweep for either club would skyrocket it into a quick lead in the race.  

Cougars have 22 players signed to date. Latest to affix their signatures to playing contracts are goalie Ron Sedgwick, winger Bruce Nicholas and centre Gord Kelly of Cobourg, along with centre Brydon Elinesky and leftwinger Brian Gillis of Millbrook. 

They join Rick Austin, Keith Boundy, Roger Johnson and Gary Etcher of Port Hope, Doug Campbell, Paul Massey, Steve Harold, Gus Bambridge, Bill Ryan, Gord Stevenson, Lyle Manion, Reg Stevenson, Paul Harriot, Frank Godfrey, Eric Buttar, Bernie Comeau and Phil Kulas of Cobourg in the fold. 

Manager Dick Robinson announced over the weekend that he has made arrangements with Oshawa’s Wren Blair to play one of Cougars’ away games with Oshawa in Cobourg. It will be played here election night, November 8, instead of at Bowmanville, November 7. 

TIDBITS -- Cougars’ new green and yellow sweaters and socks won’t be here in time for the opener . . . Training School employee is making a stencil for Cougar emblem which will be painted on the ice in the centre face off circle. . . Alouette Football Club theme song will be adopted by Cougars and played at all home games.

 

This story by Layton Dodge was originally published Nov 1, 1965

Cobourg Cougars lost their opening game of the Eastern Ontario Junior B Hockey League at Belleville Friday night as expected but they looked better than expected doing it. 

While there is no denying Cougars succumbed 9-4 to the home side, most of the players and the management felt the score should have been closer and expressed confidence they would give the Quinte team much stiffer competition the next time out.  

In fact, had it not been for an off-night by goalie Rick Austin, this first meeting would have been a tight fit. Austin, in uniform despite a 3-day attack of dysentery, let 3 goals by him that he ordinarily would have stopped with one hand tied behind his back. 

Cougars played in fits and starts. They appeared quite jittery early in the contest when Belleville roared into a 3-0 lead inside of 5 1/2 minutes. Cobourg carried the play in the last half of the first period, slumped again in the early minutes of the second session, more than held their own in the latter half, then continued the same trick-or-treat pattern in the third canto.  

It was 4-1 Belleville at the end of the 1st period and 6-2 entering the third. The win was 4 points to Stu Muirhead’s charges. 

The line of Steve Harold, Gord Kelly and Paul Massey was Cobourg’s chief offensive threat. Massey, one of the smallest players on the ice, also was one of the best. He turned in an outstanding performance, skating hard, checking tenaciously, staying in position and scoring a goal. 

Harold was almost as effective. His efforts were awarded early when he combined with Kelly for Cobourg’s prettiest goal of the night. Kelly also set up Massey’s marker in the final stanza. 

Reg Stevenson was the pick of the defencemen, being particularly adept at blocking shots. The unluckiest blueliner had to be Doug Campbell. He lost another front tooth when clipped by a Belleville stick in the initial frame and had to retire for the rest of the night. It was his second such unfortunate experience this season. 

Belleville’s Mr. Everything was Bob Boyle. He personally destroyed Cougars with 4 goals and 3 assists. Carl Boomhower gave him a run for his money with 2 goals and 3 helpers. Peter Fleming added a pair of goals and Steve White a single. 

Cobourg fell behind 3-0 almost before they knew the game had started, Boyle, Boomhower and White blinking the light by the 5:26 mark. Cougars came storming back and Steve Harold, after a neat relay with Kelly, picked the far corner perfectly with a partly screened 25-footer at 11:43. Fleming got it back before the period expired while Cougars’ Gus Bambridge served a foolish high sticking penalty. 

Fleming and Boyle clicked 2 minutes apart in the 2nd for Belleville before Eric Buttar took a long lead pass from Roger Johnson, used line mate Paul Harriot as a decoy and cashed his own rebound for Cougars’ 2nd goal at 17:26. 

Boyle completed his handy work early in the third for an 8-2 Belleville advantage. Cougars kept battling and were rewarded with 2 goals in a 7-second interval. Massey triggered the first one after Kelly gained possession of the puck on the backboards; and Gord Stevenson on a fine passing play involving Brydon Elinesky and Gus Bambridge, slapped in a low 12-footer for the other. Boomhower’s drive that caught the top corner of the Cobourg net at 18:56 wound up the scoring. 

The game was exceptionally clean as Junior games go and expertly refereed by Dave Smith of Trenton. He gave the losers 4 of the 10 penalties, including a misconduct to Gord Kelly in the closing chapter for talking out of turn. 

 

This story by Layton Dodge was originally published Nov. 3, 1965

Rich man, poor man, hockey men, thief; doctor, lawyer, writer, chief.

They all said Cobourg didn’t stand a chance in the Eastern Ontario Junior B Hockey League this season.

Ken Medhurst’s hustlers made them all look bad Monday night in their home opener by skating off with an impressive 8-2 four - point victory over Belleville to the amazement and obvious appreciation of 300 fans.

It was a time when Cougars went the rest of the world one better. Instead of turning their watches back one hour Sunday, they held off 42 hours, then moved them ahead several months and cleaned Belleville’s clocks. 

Cougars weren’t supposed to be so good so soon. Yet they were. Bigger than life, giving Belleville a real going over on the scoreboard avenge a 9-4 setback in the Quinte City three nights earlier. 

Cobourg, hiking both ways at top speed between the opening faceoff and the final buzzer, tormented Belleville goalie Wayne Brant with a variety of 48 shots. Cougars rolled with the checks, played it smart and made everybody sit up and take notice. 

There were few weak links in the Cobourg armament. The strongest link was the line of Brian Gillis, Brydon Elinesky, both from Millbrook, and Gord Stevenson. They went together like ham and eggs. Ever dangerous on the attack and always persistent in the backchecking department, they set the pace and the trend of this eye-opener. 

The same trio opened the scoring in the 16th minute of play with a picture goal. Gillis started it in his own end, stickhandled past one defender and fired a rink-wide pass to Stevenson, who dropped the puck to Elinesky. Brudon shot a pass into the goalmouth and Gillis was there to tip it in. 

The score was still 1-0 when the two Millbrook boys combined again at 8:08 of the middle stanza. Gillis outbattled two Belleville men for the puck on the backboards, slipped the puck out front to Elinesky who blazed away from point blank range. The rubber dropped loose in the crease and Gillis tucked it home.  

Gus Bambridge made it 3-0 at 11.33 when he banked Reg Stevenson’s relay off the goalie’s skate into the net. The count jumped to 4 to nil just over 3 minutes later as Paul Harriot flicked in Bill Ryan’s rebound after Bambridge got the puck back to the point.  

In the 3rd period, Steve Harold picked the bottom right corner at 2:26, Gord Kelly and Paul Massey assisting, and Gord Stevenson cashed Gillis’ corner pass out at 4:19, after Doug Campbell had originated the play, to increase the margin to 6-0. 

Goalie Rick Austin, having a fine night guarding the Cobourg twine, lost his shutout bid at 12:09 when Doug Potts soloed while the teams played 5 aside. Grant Hagerman clicked again for Belleville moments later with Cougars shorthanded.  

Cougars got those back before it was all over. Paul Massey converted relays from Ryan and Kelly at 14:04, and Bambridge went it alone at 19:54.  

Sixteen penalties, 10 to the visitors, were assessed by referee John McFadden of Peterborough. 

COUGAR NOTES -- Three stars were Gillis, Austin and Gord Stevenson in that order . . . Cobourg owned a 48-30 shooting margin . . . Last 45 minutes of game were broadcast over the local radio station. This will be a weekly practice . . . Next Monday, Oshawa Crushmen play here at 8.pm.

 

 

OHL 20 in 20 Summer Spotlight: Kelly leaves a legacy

by Josh Sweetland August 12, 2017

With Permission of OHL and Guelph Storm

A respected builder in the Ontario Hockey League over a span of 20 seasons, Mike Kelly is taking time to slow down and enjoy time with his family.

A grandfather of four with grown sons living in the Niagara region, Kelly stepped down from his post as general manager of the Guelph Storm this past spring in an effort to prioritize more time with the little ones. He and his wife currently spend their time between Niagara-on-the-Lake, Fort Erie and their summer dwelling in the Kawarthas.

“I decided it was best to step back and invest some time in my grandchildren,” said Kelly, who led the Storm to an OHL championship in 2014. “I’m certainly open to future opportunities in the game, but perhaps ones that are a bit less demanding than being a general manager.

“I’ve really enjoyed the time I’ve been able to spend with my family this summer.”

Originally from Cobourg, Ont., Kelly became the first general manager in Guelph Storm franchise history in 1991 after time around the game that included playing at the University of Buffalo and serving as an assistant coach there until 1977. He was also the head coach of the men’s hockey program at Canisius College from 1977-80 and coached Italy’s National Men’s Hockey Team on two occasions during his coaching tenure there from 1983-91.

He had a hand in the development of eventual NHL talents in Jeff O’Neill, Todd Bertuzzi, Manny Malhotra and Robby Fabbri with the Storm in addition to Jason Spezza, Steve Ott and Tim Gleason during his time with the Windsor Spitfires from 1999-2005.

After 20 years in the league, Kelly was quick to extend thanks to a number of people who supported him along the way.

“Jim Rooney and John Heeley, two of the original owners of the Guelph Storm were very supportive of me during those early stages when we started with a nine win season,” he noted. “Eventually we became one of the best teams in the league, going to three OHL Championships in a four year span thanks to the great work of men like (head coaches) Craig Hartsburg, E.J. McGuire and George Burnett.”

“I had the pleasure of working with Tom Webster in my four years in Windsor,” Kelly continued. “I certainly had a lot of respect for his professionalism and manner of handling a junior hockey team.”

“Additionally, Commissioner David Branch has been a mentor and supporter throughout my time in the league and I’m very thankful for the great job he has done.”

OHL Commissioner throughout Kelly’s tenure in the league, Branch was quick to echo words of gratitude.

“Mike Kelly’s personal values clearly carried over in the way he conducted himself in terms of always providing support to the players and families that have been involved with the programs he oversaw,” said Branch. “Mike was one of our leaders in bringing forward thoughts and ideas, supporting any number of league initiatives to continue to provide positive change to the game and our player experience.

“I hope to see Mike return to the league in some capacity down the road so as to continue making valued contributions to our great game.”

Kelly served as an OHL representative during the 2006-07 season, standing in as Governor and head coach of the Mississauga IceDogs. It’s there, in the only full season he coached, that Kelly enjoyed a memorable career experience in contributing to the development of a young  Luca Caputi who currently serves as an assistant coach with the Storm.

“Luca was an 18-year-old late birthday going into his draft year who hadn’t had much success in his first two seasons in the league,” Kelly recalled. “He really blossomed that season and I think that had a lot to do with his confidence level. I certainly found it satisfying telling a player like that, who maybe didn’t think it was ever going to happen for him, ‘hey, stick with it, you’ve got something pretty special here.'”

Caputi went on to score 37 goals that season and was selected by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the fourth round of the 2007 NHL Draft. He returned to score 51 goals and record 111 points in 2007-08 before embarking on a five year pro career that included 35 games in the NHL.

Another of Kelly’s favourites over the course of his 20-year career was former Guelph Storm captain Chris Hajt, a Buffalo native who recently accepted an assistant coaching position with the Buffalo Sabres. Kelly chose Hajt in the third round of the 1994 OHL Priority Selection and the big defender would contribute to three trips to the OHL Final, helping the Storm hoist the J. Ross Robertson Cup for the first time in 1998.

“That one’s certainly a feel good story,” said Kelly. “I don’t think many people knew of Chris when he was playing in Buffalo, but he turned out to be a very important part of the organization’s success, not to mention he is one of the most outstanding people in the world. It’s great kids like that who have kept me enthralled and loving junior hockey – it’s all about the kids.”

Kelly turns the Guelph Storm over to George Burnett, a 20-year OHL coaching veteran who served as general manager of the Flint Firebirds last season. It was Burnett who took over head coaching responsibilities with Guelph in 1997 when Kelly took a position as Director of Amateur Scouting with the Calgary Flames. Burnett and general manager Alan Millar (now of the WHL’s Moose Jaw Warriors) led the Storm to their first OHL title.

This time around Burnett will take over as both head coach and general manager, and Kelly says the organization is in good hands.

“I’ve had the privilege of working with George for a long time, and I’m thrilled that he’ll be overseeing operations with the Guelph Storm,” said Kelly. “I respect his values and I really like what he stands for. I think he’s a heck of a role model for young people and a very accomplished coach and general manager.”

Though Kelly’s days as a general manager are likely behind him, a love for the game and assisting in the development of junior hockey players on and off the ice will have him back in the rinks soon enough.

“Oh I’m sure I’ll be back at it in some way eventually,” he finished. “Give it a few months time and I’ll start reviewing to see if there’s something out there that makes sense.”

NB: Mike Kelly is a Cobourg native and was a member of the Cobourg Cougars Junior B hockey club during the 1968-69 season.