A LIFETIME GIFT
It was probably around 1952 when my father took me to my first hockey game. It was at the old Civic Center Arena in beautiful Nelson, BC, the Queen City of the Kootenays. And it was something I’ll never forget.
We walked down the long flight of stairs into a rink pulsing with noise and color. It was pure excitement. The snow white ice and the green and white uniforms of the Nelson Maple Leafs clashing with the orange and black of their arch rival Trail Smoke Eaters. This was top flight senior hockey of The Western International Hockey League (WIHL) that also included teams from Kimberley and Spokane and sometimes Cranbrook, Rossland and Columbia Valley. In those days there were no junior leagues and only six NHL teams. There were minor pro leagues like the WHL and AHL but players were not paid much and WILH teams often offered solid jobs that were highly valued. Trail had the Cominco Smelter and Kimberley had the Sullivan Mine. Spokane was a real city with lots of work. Nelson didn’t have a lot of work but it was a great town and attracted some good players. Indeed.
Our seats were across the rink on the north side and we crossed behind the Trail net to get there. As we went by players slammed into the screen and ice chips flew into the air and grazed my face. Sweat was mixed in and you could hear the players grunting and cursing. The puck went out to the blue line and was slammed off the screen with great force. I was shocked at the speed and intensity of this game and still marvel about it.
I can recall some of the players from that night. John Sofiak was the Trail goal tender and Bruno Pasqualotto was one of his defenseman. I remember Glen Smith, Don Appleton and Ernie Gare from the Leafs. Bill Haldane, Johnny Harms and Lee Hyssop were also playing around that time and were great forwards. Red and Fritz Koehle were stand outs and Gordy Howe’s brother Vic was also a Leaf. Abe Howe, their father claimed that Vic was the better player. I guess he didn’t know hockey that well. But Lester and Frank Patrick did. They also played in Nelson in the earlier days as did their sister Dora. Joe Patrick, their Dad had a lumber mill at Crescent Valley out in the Slocan west of Nelson. He might have known my Great Uncle Harry Burns who had a mill then a Tree Farm License at Passmore just up the valley. Uncle Harry was a great fan of the Leafs and always gave me a quarter when I saw him at the games. My Mom and Dad went to a few games and were friends with some of the players like Ernie Gare and Johnny Harms. Bill Vickers who had played earlier lived nearby and he and his family were friends. Mary Vickers used to come creek fishing with us and Terry and Lorraine, their kids were pals with my brother Tom and sister Kathleen. Mary was also Betty Olsen’s sister. Betty was a close friend from Ainsworth and a second mother to the Burns Kids. My mother was a very excitable fan and tended to get a bit wild. One night Bobby Kromm, a hated Trail player who later coached the Smokies to a world championship and coached in the NHL, was felled by a crunching hit and lay bleeding on the ice. My Mother egged on by her friend Marie Stangherlin, jumped up and screamed “I hope you die Kromm’’. I tried to hide but there was no place. Kromm was definitely not liked but he coached the Leafs almost to an Allan Cup one year.
Emotions ran high in the WIHL and there were some players that you loved to hate. Gord Andre of Kimberley was a giant and as rough as they came. Who can forget Tom Hodges of Spokane and Terrible Ted Lebioda? Nelson had Vic Lofvendahl who could but you right through the boards and Con Madigan played for the Leafs in 1958 and was rookie of the year in the NHL one year believe it or not. He never garnered a vote for the Lady Byng.
There was hockey in Nelson way back in the 1890’s. Old time players like Archie Bishop, Joe Thompson, Si Griffiths and the O’Genski brothers were stars. Harold Chapman played in the early years. In the 1960’s I slung beer at the Queens Hotel in Nelson. Harold lived upstairs and would come down for a shaky morning beer to get the day going. The West Kootenay Region is the cradle of BC Hockey and Nelson, Kaslo and Rossland got it started.
There was a senior league in the Okanagan in the 1950’s that rivaled the WIHL. Penticton, Vernon, Kelowna and Kamloops had some very good teams and there were some outstanding games between the two leagues. The playoffs of 1954 featured the Nelson Maple Leafs and Penticton Vees led by the Warwick brothers: Grant, Bill and Dick. Grant had played for the New York Rangers and coached the Vees. Clare Palmer and I camped out overnight for tickets and witnessed the most exciting hockey anyone has ever seen. Nelson had the Vees on the ropes and needed only a tie to cinch the series. In game seven the Leafs were trailing by one goal with about ten minutes to go. They had the puck in the Vees end for nearly the whole time. We were seated at the Vees blue line and watched Nelson’s Mickey Maglio hammer shot after shot off every part of Vees stick man goalie Ivan McClelland’s battered body. McClelland won the game for them and the Vees went on to win the world championship in Germany.
The Okanagan Senior League kind of petered out after that and was replaced by the BC Junior Hockey League but the WIHL soldiered on and entered a new era featuring younger players but just as exciting hockey.
Ernie Gare, a Leaf stalwart of the fifties started a scholarship program at Notre Dame University, a Catholic college in Nelson. Skiers and hockey players signed up and some outstanding results developed. Rossland’s Nancy Green won a World Cup and the Leafs became a powerhouse. Players like Murray Owen, Bill Steinke and Buck Crawford came down from Kamloops and other players filtered in from the prairies and joined some great local players like Don Holmes, Mike Laughton, Hugh Hooker and Howie Hornby. The Leafs won a couple of Savage Cups and came close to the Allen Cup but lost it in Sherbrooke, Quebec to a powerhouse team.
Like many Kootenay kids, I tried my hand at hockey and played at the bantam level. Tom Ramsay and Gary Kilpatrick were my close friends and played on the same team. Tom and I were third line slugs but Gary was a star. His Dad was a Leaf hero and won a gold medal while playing for Britain in the 1936 Olympics. He was the youngest player on that team. Mack Macadam was our coach and I was glad to get some playing time. I have a disease that prevented me from metabolizing glucose for energy so I really could not get up to speed and became so tired that one time I had to crawl back to the bench. My highlight was scoring a goal in Trail when I fell in the corner and everyone started back down the ice. The puck was whacked back to my corner as I got up and was not off side. I grabbed the puck, skated in front of the Trail net and snuck in a backhander much to the chagrin of some Trail fans who had been heckling me for the entire game. I think it was the only goal I ever scored. Gary Kilpatrick went on to play pro and finished his career in Nelson coaching and playing for the Leafs.
In 1987 the WIHL folded its tent for the last time. Junior Hockey in the form of the Kootenay International Junior League came in and has been OK. Trail joined the BCHL while Cranbrook and Spokane are in the new WHL, which is now a major junior league. Kimberley is in the KIJHL with a number of smaller Kootenay and Interior towns.
A lot of us dearly miss the old WIHL where the players got 20 bucks a game, often drove their own cars on road trips and drank more than a few beer parlors dry but oh did they play. Seeing those games was the gift of a lifetime.
Tags: 0ld time hockey