Port Hope

Pigeon racing is the sport of releasing specially trained racing pigeons, which then return to their homes over a carefully measured distance. The time it takes the animal to cover the specified distance is measured and the bird’s rate of travel is calculated and compared with all of the other pigeons in the race to determine which animal returned at the highest speed.

It is thought that the sport of racing pigeons may go back at least as far as 220 AD or possibly earlier. Modern pigeon racing originated in Belgium in the mid 19th century. It is still a major sport in Belgium, where a bird, named after Usain Bolt, was sold to a Chinese businessman for $400,000.

The predecessors of modern-day racing pigeons were pigeons bred for their homing ability, primarily to carry messages. Pigeons were used for this purpose during the First and Second World Wars. During World War I and World War II, the U.S. military enlisted more than 200,000 pigeons to conduct surveillance and relay messages.

The sport of pigeon racing started in Cobourg in 1935. Founding members were John Fox and Ken Medhurst. Members of the Cobourg Racing Pigeon Club included G.H. Rollings, Ish Manton, Irwin Hie, John Hilliard, Ken Medhurst, Ernie Johns, Ron Clayton, Lyal Caine, Dan Parsons, Mike Markle John Fox and Lyle Landymore.

The club operates under the Charter of the Canadian Racing Pigeon Union. Each member has their own pigeon loft. John Fox and Ken Medhurst have been racing pigeons since the formation of the club. John Fox, of Cobourg, has been involved in the sport for 73 years, since he was 13 years old.

The Cobourg Racing Pigeon Club is part of a combine that includes clubs from Kingston to Bowmanville and is known as the Eastern Ontario Combine. G.H. Rollings, John Fox and Ken Medhurst, of Cobourg, were the top pigeon racers for many years.

Races used to run east and west with progressive distances for the pigeons. Today, races are north and south up to 600 miles. Flights today are from such places as Mattawa and points north to Hearst, Ontario. The fight home for a bird from Hearst, Ontario is approximately 990 km. The pigeons are transported to release points by tractor trailer that can carry as many as 80 pigeon baskets.

The Cobourg Sentinel Star of June 18th, 1959 reported the Cobourg Racing Pigeon Club’s race results from Gogama and Parry Sound. A race from Folleyette, a distance of 360 miles, on September29, 1962 was won Mike Markle of Cobourg. Mr. Markle took home $50.00 and a trophy. On September 2, 1964, the Cobourg Sentinel Star again reported that John Fox of the Cobourg club had won a Canadian Pigeon Union Trophy for capturing the combined 200 and 300 mile young bird average for 1964.

There are between 800 and 1000 members in the Canadian Racing Pigeon Club (www.crpu.ca) and Brad Foster of Cobourg is, at time of writing, the President. The Cobourg/Port Hope Racing Pigeon Club has 14 members and, at time of writing, the president is Shawn Whetstone.

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

A Flying Fancy
By Layton Dodge
Cobourg Sentinel-Star May 10, 1967

Every Friday around supper hour, from May to September, several men gather in the barn of Erwin Hie on University Avenue East for a strange but intriguing ritual. What’s it all about? Well, this agent had occasion to find out first hand last weekend. They’re participating members in the ancient sport of pigeon racing, Cobourg chapter. At the invitation of Mike Markle, I went along to observe the standard procedure of pigeon fanciers in preparing for a race. It was a fascinating 90 minutes.

Thirteen fanciers were there and they had brought along in wicker crates the old birds they believed were ready for the week’s 150-mile flight from Ingersoll. Since there were more birds than the seven crates, which the Cobourg club has contracted to ship this year, could comfortably accommodate, deciding which 134 birds to send took a few minutes of deliberation.

Meanwhile, all the German-made clocks which are used to register the time in flight and the time of the pigeon’s arrival were synchronized. At exactly six o’clock, according to the WBEN radio time signal, each pigeon owner turned a key to start the clocks ticking.

Attaching a numbered rubber band to the leg of each pigeon was the next order of business. An aluminum band, bearing the serial number and year the bird was registered with the Canadian Pigeon Union for proof of ownership, breeding and records, already circled the other leg of every cock (male) and hen (female).

When the banding was completed, the loaded crates were transported by club member John Fox to Oshawa where a waiting truck carrying pigeons from other Eastern Ontario towns, took the birds to their takeoff destination. Early Saturday morning, the pigeons were released at Ingersoll, a club member was informed of the exact time of release and the race was on in earnest. A few hours later, anxious eyes of Cobourg fanciers were scanning the sky for the appearance of their birds. As I understand it, as soon as a bird lands, the rubber band is removed from the leg and inserted in the clock to record the official time of arrival on the slip in the clock. Within an hour or so, club members meet to open the clocks.

Because the starting point in any race is a fixed position (usually another town) but each bird’s loft varies in distance from the starting point, the method of determining a winner is unconventional and rather complicated. Consequently, the first bird “home” is not necessarily the winner. The race is determined on yards flown per minute. That’s where the mathematical mind of Ken Medhurst, who’s owned pigeons since he was 12 years old, comes in. Aided by a code book, he does all the intricate calculating.

Weather plays an important role in nearly all pigeon races. Losses can be staggering if birds encounter a bad summer storm. Times, of course, are adversely affected of those who do find their way home. A pigeon flyer always races his birds in the same direction, gradually increasing the distance as the bird matures. Young ones have the speed for short 200-mile races, but older birds, up to seven years, have the durability and experience for marathons.

Erwin Hie, one of the Cobourg club veterans, showed me through his coop, pointing out his oldest bird, nicknamed “Wa Wa”, which is 19 years of age. That’s roughly equivalent to a 100-year-old man. He also mentioned that if fanciers were smart, they would keep fewer birds in order to train them better.

Reviewed August 2020

Jeremiah Brown was born November 25, 1985 in Cobourg. He was the middle child, Julia younger and Jenny older. He and his family spent part of his youth living in Port Hope across the road from the Ganaraska River. In his late teens, in Cobourg, he tried to pull off a prank that landed him in jail for several days. He was sentenced to 80 hours of community service and 1 year of probation.

Jeremiah attended high school in Cobourg where his sport of choice was hockey. Because of the prank he had to change schools and drop hockey. He graduated and attended McMaster University in Hamilton. They didn’t have a varsity hockey team so he decided to learn how to play football. In his sophomore year he put on 40 pounds but only made the service team. In his third year he got to 255 pounds, could bench press 225 eleven times and earned a position on the Marauders Varsity Team as an offensive tackle. A shoulder injury half way through the season shut him down and though he played his final year, the shoulder injury became aggravated and he began looking for other sports opportunities.

In 2004 Jeremiah and his girlfriend Amy had an unexpected pregnancy and Ethan was born in May, 2005. It was a busy time with classes and child care for both Amy and Jeremiah and football for Jeremiah. When Jeremiah started looking for another sport, he recalled seeing an article in his youth about a Canadian world champion in single sculls working hard to win gold at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. By chance he entered a rowing fundraiser and then followed up with a look-see. He thought he could teach himself how to row! How wrong he was!

He borrowed a single scull for his first rowing venture and headed for Rice Lake. His first mistake was putting on the oar locks backwards causing him to fall into the lake after a mere 10 strokes. Undaunted and determined, he got himself back into the boat and tried again. He would experience many such dunkings into the water but he craved the challenge to excel. He would have to lose that weight but rowing would be easier on his shoulder. The day he saw on TV the Canadian Men's Eight Rowing Team win Gold at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Jeremiah set himself the “impossible” goal of winning Gold at the 2012 Olympics in London England, just 4 short years away.

Jeremiah and Amy and 3-year-old Ethan moved to British Columbia where he started working for a TD bank in Victoria. Victoria was where the national men’s eight rowing team trained. He met Doug White who agreed to be his rowing coach. He started a learn-to-row program in the Canadian national program and spent some 1700 hours in training. By the fall of 2009 he was able to row 200 metres and was able to represent British Columbia in the Nationals.

In 2010 he earned a silver medal at the national championships in the single sculls. In January 2011 he was named to the national rowing team. He began working with renowned coach Mike Spracklen. Spracklen was a polarizing figure as Jeremiah expressed in his feelings “I felt a lot of rage towards him (yes, RAGE) at various times in the two years leading  up to the Olympics...Mike was the only person around who had coached athletes to Olympic medals...he was my ticket to the podium”.

In further describing those months of grueling training Jeremiah provides insight into what drives an elite athlete despite injury and other obstacles: “There is not a clear answer to why we willingly suffer on a daily basis. Before I began training at this level, I thought it had to be the ego and even vanity that pushed athletes on in the pursuit of an Olympic gold medal. But the ego gets broken down in those first 2 months of training and vanity is overshadowed by fatigue and, at times, despair.

At some primitive level we all have a disposition towards fighting or fleeing. The elite athlete is a fighter. When tested, he or she will feel the same symptoms as their fleeing counterpart; fear, nervousness, tension, anxiety, etc, the difference being that something irrational will compel the elite athlete to fight and overcome these symptoms just because it's in their nature. That's why I suffer. I don't have a choice.  I'm a fighter and I can't turn it off. (Jeremiahspeaks.com).

Jeremiah won bronze at the World Championships as part of the men’s eight. 3 weeks before the 2012 Olympics he was named to the men’s eight team. All that hard work paid off for Jeremiah and the dream of standing on the podium at London was realized. After a potentially disastrous preparatory heat, the Canadians fought off the British and Australians in an exciting final, almost catching the Germans, but thrilled to be second and silver!

Following the Olympics Jeremiah had three herniated discs and had ruptured tendons in his fingers. And mentally he had had enough of rowing. Jeremiah counts himself lucky that he was spared the post-Olympic depression that afflicts many other athletes. Part of the way forward was to throw himself into one of his other passions, music. He plays the drums He was named an Honourary Fellow of the Royal Conservatory of Music in 2013 for his advocacy for the arts.

In the summer of 2014 Jeremiah and family moved to Peterborough to be closer to his parents in Cobourg and Amy’s business, West Pines Park Resort, north of Bancroft. Several months later Jeremiah was selected by the Canadian Olympic Committee as the national manager of Game Plan, the COC's program to help elite athletes make the transition to the next chapter of their lives. “A lot of athletes find it difficult, I found it difficult coming from the Olympics.

There is a transition that needs to happen and an identity shift that needs to happen, there is an ego check that needs to happen ... it’s a really tough time for Olympic athletes and athletes who identify (with the Olympics). That’s their life. Here I was, I was someone who played different sports, I had my degree, I even had marketable skills in finance that I could still presumably find a job fairly easily compared to my peers and I still found it challenging and to this day it is challenging”.

Jeremiah’s accomplishments include developing the Game Plan Education Network, which saw Canada’s leading universities sign on to provide more flexibility and support for Canada’s national team athletes; the Game Plan Employer Network, a brand new recruiting resource connecting Canada’s top companies with Canada’s top athletes; developing a partnership with Smith School of Business at Queen’s University, which will provide over $11 million in direct scholarship to retired Olympians and Paralympians.

The work of Jeremiah and his team has been featured by major news outlets including the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, CTV, CBC, Radio Canada, and Al Jazeera. Jeremiah has been consulted by the International Olympic Committee for his expertise while continuing to support the development of athlete welfare programs around the world.

After the Olympics Jeremiah also began writing. His plan was to self-publish an e-book for college rowers – part memoir, part how-to. Feedback from rowers he sent a draft to was they wanted to hear more about his story and the motivations that drove him. In total it took Jeremiah 5 years to write the book. In early 2018 The 4 Year Olympian, was published by Dundurn Press. It spent five weeks as the #1 bestselling sport memoir in Canada, and has achieved a cult-like following in Canada and the USA. The book has transcended the sport memoir genre with its raw honesty and appeal to anyone chasing a big dream.

Following the release of his bestselling book Jeremiah recreated his amazing journey into an emotionally captivating experience. Consistently ranked as one of the top speakers on transformation, resilience, teamwork, and leadership, Jeremiah brings an engaging warmth and humour while delivering powerful, inspiring keynotes. Through his talks, Jeremiah has inspired thousands of people around the world.

Jeremiah Brown spent his life harnessing the power of resilience to adapt to new environments and overcome setbacks.

Updated August 2020

The Honourable Ron Smith, twice elected as mayor of his home town, Port Hope, was once Ron Smith, the Cobourg Cougar left-handed defenseman. Ron Robert Smith was born November 19, 1952. Raised in Port Hope he played his minor hockey through the Beaver Athletic Association. He became a member of the Cobourg Cougars for the 1968-69 season when they were part of the Eastern Ontario OHA Junior B League.

He clearly impressed because the next year, at just 16 years old, he played defence in 15 games with the St. Catherine’s Black Hawks of the Ontario Hockey League. Early in the 1970-71 season Ron was traded to the Sorel Eperviers (formerly Black Hawks) of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. He played in 42 regular season games and 6 playoff games.

Prior to the 1971-72 season Ron was traded to the Cornwall Royals also in the QMJHL. There he helped the Royals go from a last place finish the previous year to a first-place finish in the league standings. After winning the playoffs vs the Quebec Remparts, the Royals advanced to the prestigious Memorial Cup. There they outfought a strong Peterborough Petes team, winning in the final game by a score of 2-1, and were crowned Canadian Junior Hockey Champions.

During that season, Smith contributed 35 points in the regular season and another 7 during the playoff run. He had 279 minutes in penalties; 86 more than the next closest player John Wensink.

Smith was selected by the New York Islanders in the 4th round, 49th overall in the 1972 NHL Amateur Draft. He no doubt had high hopes, but they don't always work out right away! He did play 11 games for the expansion Islanders, totaling 1 goal and 1 assist and 14 minutes in penalties. But most of that season was spent with the New Haven Nighthawks, the Islanders' affiliate team in the American Hockey League. There he had 6 goals and 11 assists in 53 games.

For the 1973-74 season Smith was sent to the Fort Worth Wings of the Central Professional Hockey League. He played in 72 games. 1974-75 the team was called the Fort Worth Texans and Ron played in 75 games. For the 1975-76 season Ron played in Sweden for the Bodens BK in the Sweden 1st Division. The next season Ron returned to North America and played with the Erie, Pennsylvania Blades of the North American Hockey League. Only playing in 8 games Ron retired as a professional hockey player.

Ron returned home to serve as Port Hope’s mayor for two terms, 1994-2000.

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

Out Of Line
By Layton Dodge
January 22, 1969 Cobourg Sentinel-Star

THE PORT HOPE BEAVER ATHLETIC Association may have bitten off more than it can chew in the now celebrated case defined here simply as the Smith-Racine affair.

In a monumental hockey blunder which would do the Russians justice, the BAA - through its ill-advised refusal to grant releases to defencemen Ron Smith and Paul Racine of Cobourg's junior B Cougars and its three month waiting period before bringing the matter to a head - has managed within a very few days to anger, amaze and alienate a sizeable portion of the sensible-thinking sporting populace in both Port Hope and Cobourg. Regrettably, the BAA has only succeeded in giving itself a black eye.

According to reliable informants, certain factions within the BAA began to whisper when Cougars collected $300 for Dennis O'Brien's release to St. Catharines and didn't see fit to hand over part of that amount to the minor hockey group with which O'Brien served the bulk of his apprenticeship. Privately, they fretted that Cougars would reap all the dividends if O'Brien, or any other Port Hope boy on Cougars' roster, eventually was drafted by the NHL. Obviously, they were unfamiliar with the new pro-am agreement.

Some BAA officers became even more disenchanted, it is reported, when they learned Cougars had donated $400 to the Cobourg Church League for player development and gave them none. So, it seems the BAA's original gripe was strictly monetary. Yet the BAA sat on its discontent and let the issue slide - until January when less than a quorum of the executive finally decided it treasured the players more than peaceful co-existence or cold cash. Only then did the blissfully unaware Cougars learn of the BAA's unrest and friction.

Indeed, if the BAA had blown the whistle on Smith and Racine back in October and sought financial re-imbursement at that time or even to retain the boys' playing rights, it might have won a debatable point and gained some needed capital, with comparatively little fuss. The BAA's latest grievous error occurred nine days ago when it rejected - for selfish, stubborn reasons to negotiate with Cougars after junior B manager Clarke Sommerville offered to pay for Smith and Racine's releases. By refusing to come to the bargaining table, the BAA again passed up an opportunity to salvage some self-respect and save face.

If it had jumped at the chance, the whole controversy would have been quickly forgotten. Instead, the rebuff by the BAA apparently infuriated Ron Smith's father, Bob, who now lives in Toronto. Mr. Smith, a former tower of strength on the BAA executive who organized several successful Young Canada Nights in Port Hope in the early 1960s, hired lawyer John Bowles, an associate of Alan Eagleson, in an effort to get clearance for his son and Racine. Bowles is an ex-executive member of the Ontario Hockey Association.

The conflict burst into province-wide print on Saturday in a six-column story published in the Toronto Star: In it, Smith went to bat for the pair of 16-year-olds but suggested no legal action was planned unless "all other avenues are exhausted." BAA president Aubrey Austin refused to comment on the affair other than to say "this is going on all over the country." However, I defy Mr. Austin to pinpoint one other instance where a minor hockey group waited until the boys in dispute had played two-thirds of a season before bringing up the matter of releases.

In the article, Bill Hanley, OHA business manager, accepted the blame for passing Smith and Racine's certificates without releases. He advised that the boys should appeal to the Ontario Minor Hockey Association, a governing body which previously had indicated no appeal could be lodged. Hanley even went so far as to telephone Sommerville Saturday morning to clear up the confusion in this regard.

For an organization that spawned two professional players in less than a decade, the Port Hope BAA has shown shocking short-sightedness and stupidity in pouncing on a technicality resulting from an incredible series of unfortunate mistakes and using it to try and stall the advancement of two native sons up the hockey ladder.

I'm sure Jim Roberts and Paul Terbenche would be the first ones to admit that any player worth his salt doesn't remain in midget hockey when he can make it in junior. The fact is Cougars need Ron Smith and Paul Racine now. The fact is Smith and Racine are most unlikely to want to play for Port Hope Midgets, regardless, now.

The fact is the Port Hope Beaver Athletic Association is away out of line now.

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

So Sorry
By Layton Dodge
January 29, 1969  Cobourg Sentinel-Star

In the interests of Cobourg Cougars' Junior B Hockey Club in general, and defencemen Ron Smith and Paul Racine in particular, this reporter, after considerable soul-searching, hereby issues a public apology to the Port Hope Beaver Athletic Association and to three of its officers - namely George Cawker, Aubrey Austin and Andy McLauchlan - for published remarks regarding the recent controversy about releases for the two aforementioned players.

Now that this "so sorry" business is out of the way, I feel an explanation is in order.

The reason for the retraction is simple. It was a stipulation laid down by the Port Hope BAA at a January 23 meeting. Only after I signed a letter promising to print a public apology would releases for the two boys be forthcoming. I did just that last Friday, and Smith and Racine were in Cougars' lineup on Sunday. Upon learning of this unreasonable, rather outrageous demand, my first inclination was to tell the Port Hope BAA to go to hell. But that wouldn't have helped.

So I swallowed my integrity and pride and agreed to apologize because: (a) it was for the sake of the boys and for the benefit of the junior B club; (b) it shows that BAA executives (there are a couple of exceptions) were more concerned about their own image than they were about the players' welfare; (c) I don't think the BAA really expected me to do it; (d) I didn't want it said Layton Dodge stood in the way of a settlement. Undoubtedly, it was the toughest decision I've ever had to make as a sportswriter in 11-and-a-half years on the job. I only hope I did the right thing.

Reviewed August 2020