Jake Davis

Jake Davis with the Victoria Foundation club in 1919.

JAKE DAVIS
(born ca.1893 – May 1981)
Vancouver East End (1909-1911)
Vancouver Athletic Club (1912-1914)
Victoria Foundation Club (1919)
Vancouver Terminals (1920; 1921-1923)
Vancouver Lacrosse Club (1921)

Jake Davis was born in Toronto but moved to Vancouver when he was just a tiny child. He played junior lacrosse for two years with the East End club before turning senior with the Vancouver Athletic Club in 1912.

The Athletics had won their Mann Cup challenge the year before when they defeated cup holders Young Torontos in a two-game, total goal series 9-3. The young rookie Jake Davis soon found himself part of the new senior amateur dynasty team taking root in Vancouver, defending their hold over the cup against all challenges in 1912 and 1913 – and gaining a reputation as an outstanding, young lacrosse goalkeeper. His older brother Bill Davis also played for the Vancouver Athletic Club, up front as a midfielder, during their Mann Cup years.

In the 1914, the core group of VAC players felt there was nothing else to achieve by remaining in the senior amateur game, so the team joined the professional ranks in the British Columbia Lacrosse Association league with their desire to step up to the next challenge and wrestle the Minto Cup away from the New Westminster Salmonbellies. However, the club refused to let Jake Davis turn pro as they still wanted to defend the Mann Cup and required his services in goal. During the defense of their Mann Cup challenges that year, he played with cracked ribs – tearing off bandages during a game when they began to interfere and hinder his play.

Mann Cup play that year would become bogged down by disputes. The Athletics had defeated the Calgary Chinooks and Brampton Excelsiors in challenge matches but then the Mann Cup trustees disputed the status of one of the Vancouver players in the series versus Brampton.

Despite the views of British Columbia lacrosse, national lacrosse and amateur athletic organisations that supported Vancouver’s position, the trustees instead awarded the cup to the Calgary Chinooks on September 29, 1914. Vancouver however held on to the gold trophy and refused to turn it over to either the trustees or the Chinooks. Finally, resolution to the issue came on December 7, 1914, when the Canadian Amateur Lacrosse Association overruled Mann Cup trustee Joseph Lally and awarded the cup to the Vancouver Athletic Club.

Jake Davis married at a young age around 1913 and the couple would later have four sons. As well as lacrosse, he also played soccer and ice hockey, both in goal, and was a shortstop in baseball.

Formal portrait taken in 1913 for Vancouver Athletic Club photo-montage.

The Great War would put a hold over Jake Davis’s lacrosse career, although he did participate in some of the patriotic charity fund-raising matches organised during the war years.

When formal play resumed in 1918, Davis joined the Vancouver Coughlans Shipyards team in the Vancouver Amateur Lacrosse Association. After besting the cup-holders New Westminster Salmonbellies in league play and defeating the North Vancouver Squamish Indians 6-4 in a single-game playoff, the Coughlans then won (or retained) the Mann Cup by defeating the Winnipeg Argonauts.

The following year he joined the Foundation Lacrosse Club founded by ‘Cotton’ Brynjolfson in April 1919 to represent the Victoria Shipyards – and Davis would add his final Mann Cup crown, won with his third team, to his name that season.

1920 saw Jake Davis finally turn professional and sign with the Vancouver Terminals, in the process pushing out veteran keeper Dave Gibbons in what could be viewed as a changing of the guard. Unlike their Salmonbellies rivals, the various Vancouver teams did not boast the same numerical depth of local trained talent in goal. In lieu of Eastern imports, Gibbons and Davis were by far the best goaltenders to come up through the ranks of Vancouver organisations for the first-quarter of the 20th century – and Gibbons’s best years were now behind him when Jake made the step up to the pro game in 1920.

When Con Jones started up the rival Pacific Coast Lacrosse Association, he recruited Jake Davis for his Vancouver Lacrosse Club. When the second league folded a few weeks into its season, Davis then jumped back to his former Terminals club – and for a second time, pushed out Dave Gibbons from the starting spot between the pipes.

During the 1922 season he missed some games from an abdomen injury when he was butt-ended by a stick on the sly during a game versus New Westminster. The following year Jake Davis went “South” in August 1923 and quit the Vancouver Terminals in mid-season, moving to California along with his father and becoming a carpenter there.

The relocation became permanent in 1930 when he was hired by Mobil Oil. He worked for the oil company for 31 years and retried as the plant yard foreman in 1961. He lived in Berkeley until retirement and then moved to Richmond Heights a year later. At the time of his hall of fame induction in 1977 he was residing in Long Beach, California.

In November 1946, Davis wrote to the Vancouver Sun asking for contact information for ‘Newsy’ Lalonde as well as for any lacrosse films available to show in California. He also wrote a letter to the Victoria Colonist newspaper in October 1969, asking “to find out if any of the [Foundation] boys are still living”. Otherwise, he had disappeared off the radar of the old lacrosse fans and the press, so much so it was not even known if he were still alive or not by the time he finally returned to Vancouver around 1973-74, visiting the city for the first time since moving to California in the 1930s. His arrival and subsequent meeting with one of the local sports reporters sparked the move to get him finally inducted into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1977 – although with hindsight and the benefit of research, it appears his legacy and his legend had become misreported, blurred, and more so, embellished over time.

“Eight straight Canadian championship teams between 1912-1920”, as reported in the Vancouver Sun in 1977 at the time of his induction, is a falsehood, along with the claims of “seven Mann Cup winning teams” and “first Minto Cup shutout in 1912”.

Jake Davis with the Vancouver Athletic Club in 1912.

So much emphasis was placed in 1977 on this lone shutout that he was even bestowed the nickname “Mr. Zero”. This moniker is completely unwarranted. While shutouts were rare during the professional field era, they were not unique nor unheard of – with 8 shutouts occurring in professional play on the Pacific Coast: 2 each by Alban ‘Bun’ Clark, Alex ‘Sandy’ Gray, and Bernie Feedham, and one each by Dave Gibbons and Jake Davis (in 1923 – not 1912). It seems, however, with the benefit of time, the passing of observers, and the complete lack of statistical information in 1977, Jake Davis became the only goalkeeper who was remembered by such a performance and his career subsequently became memorialised by it.

When examining his championship wins, there is much more factual truth there. In the challenge era for the Mann Cup and Minto Cups, it can be quite difficult to determine and tabulate totals as some seasons did see multiple challengers as well as league play also factoring who the cup holders were. Jake Davis won, retained, or defended the Mann Cup during league play over the course of five seasons, to which can be added another six successful challenge victories. However, in 1915 the Athletic Club dynasty was finally broken when the Mann Cup was won by New Westminster. This and the two-year gap on account of the war broke the so-called succession of straight championships. His lone Minto Cup championship came in 1920, his last hurrah on a championship team. Despite the grand claim of “eight straight Canadian championship teams between 1912-1920”, his six years of championship seasons in less than a decade is nevertheless impressive.

Compared with other goaltenders from the professional era on the Coast, Davis would be ranked third for most career wins (27), tied fifth for career winning percentage (.500), and sixth for career goals against average (5.00) – with some of those placements ahead of him held by a few emergency players having to go in goal in one-off starts. At the professional level, he was certainly a very capable and reliable goalkeeper but nowhere near the outstanding figure that later press (or the hall of fame press) made him out to be – although to be fair, his performance during his senior years spent with the Vancouver Athletic Club seems to be by what he was remembered most for, and it can be argued that he was probably the best amateur keeper on the Pacific Coast in the 1910s. Over time, aged minds likely blurred his full career and results all together.

Just for the record: his ‘famous’ shutout occurred on June 9, 1923 in a 2-0 decision at Queens Park, coming two weeks after New Westminster goalkeeper Bernie Feedham himself had blanked the Terminals 1-0.

(PHOTO SOURCES: Victoria Colonist October 29, 1969; CLHOF X979.190.1 excerpt; CVA 99-1019 excerpt)

Dave Gibbons

Dave Gibbons, ca. 1909-1910

DAVID WALTER (DAVE) GIBBONS II
(February 22, 1884 – October 6, 1966)
Vancouver Lacrosse Club (1904-1910; 1915)
North Vancouver Lacrosse Club (1911)
Toronto Lacrosse Club (1912; 1914)
Vancouver Athletic Club (1913)
Vancouver ‘Greenshirts’ (1918)
Vancouver Terminals (1919; 1921)

Dave Gibbons was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. His father was born in Ireland while his mother was an American and his family moved to Canada when he was a youngster around 1890, ending up in Burnaby, British Columbia. Regardless his background, he was readily accepted as a local product by the Vancouver fans.

He started out in Vancouver junior lacrosse around 1900 with the East End Crescents, spending around four years with that team before later going back east to play for the Argonauts team. Gibbons was back on the Coast when he made his senior lacrosse debut in 1904 for Vancouver Lacrosse Club as a call-up from the intermediate ranks, graduating to the seniors full-time in 1905. He then became a mainstay with the Vancouver Lacrosse Club as the senior amateur game transitioned into the early professional years.

While highly-regarded as a goaltender, his career during the professional era played out more as being stuck in the role of a perennial, stop-gap replacement that Vancouver teams would fall back on during rough times when their prime, starting keepers became unavailable. Despite the frequent accolades about his talent and ability, he often seemed eclipsed by other well-known goaltenders who were signed by Vancouver.

During the 1910 season, a group of local players consisting of Dave Gibbons, George Matheson, Ernie Murray, and ‘Toots’ Clarkson quit the team in early June after they went to Con Jones with demands for more money. Eastern imports Johnny Howard, ‘Bones’ Allen, Harry Griffith, and Harry Pickering were all rumoured to be receiving $50 per week while the four upshots ‘held up Jones’ for more pay because they were only getting half that amount per week – but felt they were doing the lion’s share of the hard work while the imports reaped all the benefits. Despite the hold-outs having a lot of sympathy from the local fans, Jones refused their demand of $40 per week. Gibbons, Murray, and Clarkson quit the team for the rest of the season while Matheson eventually re-joined the team in August. Ernie Murray would sign with cross-town rivals New Westminster in 1911. Con Jones quickly replaced Gibbons with Eastern import Alban ‘Bun’ Clark.

Dave Gibbons in 1905.

Gibbons would resurface the following year playing for the North Vancouver Lacrosse Club entry trying to gain admittance into the professional league. Two lopsided losses in test matches against New Westminster and Vancouver, in which Gibbons conceded a total of 25 goals, sealed the fate of the would-be third team in the British Columbia Lacrosse Association and their application was quickly rejected. He amicably reconciled with Con Jones and spent the rest of the 1911 season watching from the sidelines as the spare goaltender for the Vancouver Lacrosse Club, although he saw no action during their successful Minto Cup championship run that year and did not appear in the team photograph.

Dave Gibbons married Bertha Burnett, of Tacoma, Washington, on April 11, 1912 in Vancouver. He then left for Ontario when the Toronto Lacrosse Club signed Gibbons for the 1912 Dominion Lacrosse Union season, having his most successful season in his career as the ‘Torontos’ ended up winning the league with 14 wins in 18 games.

Gibbons returned to the Coast the following year and found himself picked up by the Vancouver Athletic Club when the Mann Cup champions made their jump to the professional ranks and challenged the New Westminster Salmonbellies for the Minto Cup. Dave Gibbons and his opposite Alban ‘Bun’ Clark hold the distinction of being the two goalkeepers in the only meaningful meeting ever played between current Mann Cup and Minto Cup champions. Gibbons’s team would go down in defeat 9-1 and 5-3.

In 1914, the Athletics would join the professional league full-time but went with Byron ‘Boss’ Johnson as their keeper. Gibbons decided to re-sign with the Toronto Lacrosse Club for the 1914 season after being offered $30 per week or $25 per week plus transportation expenses paid for him and his wife. The ‘Torontos’ seemed keen to re-sign Gibbons as they offered him better wages than had been paid to their players the previous season. He would find some familiar company from the Coast as the Toronto Lacrosse Club managed to pry Cliff Spring and Len Turnbull away from the New Westminster Salmonbellies and sign them along with Gibbons.

He resurfaced on the West Coast the following season when ‘Boss’ Johnson, now with the resuscitated Vancouver Lacrosse Club under Con Jones, dropped out mid-season and Jones had Gibbons held in reserve as a replacement. The 1915 team photograph for Vancouver shows a very rare occurrence in those field lacrosse days: a team carrying two goalkeepers at once.

Dave Gibbons prior to a game at Athletic Park in 1921, his final season.

The closest Gibbons ever saw himself winning a national championship occurred in 1918 when he helped lead the Vancouver Greenshirts to a 6-2 win/loss record over New Westminster, easily his best season during the professional era, in the Mainland Lacrosse Association series. The team won the Minto Cup and was regarded as champions when the season ended but the title was stripped the following year by the BCLA when the New Westminster Salmonbellies claimed – conveniently after they had lost the cup series – that they had never fielded a team and rejected Vancouver’s claims over the Minto Cup.

Dave Gibbons would play two more seasons of professional lacrosse, in 1919 and 1921, which book-ended the Vancouver Terminals 1920 Minto Cup championship when they went with Jake Davis as their goaltender. On June 14, 1919, the second game of the season, Dave Gibbons had his only professional shutout as the Terminals defeated the Salmonbellies 4-0. In his final season, he signed with the Terminals after their keeper Davis had bolted for Con Jones’s team in his upstart, rival Pacific Coast Lacrosse Association. Gibbons’s final pro lacrosse match was on July 29, 1921 – to be replaced by Jake Davis for the remainder of the season when the PCLA folded the previous month and Davis was once more available.

His long career, with hindsight and with what is known, is an interesting study in both longevity and misfortune. His statistics from the professional era show a player who was generally mediocre, apart from his strong 1912 and 1918 campaigns. The fact that his ability was respected by many, both during his playing years as well as many years later by his contemporaries and opponents, must lend some credence that he had the misfortune to have played for some rather poor performing Vancouver teams in front of him. A weak or terrible goaltender would not have lasted an impressive 17 years in the game, so one has to wonder whether he was sometimes a bright spot on some not-so-bright teams. That said, the fact that the more successful Vancouver teams generally did not rely on him, gives the impression that perhaps he was not regarded to have been a clutch, ‘money’ goaltender – or rather, he was perhaps viewed as a keeper who was beyond dependable in a pinch, but not one who was going to push the team over the top towards greatness.

It is a sad irony that when Vancouver won their Minto Cup titles in 1911 and 1920, he was not an active member of the team – and when Gibbons finally did manage to win a championship in 1918, it was later denied to him and his team.

Outside of lacrosse, his occupation was listed on the 1921 Canadian census as a customs officer. In 1965, Dave Gibbons was named one of the inaugural, charter inductees for the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame. He passed away the following year from a heart attack and was interred at Ocean View Cemetery in Burnaby. His wife passed away in her one-hundredth year in 1989.

(PHOTO SOURCES: source unknown; CLHOF X994.204 excerpt; CVA 99-905 excerpt; author’s photograph)

Andrew Jack

Andrew Jack playing with the ILA Squamish Indians in 1922, winning the Vancouver City Senior League championship.

ANDREW JACK
(birth and death dates unknown)
Vancouver Terminals (1923-1924)

Andrew Jack, a member of the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) Nation, was the second aboriginal player ever to play professional lacrosse in British Columbia when he became the goalkeeper for the Vancouver Terminals in the final weeks of the 1923 season.

Replacing five-year veteran Jake Davis between the posts, Andrew Jack – or “Jacks”, as the press erroneously referred to him – appeared in Vancouver’s last two matches of 1923. He helped lead the Terminals to 9-8 and 10-2 victories as Vancouver finished up with a 7-9 win-loss record versus the champion New Westminster Salmonbellies.

“Jacks Puts Indian Sign On Royal Scorers” proclaimed the Vancouver Daily Province in the leading sports story after the 10-2 rout of the New Westminster Salmonbellies (who were sometimes also nicknamed the Royals on account of New Westminster being known as the Royal City).

With the reporter stating Vancouver had “…not played better lacrosse in years”, primary credit was given to the rookie Squamish goalkeeper. The Terminals had been suffering some morale problems on and off the field in previous weeks, and Andrew Jack’s play that afternoon was just the tonic required by players and fans to get over that slump.

In the typical reporting style and language of the day, “A swarthy redskin, whose forebearers may have swung a mean tomahawk in tribal wars swung a meaner lacrosse stick on Saturday and proved to be the undoing of the Redshirts at Athletic Park.”

“Whatever branch of sportive endeavor his ancestors may have pursued, they assuredly never worked to greater advantage than their copper-coloured descendant did when he stepped into goal for the troubled Vancouver lacrosse team and halted every shot but two in a torrent of sharp-shooting launched by the Salmonbellies when they saw the game slowly but surely slipping away.”

Andrew Jack in the 1930s.

While reporters from that era saw nothing wrong in exploiting and embellishing the ‘savage Indian’ motif to spice up their articles, it is also clear that the media and fans back then were also genuinely enthusiastic and excited about the addition of Andrew Jack and his fellow Squamish team-mate Louie Lewis to the Vancouver roster. Regardless of skin colour and the prejudices of the day, anyone leading Vancouver to an embarrassing result over the hated Salmonbellies would have quickly won over many admirers in the Terminal City.

Con Jones re-signed him as the Vancouver Terminals goalkeeper for the 1924 season.

Despite his minutely short professional career, just 6 games played before pro lacrosse died suddenly, Andrew Jack clearly held his own against the world’s best with a 3-2-1 record and a fairly impressive 5.33 goals against – allowing a total of 10 goals in 1923 and 22 goals in 1924.

Prior to joining the Vancouver Terminals in September 1923, he played for the North Vancouver-based Squamish Indians senior teams managed by the legendary Andy Paull. In 1922 the ILA Squamish Indians won the Vancouver City Senior League championship with a 12-1-2 record.

(PHOTO SOURCE: courtesy of Carol Joseph and Gail Lewis family collection)

Cory Hess

Cory Hess making a save against New Westminster at Hastings Park
on May 31, 1913

CORIDON (CORY) ASHTON HESS
(July 3, 1880 – November 27, 1948)
Cornwall Colts (1897-1901; 1911)
St. Catharines Athletics (1905-1907)
Hamilton Tigers (1908)
Vancouver Lacrosse Club (1912-1913)

Coridon (or Corydon) Ashton Hess (or Hesse) started out in senior lacrosse in 1897 with his hometown Cornwall Colts of the National Lacrosse Union, when he appeared in 1 game that season.

The following season, at the tender age of 18, he became the starting goalkeeper for the Colts when he replaced James Broderick in between the posts. In 1898, he led the league in goals against average and was in a three-way tie for most victories with 9 wins from 13 games.

In 1901, he had a shutout against the Montréal Nationals when the Colts blanked the Frenchmen 6 goals to 0. As a member of the Cornwall Colts, he was the losing goaltender in the first challenge game for the brand-new Minto Cup, a 3-2 decision in favour of the Ottawa Capitals. Hess departed the Colts after the 1901 season when he relocated to Woodstock – replaced by Jack Hunter, who would become the mainstay in the Cornwall crease until the arrival of a local youngster by the name of ‘Newsy’ Lalonde in 1905.

In the 1905-1907 period, Hess played for the St. Catharines Athletics of the Canadian Lacrosse Association. The 1905 season was notable for Hess on a personal level as St. Catharines found themselves on the losing end of the first Minto Cup challenge series to feature open professionals. After helping lead the Athletics to the championship of the Canadian Lacrosse Association, they lost in their attempt to dethrone the now-professional Montréal Shamrocks of the National Lacrosse Union. Cory Hess thus found himself with the distinction of having played for both the first senior amateur and first professional teams in Minto Cup play.

Hess was a hot commodity in his final season with St. Catharines, with both Toronto Lacrosse Club and Montréal Shamrocks both interested in acquiring his services. That year he helped lead the team to the league championship. The following season he played with the Hamilton Tigers in the same league. At some point after playing for Hamilton, he also played with a team in Brantford but his tenure there is unknown.

Cory Hess would return to the Cornwall Colts in 1911 but struggled to a 3-8 finish. In his debut match of the season, having entered the game as a substitute replacement for Mark Cummins, he took a ball in his right eye and had to leave the game.

Cory Hess, 1913

After ‘Bun’ Clark was lured away by the New Westminster Salmonbellies, Con Jones brought Cory Hess out west as a replacement keeper for his Vancouver Lacrosse Club. Hess was part of a Cornwall exodus – consisting Angus ‘Bones’ Allen, Dalton ‘Dot’ Phelan, Don Cameron, Francis ‘Fid’ Cummins, and ‘Newsy’ Lalonde – that Jones had accumulated on his roster.

He arrived in Vancouver with a highly-regarded career in Ontario behind him; at his peak he was regarded as one of the great goalkeepers of his day with his skill both with his stick and his sharp eyes. Those who strayed too close to his crease did so at their own risk, as Hess was known to lay out the lumber on occasion. A rookie by the name of Fred ‘Cyclone’ Taylor learnt this all too well during a game with Oshawa, when Hess ‘combed’ Taylor’s head with his stick.

Hess played in 20 games for the Vancouver Lacrosse Club from May 1912 to June 1913 but by his second season on the Pacific Coast, he was showing his age. Con Jones became unhappy with his performance and looked to find a replacement after losing confidence in the struggling, 33-year-old keeper. Hess was dropped from the team after Vancouver‘s 7-3 loss to New Westminster on June 21, 1913.

At the time of his release from Vancouver Lacrosse Club, he had a record of 4 wins and 16 losses. He let in 116 goals for a 5.80 goals against average – which really isn’t that bad considering he had matching .200 win percentages in both seasons with Vancouver. His downfall in 1913 was inconsistent play where he (and many of his team-mates) would follow up a hard-fought win or a close loss with an inexplicable rout to the Salmonbellies. In his debut season with Vancouver, at least the losses were close games for the most part.

Hess was inactive as a player from 1914 until 1918 when he was reinstated as an amateur player. He played in 1920 with the Vancouver Athletic Club. The Athletics had reformed the year before as a senior team and were now playing in the Pacific Coast Amateur Lacrosse Association. He would later suit up for the North Shore Athletics in the British Columbia Coast Lacrosse Association.

Later in life, his chief lament would become: “And I was never on a Dominion championship team” – however, in fact, he had been.

Cory Hess as a member of the 1922 Vancouver Mann Cup champions.

1922 found Cory Hess as the 42-year-old goaltender and secretary-treasurer for Con Jones’s Vancouver Lacrosse Club entry in the British Columbia Amateur Lacrosse Association’s senior league. After defeating the Victoria Capitals in league play, the team was awarded the Mann Cup in the first week of August.

Just over a month later, the Mann Cup champions Vancouver Lacrosse Club and New Westminster met in a three-game, total goals series in the first half of September 1922 to determine who would take home the Mann Cup and provincial champion Kilmarnock Cup. After Vancouver were up 7-6 in goals after two games, they then defaulted their third game after a brawl broke out and the team refused to return to the field. The score was 1-1, so New Westminster lined up and they then went through the formal motions of scoring two unopposed goals into the empty net to take the series and the silverware back by 9 goals to 8.

This albeit brief 1922 championship for Vancouver was subsequently lost and forgotten within the pages of the newspapers as the team name was never engraved on the cup during their short time of possession. Memory of the team would quickly fade and it appears that Cory Hess, too, would also forget about his only national championship won as a player. Or perhaps because the Mann Cup did not have the same prestige back then that the trophy has today, Hess did not regard winning it as worthy as the Minto Cup of the professionals. We can only speculate why years later he forgot about his 1922 campaign.

Once his playing days were finally over after the 1925 season, Cory Hess then helped establish, along with Carl Grauer of Richmond, a women’s lacrosse league in 1926 for the Lower Mainland. Hess managed the Pirates team in the league, from 1926 until around 1939 – which only lost three games in their first five seasons of play. The Pirates won the Grauer Cup, which was emblematic of the British Columbia women’s provincial championship, in 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, and then later in 1939.

For two years he was president of the women’s league until he stepped down, feeling there was a conflict of interest as he sponsored one of the teams. He then took up the position of secretary-treasurer of the British Columbia Lacrosse Association (the provincial association, not the professional league).

While lacrosse was his primary sport, in his early years Hess excelled in scholastic sports. He was a baseball pitcher, played rugby, was a goalkeeper in soccer, and a basketball guard. In his later years, for over twenty years, he was the official timekeeper for ice hockey games at both the Denman Street Arena and Vancouver Forum.

In 1968, Hess was inducted into the Cornwall Sports Hall of Fame in the Lacrosse category. He would be one of the last old-school field lacrosse players inducted to the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1985.

(PHOTO SOURCES: CVA 371-578; CVA 99-35; CLHOF X994.155 excerpt)

Bernie Feedham

Bernie Feedham, 1922

COLONEL BURNABY ‘BERNIE’ FEEDHAM
(October 25, 1895 – July 3, 1980)
New Westminster Salmonbellies (1921-1924)

The legendary Alban ‘Bun’ Clark retired at the end of the 1921 season and the New Westminster Salmonbellies suddenly found themselves in need of finding a new goalkeeper as they headed into the 1922 campaign.

At first, 33-year-old veteran Cliff Spring was strongly considered for the role but in hindsight it was a wise move to keep ‘Doughy’ as a midfielder, as he would go on to have some of his best playing years during the next two seasons.

Instead, Bernie Feedham, a substitute who had joined the team at the start of the 1921 season, made the move into the goal crease and for the last remaining days of the professional era, he excelled between the posts in stopping the ball for the Salmonbellies.

Feedham played 33 games in two-and-a-half seasons as a goalkeeper with a record of 19 wins, 13 losses and 1 tie. His .591 win percentage is the second-best for all pro goalkeepers on Pacific Coast between 1909 and 1924; only Alex ‘Sandy’ Gray had a better win record at .675 percentage. He let in 153 goals which gave him a goals-against average of 4.64 – again, just behind ‘Sandy’ Gray by just 1 goal for the lead as best goals-against amongst goalkeepers.

In his first professional season, when he played as an outfield substitute, Feedham appeared in 18 games – scoring 6 goals and clocking up 4 penalties for 21 penalty minutes.

When he was born in 1895, Bernie Feedham was given probably the most unusual Christian name ever seen in lacrosse – as ‘Bernie’ just ended up being the name that everyone referred to him as.

His actual, full, given-name on paper was Colonel Burnaby Feedham – as in, “Colonel Burnaby” was his first name. When he enrolled in the military during the Great War, as an artillery gunner, it must have been awkward and confusing at times having such a name with the military rank of ‘Colonel’ in it: Gunner Colonel Burnaby Feedham. When signing documents, he shortened his name to “C.B. Feedham”.

According to the book Pioneer Tales of Burnaby (1987), Colonel Burnaby Feedham was reported to be the first white male baby born in the municipality of East Burnaby.

Bernie Feedham as a spare with the Vancouver East Ends junior champions in 1909-10.

The earliest evidence of his lacrosse career is a team photograph including Feedham as a spare player with the Vancouver East Ends – who were the Vancouver junior champions in 1909-10. As a youth, he moved around between teams. He found himself as the point defenseman with the East Burnaby public school team in 1911. By the end of that season he was then with the Sapperton juvenile team which toured the province. He spent 1912 and 1913 playing in the New Westminster intermediate lacrosse league for East Burnaby as their inside home (attack) player.

His senior amateur debut came in 1913 when he played two games for New Westminster. The following two seasons saw him with playing for the Vancouver Athletic Club – although he was not part of the squads that subsequently played up against the professionals. His first season with the Athletics was the last of their four-year stranglehold over the Mann Cup.

1917 found Bernie Feedham on Vancouver Island due to the Great War – in uniform, on and off the playing field, for the Victoria Fifth Garrison Artillery team. He also played some games for a team in Sidney along with team-mate Willis Patchell. His military records of the time shed some interesting physical information about the man which would have had some bearing on his playing career: he was somewhat short, his height was 5’6″ at age 22 and he had a history of synovial inflammation in his right knee.

The following year he was back on the Mainland, playing senior lacrosse for the Vancouver Coughlans Shipyards Amateur Atheltic Association team in the Vancouver Amateur Lacrosse Association. The Coughlans ended up winning the Mann Cup in 1918 by defeating the New Westminster holders – the first time the trophy had been put in competition since 1915 – but it is unknown whether Bernie Feedham participated in the three post-season games against North Vancouver Squamish Indians or Winnipeg Argonauts which secured the gold cup for Vancouver.

Feedham found himself playing for another shipyard team in 1919, when he played for the Victoria Foundation Shipyards in the Pacific Coast Amateur Lacrosse Association. Victoria won the three-team league and then proceeded to defeat the Edmonton Eskimos and Winnipeg for the Mann Cup – with Bernie Feedham responsible for half of all the goals scored by the Foundation Shipyards against the Prairie squads.

He returned to his hometown in 1920 and helped the New Westminster amateurs win the three-team PCALA league and the Mann Cup – leading the scoring along the way.

Not bad playing for three different teams and winning the Mann Cup three years in a row. With the professional New Westminster Salmonbellies, he would then add four Minto Cup titles to his name. All in all, seven national championships in seven years: three Mann Cups as a goal scorer, followed by four Minto Cups – three of them as a goaltender – plus a possible claim to the golden cup in 1914.

Ten years later in 1934, Bernie Feedham would suit up in the new Inter-City Box Lacrosse League as a back-up for Vancouver St. Helen’s Hotel, appearing in two games and letting in 26 goals for a 71.1% save percentage. He also played 14 games that same season as a runner for the New Westminster Salmonbellies. He would then play two more seasons as a runner/back-up with the New Westminster Salmonbellies for a total of 48 games as a runner and 10 of them as a goalkeeper. His brief box lacrosse career, an epilogue quite a few of the old professionals attempted, saw him play in 12 games in net, face 359 shots and make 211 saves for a 58.8% average. When he played out on the floor, he bagged 49 goals and 13 assists for 62 points. In 1935, his 40th year, the old veteran scored an impressive 34 goals in 21 games.

In April 1937, it was reported in The Chilliwack Progress that Feedham would be assisting Cliff Spring with coaching various teams of the “Mustang” lacrosse club in that city.

Outside of lacrosse, Bernie Feedham worked as a salesman for the meat packers Swift & Company between 1917 and 1925 – although his occupation is listed as an accountant on his 1918 military attestation papers. After quitting the packing industry, Feedham then moved his family to White Rock and went into business for himself. He would establish himself there, and gain local fame in the 1930s and early 1940s, with the famous Blue Moon dance hall.

After two fires, the third incarnation of the Blue Moon would be built in 1930 at a new location across from the Great Northern Railway station. Over time, the building – at one time named the Feedham Block – evolved into the Ocean Beach Hotel as it continued to be a fixture of the local White Rock entertainment scene until redevelopment in 2013. Today the establishment operates as The Hemingway Waterfront Public House (Est. 1930) – with the year in its corporate name paying homage to its days when Bernie Feedham founded the Blue Moon at the same location.

(PHOTO SOURCES: CLHOF X979.150.1; CLHOF collection)

Alex ‘Sandy’ Gray

‘Sandy’ Gray keeping Vancouver’s ‘Dot’ Phelan at bay, 1911

ALEXANDER BAIRD (ALEX) ‘SANDY’ GRAY
(June 24, 1884 – June 28, 1966)
New Westminster Salmonbellies (1903-1911)

A stalwart wall in goal for the New Westminster Salmonbellies at the start of their Minto Cup championship run, Alex ‘Sandy’ Gray was the best goalie on the Coast during the three seasons (1909, 1910, and 1911) in which he played professional lacrosse for the Salmonbellies.

Prior to the advent of the professional game, he had played senior amateur lacrosse for New Westminster since 1903 when he made his debut at the age of 18. He took over from the great Bob Cheyne, who was forced to retire to due failing eyesight. Early in his career, he occasionally played at defensive coverpoint when Dick Eickhoff went in goal.

Alex Gray was the brother of Arthur Wellesley ‘Wells’ Gray, a lacrosse player in his own right and later – as an elected official and provincial cabinet minister – the man responsible for creating some of British Columbia’s earliest provincial parks such as Tweedsmuir and Manning Parks as well as the provincial park in the Cariboo which bears his name.

‘Sandy’ Gray, ca.1908

In action photographs, ‘Sandy’ is unmistakably identifiable with his dark peaked cap, lanky build, skinny legs, and gangly posture while parked in front of the goal.

Gray played a total of 40 pro games and won 27 of them – 2 of them with shutouts. He had a .675 winning record and 4.63 goals-against average, statistics that would lead all Coast pro goalkeepers in both of those categories. He was also the most penalised goalkeeper in the Coast pro game with 9 penalties and 65 minutes to his name – most of those accumulated during his final campaign.

‘Sandy’ Gray retired after the 1911 season, in which New Westminster lost hold of the Minto Cup to the greenshirts of the Vancouver Lacrosse Club. He would then be replaced in goal by ‘Bun’ Clark, lured away from the champions to suit up for the redshirts of the Royal City.

He passed away while at Royal Columbian Hospital, four days after celebrating his 82nd birthday, convalescing from a broken hip he had suffered on May 3, 1966. Outside of lacrosse, ‘Sandy’ Gray worked for 34 years as the provincial government agent at the New Westminster courthouse until his retirement in 1949. He was survived by his unmarried daughter Merle, who resided at the same home as him located at 1821 Nanaimo Street near Grimston Park, and his two sons Alexander Lloyd Gray and Alastair Anton Gray.

(PHOTO SOURCES: NWMA IHP1726; CVA 371-602)

Byron ‘Boss’ Johnson

Byron ‘Boss’ Johnson as the Premier of British Columbia.

BYRON INGEMAR ‘BOSS’ JOHNSON
(BJÖRN INGIMAR “BJÖSSI” JÓNSSON)
(December 10, 1890 – January 12, 1964)
Victoria Capitals (1910-1911)
Vancouver Lacrosse Club (1913; 1915)
Vancouver Athletics (1914)

Although now remembered as British Columbia’s 24th Premier from 1947 to 1952, in his younger days ‘Boss’ Johnson also had a brief stint as a pro lacrosse goalkeeper for Vancouver.

Born in Victoria to Icelandic parents, his nickname ‘Boss’ was not reflective of his personality temperament but rather stemmed from his heritage. The anglicisation of his original Icelandic birth-name, “Björn” – or “Bjössi”, is roughly translated as ‘Little Björn’ – or in English: ‘Little Byron’. Neighbourhood children couldn’t pronounce Bjössi; the closest to it they could get was Boss. So ‘Boss’ he became.

Johnson was an extremely good athlete as a boy and he was eager to excel in all forms of sports he played – for example, rugby is noted as one of his interests – but it was lacrosse that became his primary focus and first love on the playing field. After playing lacrosse for various teams at the scholastic level, he turned senior with Victoria Capitals in the Pacific Coast Amateur Lacrosse Association before then making the jump to professional in 1913, playing parts of three seasons for an assortment of Vancouver squads.

The signing of ‘Boss’ Johnson in 1913 was big news in his hometown of Victoria. Here he appears in the Victoria Daily Colonist.

He signed with the Vancouver Lacrosse Club late in the 1913 season as a replacement for the future hall-of-fame goalkeeper Cory Hess. Con Jones was keen on the Victorian youngster and spent the better part of two months pursuing the reluctant keeper. Johnson tried out for Vancouver at the end of June and won unanimous praise from the likes of national stars such as ‘Newsy’ Lalonde and Nick Carter, in their opinion harder to beat than ‘Bun’ Clark, one of the best in the land at the time.

Finally Jones managed to induce him to sign when he offered him a 10-game contract paying $1200, but ‘Boss’ only managed to play in 2 matches before league play collapsed and folded for that year.

Whether by coincidence or by design, Johnson made his debut in the first professional match ever played in his hometown of Victoria – narrowly losing 5-4 to the New Westminster Salmonbellies at Oak Bay.

When Johnson signed to play professional lacrosse, he was one of the most prominent and popular sports figures in Victoria and it was a major blow to the Victoria senior lacrosse team and its hopes in fielding a team that year capable enough to challenge for the Mann Cup. As well, the local rugby team would suffer on the field from the loss of its star fullback now that ‘Boss’ was prevented from participating in amateur sports of any sort.

‘Boss’ Johnson then switched ships in 1914, debunking rumours in the process that he would go East to play for the Québec Irish-Canadians of the Dominion Lacrosse Union, when he signed with the Vancouver Athletic Club. The 1913 Mann Cup champions decided to take their game to the next level, departing the senior ranks for the professional game as a replacement for the now-defunct Vancouver Lacrosse Club – with ‘Boss’ Johnson replacing yet another future hall-of-fame goalkeeper, Dave Gibbons, in the process.

‘Boss’ would make a return to Victoria when the Vancouver Athletic Club and New Westminster scheduled their June 13, 1914 match to be played at Royal Athletic Park in Victoria. Johnson and fellow Islander (and Icelander) teammate Ed ‘Cotton’ Brynjolfson both played prominent roles in front of their fellow Victorians as they helped lead the Athletics in defeating the Salmonbellies by a score of 8-7 that day.

During the 1915 season, back again with Con Jones and his revived Vancouver Lacrosse Club, ‘Boss’ found himself replaced in late June 1915 by Dave Gibbons. Johnson’s final game for Vancouver, on June 26, 1915, ended on a decidedly sour note as he was ejected from the game after a second-quarter bout with Bill Turnbull of New Westminster – with 50 minutes in penalties accumulated against him.

Very rare image of Boss Johnson (left) and Dave Gibbons (right) as team-mates in 1915

As his lacrosse career ended, his military career in the Field Ambulance Corps then began. There is no mention regarding his transition away from the playing field and it is unknown whether Gibbons replaced him because of impending enlistment or due to his heated scrap with Turnbull.

In all, ‘Boss’ Johnson appeared in 13 matches during his short professional career. He managed to defeat the Salmonbellies in 5 of those games to give him a .385 winning record – no mean feat considering the chaotic organisational nature of the Vancouver squads during those immediate years. He would let in 97 goals for a 7.46 goals-against average.

Later in life, during the 1930s as his political career began to take off, he became Commissioner of Lacrosse and worked to provide playing fields and equipment for youngsters throughout British Columbia. In his final year as president of the British Columbia Lacrosse Association, 3,600 sticks and 36 sets of goal nets were distributed in 1936 under Johnson’s promotion committee.

On the playing fields of politics, Byron Johnson led a Liberal-Conservative coalition government for five years and is primarily remembered for introducing mandatory health insurance in British Columbia and the first provincial sales tax to pay for that coverage. His government also began construction on the diking network in the Fraser Valley in the wake of the devastating 1948 floods. His legacy however in provincial politics has been overshadowed by John Hart who preceded him and W.A.C. Bennett who followed.

Just as his transitional stint as Premier of British Columbia would be remembered, ‘Boss’ Johnson was a transitional figure as well in the game of lacrosse: a reliable player who excelled well during his time but nevertheless found himself book-ended by greatness that came both before and after him.

For more information about Premier Johnson’s political career, the best references are the books ‘British Columbia’s Premiers in Profile: the good, the bad, and the transient’ (2000) by William Rayner and ‘Portraits of the Premiers: An Informal History of British Columbia’ (1969) by S.W. Jackman.

Alban ‘Bun’ Clark

A clash of titans, as diminutive goalkeeper ‘Bun’ Clark comes up for the save against Vancouver in 1912 – the player in white shorts leading the Greenshirts’ is Édouard ‘Newsy’ Lalonde, Canada’s greatest lacrosse player from 1900-1950.

ALBAN ‘BUN’ CLARK
(born June 5, 1883 – deceased)
Fergus Intermediates (1899-1904)
Toronto Tecumsehs (1905-1908)
Regina Capitals (1909)
Vancouver Lacrosse Club (1910-1911)
New Westminster Salmonbellies (1912-1915; 1918-1921)

For such a famous and well-regarded goalkeeper during the game’s height of popularity on the Pacific Coast, practically nothing is known about the man except some fleeting details.

Even the exact spelling of his name is somewhat of a mystery as he was universally referred by all as ‘Bun Clark’ or ‘Bun Clarke’. His given name, in the couple of instances when it appeared in the press of the day, was rendered either as Alban or Alvan – with Alban Clark assumed to be the correct spelling based on census information from 1901. Alban came from a large Scottish Presbyterian family; he was the fourth of eleven children of Forbes and Jane Clark.

An Easterner who hailed from Fergus in Wellington County, Ontario, ‘Bun’ Clark spent four seasons playing with the Toronto Tecumsehs in the Canada Lacrosse Association in 1905 and in the National Lacrosse Union from 1906 until 1908. In his three NLU seasons in goal for the ‘Indians’, he had 26 wins and 13 losses and finished in succession third, second, and first for wins in the NLU (information on his 1905 campaign in the CLA is unknown). Prior to joining the Tecumsehs, he played for his hometown team for six years and won the intermediate championship in 1902 and 1903.

‘Bun’ Clark with the Toronto Tecumsehs in 1907

In 1905, he went west with the Ottawa Capitals on their tour to British Columbia. The manager of the Capitals noted that his life on the farm while growing up in Fergus had become so ingrained in him that ‘Bun’ would go to bed at six o’clock and wake up at dawn. This farming background appears on his 1901 census where his occupation is listed as “eggpacker”.

Clark was signed by the Toronto Tecumsehs on April 12, 1905. He was described by the Ottawa Citizen newspaper as “an extra clever goalkeeper, playing only the best lacrosse, and is a dandy in front of the nets” and was given primary credit for the Fergus Thistles’ success during his five seasons with them. The Citizen would later adjust its opinion of him – continuing to state that he was “one of best” yet his weakness was “an unhappy faculty to get too good natured at times” after a strong performance between the posts.

Charlie Querrie, manager of the Toronto Tecumsehs, informed Clark in 1908 that his services would not be required the following season, on account of “trouble” that had arose between the Toronto management and the goalkeeper. Clark then headed to the prairies in 1909 and made a brief stop in Saskatchewan, playing as a hired-hand for the Regina Capitals in their challenge for the Minto Cup. Traveling west with the Capitals to face the New Westminster Salmonbellies, ‘Bun’ then stayed on the coast. Due to rules made by the Minto Cup trustee related to the Regina Capitals challenge, Clark was unable to sign with another team that year that were in competition for the Minto Cup.

The following season, Con Jones, impressed by what he had seen watching the Regina matches, signed ‘Bun’ Clark for his Vancouver Lacrosse Club and the goalkeeper made his coast debut on Dominion Day of 1910. Clark had been sitting out and away from the game, at home in Walkerton, Ontario, when Jones telegrammed him with an offer in early June 1910. In the wake of Dave Gibbons (along with some other local players) going on strike for more money, Con Jones was left scrambling to find a replacement. He had given a try-out to the former Fairview Lacrosse Club intermediate champion goalkeeper G McDonald but the promising netminder was injured at the end of the practise when ‘Dude’ Sumner, another former Fairview team-mate of McDonald’s, accidentally knocked the keeper senseless with a “wicked shot” to his nose – making him unavailable for Vancouver Lacrosse Club’s next start.

‘Bun’ Clark with Vancouver, ca.1910-11

On May 24, 1911, in the opening game of the season, he had a shutout against the Salmonbellies at Queens Park. Later that same season on June 24, during the second of the two Coronation Medals exhibition matches, Clark shutout New Westminster again. He would get his third shutout of 1911 when he stonewalled his former Toronto Tecumseh club in their lacklustre 5-0 loss to Vancouver Lacrosse Club in the opening game of the Minto Cup playoffs. He would later pick up his third competitive shutout – this time playing for the New Westminster Salmonbellies – in the final game of the 1919 season.

‘Bun’ Clark would play 2 seasons and 21 matches for Con Jones and his Greenshirts before signing with the New Westminster Salmonbellies in April 1912 as a replacement for ‘Sandy’ Gray. The manner of his departure from Vancouver is muddled and conflicted – as it was reported he had been released from the club by Con Jones on April 3, 1912, although other reports from around the same time were saying he had been expected to re-sign with Vancouver. A week after his release, the Vancouver Province reported Clark had told the newspaper he had come to terms with Jones and would be re-signing with Vancouver, followed the next day with news breaking that New Westminster had come along and upped the ante, inking him for $2,000, which was several hundred more than Vancouver was offering to pay. It was a big loss for Vancouver, as the Vancouver Daily World gave credit to Clark, along with fellow import Billy Fitzgerald, as the two main reasons why Vancouver had been successful in winning the Minto Cup in 1911.

‘Bun’ Clark retired after the 1921 season when personal business took him back home to Ontario for good – by that time, he had chalked up 96 games with New Westminster over 8 seasons. His career played out over a 24 year period from 1898 to 1921 with Toronto Tecumsehs, Regina Capitals, Vancouver Lacrosse Club, and New Westminster Salmonbellies and he was the oldest pro player (or longest tenured) in the game when he left British Columbia in 1921.

During his time on the West Coast, he also attended training camps (as a goalkeeper) for the Vancouver Millionaires of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association in the 1911-12 and 1915-16 seasons but never appeared in any league games. When his playing days on the Coast came to an end, the Vancouver Sunday Sun newspaper, in a glowing tribute article written about him in April 1922, compared him to his contemporary, peer equivalent in ice hockey, Vancouver Millionaires veteran goaltender Hugh Lehman.

‘Bun’ Clark at Recreation Park – from the same 1912 game as the photo above.

He played in a total of 117 games in his 10 seasons spent out west with Vancouver and New Westminster – by far the most of any goalkeeper and more than double the number of the next closest challenger. Clark had 67 wins and 2 ties to his credit which gave him a .581 winning percentage. He saw 570 goals scored against him, which resulted in a 4.87 goals-against average. While goalkeepers such as Alex ‘Sandy’ Gray and Bernie Feedham (who succeeded him on New Westminster in 1922) may have had better winning records and goals-against averages, neither them nor any other goalkeeper in the Coast pro game had the durability of ‘Bun’ Clark.

Alban Clark married Mary Thornton in Toronto on October 17, 1927 – his occupation was listed as “grocer” on their marriage license. His marriage is the last documentation of ‘Bun’ Clark as the old, great goalkeeper then disappeared into history.

Regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers – if not the greatest – on the Pacific Coast during the field lacrosse era, ‘Bun’ Clark would become one of the inaugural inductees into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1965. Two years later the oldtimer made the long trip from his home in Toronto to New Westminster to be on hand for the opening of the new hall of fame on May 17, 1967.

(PHOTO SOURCES: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 371-585; Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame CLHOF X979.132.1c2; CVA 371-607; CVA 371-595)