Fred ‘Mickey’ Ion

‘Mickey’ Ion, 1912

FREDERICK JAMES ‘MICKEY’ ION
(February 25, 1886 – October 26, 1964)
Toronto Tecumsehs (1909-1910)
Vancouver Lacrosse Club (1911-1913; 1915)
New Westminster Salmonbellies (1914)
Vancouver Terminals (1919)

Fred Ion, better known in sporting circles as ‘Mickey’ Ion, was born in Paris, Ontario and grew up playing lacrosse in Brantford.

He made his debut as a teenager with the Wellingtons in the local city league in 1904. He played the following year with a local ‘Shamrocks’ team, then spent a couple seasons with the Brantford senior team. While his playing whereabouts are unknown in 1908, he turned pro and signed with the Toronto Tecumsehs in 1909 and was described as a hard man for midfielders to get away from.

Ion gained national notoriety for his “brutal and unprovoked attack” on George Kalls during an all-Toronto meeting on August 2, 1909. Described by one reporter as a “bloody battle” and a “butcher’s barbeque”, Ion had already served 5 penalties (total of 15 minutes) on the sidelines as both he, and the match, devolved into a foul mood. He then incurred the ire of Referee Joe Lally when he re-entered the game before serving all his time, and was sent off again with another 10 minutes added to his name.

Kalls made a shot on goal which, probably accidental in nature and not deliberate, deflected off Ion’s head – but Kalls nevertheless laughed at the unfortunate defender as he rubbed his sore head. Now fully riled up, Ion wanted pay-back – and while Kalls was down tying his shoe, Ion rushed at him and kicked him square in the jaw.

Judge of Play McIntyre, with assistance from some players, ushered Ion off the field, all the while deliberately and slowly giving ‘Mickey’ a piece of his mind – that it was “the dirtiest thing I ever saw on a lacrosse field”. Unrepentant, Ion sulked back at the referee: “Now you go on, you’ve said enough!” For his own safety, Ion was escorted to the clubhouse to keep him away from spectators calling for his arrest, while the dazed Kalls required assistance from his teammates to get off the field.

In total, Ion clocked up 35 minutes in penalties (plus unrecorded ejection time) in a game that saw an incredible three-hours and thirty-five minutes of infractions dealt out between both teams. The situation on the sidelines became so bad that the penalty timekeeper got fed up and disgusted arguing with team officials, that he simply quit while the game still raged on.

Ion was charged with aggravated assault and appeared in court after Toronto manager Charles Querrie posted $200 bail. He was found guilty by a jury the following month and sentenced to ten days in jail on November 1, 1909. Expecting a fine, a surprised ‘Mickey’ Ion simply smiled it off as he was taken away.

Despite the controversy and a ban for the remainder of the season, he returned to the Toronto Tecumsehs the following season when Manager Querrie spoke for his good conduct.

‘Mickey’ Ion, 1913

Harry Griffiths met with Ion at his Brantford home in March 1911 in a pitch to go west and sign with the Vancouver Lacrosse Club. After initially turning down the offer, “the difficult man to handle” changed his mind the following month and signed with Vancouver.

He would have further run-ins with the police after fighting Pat Feeney in a 1912 game versus New Westminster, and he led the BCLA league in penalties and minutes in 1912, the only player to record more than 100 minutes (136) sent off.

When the Vancouver Lacrosse Club folded, Ion then signed with New Westminster Salmonbellies when they faced the Vancouver Athletic Club in the 1914 season. He returned to Vancouver the following year when Con Jones reformed his Vancouver Lacrosse Club.

A defensive-end midfielder he scored just 2 goals during his 52 games played on the Pacific Coast – both occurring during the month of July 1911. As time progressed, his positioning slowly shifted more and more towards the rear and he began to slot in some times on the defense. During the course of his six seasons of play in British Columbia, he accrued 41 penalties and 305 penalties minutes – which rank him 8th overall and 6th overall respectively for career numbers.

‘Mickey’ Ion’s referee career in professional ice hockey is well-documented elsewhere and will only be briefly detailed here: He began refereeing in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association in the 1912-13 season after league mogul Frank Patrick selected him to referee in his league because he felt Ion looked the part of someone who could manage games. When the PCHA folded in 1926, Ion moved east to work in the National Hockey League. His last, active on-ice game was in Montréal in 1937 when he refereed the Howie Morenz memorial game held at the Forum. He then become referee-in-chief for the NHL until his retirement.

In 1942, ‘Mickey’ Ion retired to Seattle, Washington where his wife had grown up. Suffering from diabetes in his later years, he contracted phlebitis in 1957 and doctors amputated his left leg. Three years later, he lost his other leg to the same condition and ended up in a wheelchair confined to the Redmond Nursing Home in suburban Seattle.

One of the most-highly rated referees in hockey, ‘Mickey’ Ion was inducted into the National Hockey League’s hockey hall of fame in 1961 for his accomplishments and performance as a referee. He was deeply humbled by the act and said it was the happiest day of his life. Incredibly enough, he never played any hockey – as lacrosse and baseball were where his personal athletic talents lay.

Frederick Ion passed away three years later; his wife Minni Nordhoff had predeceased him by five years. He was survived by two brothers Thomas and Austin and a sister Emma (Gillen) as ‘Mickey’s passing was reported in the sports pages all across Canada and even into the United States.

(PHOTO SOURCES: CVA 99-43 excerpt; CVA 99-35 excerpt)

Jack Gifford

Jack Gifford in 1921

JOHN ‘JACK’ JARDINE GIFFORD
(November 25, 1893 – August 5, 1974)
New Westminster Salmonbellies (1914-1915; 1919-1923)

Jack Gifford was the youngest of the five lacrosse-playing Gifford brothers (Bill, Tom, Jim, Hugh, and himself) who plied the family name for the New Westminster Salmonbellies in the first two decades of the 20th Century.

His earliest association with the Salmonbellies name came in 1908 when he appeared in the team photograph as the club mascot. He played junior lacrosse in 1909 in the local city league and by 1911 had progressed into the senior ranks. By the time of his final amateur campaign in 1913, he was considered the backbone of the New Westminster senior team and an inevitable signing for the professional squad.

He made a successful transition into the professional game when he made his debut with the New Westminster Salmonbellies in 1914 – filling positions vacated by Cliff Spring and Len Turnbull, who had gone east to play in Toronto. Gifford originally had committed himself to play senior ball but a couple weeks later and the Salmonbellies weakened from signing raids by Eastern teams, he changed his mind. He was expected to replace ‘Doughy’ Spring on the midfield attack but ended up moving into Turnbull’s outside home spot on the enemy crease. It took him a few weeks to find his place and form but he showed notable improvement as the season progressed.

There was talk of him suiting up for a proposed Victoria team in 1915 when it seemed unsure whether New Westminster would field a team, and Con Jones was trying to create some competition for his Vancouver Lacrosse Club. However a few days later the Salmonbellies managed to muster up enough bodies and interest and Victoria was then quietly dropped.

The years of the Great War raging at that time then saw him absent from lacrosse for around three to four years, as he left to go overseas on July 18, 1915. A machinist by trade, Gifford was accepted for war duty in England as a mechanic. Despite his talent, on his departure one Vancouver newspaper criticised his play and attitude, when compared to his older brothers, as being “indifferent”, and he was probably eager to find himself lured away from the playing field. Indifferent or not, his departure created a difficult hole to fill in the Salmonbellies line-up.

Jack Gifford returned home and resumed playing lacrosse in 1919. His best efforts occurred the following season when he led his team – and the league – for goals with 25 scored. He then took on more of a substitute role during the latter half of the 1921 season, while the following year saw him split time both on the attack and deep defense, which explains his lowly 3 goals that season. He returned full time to the attack line in 1923, his final playing season. Construction employment called him to Newfoundland in 1924, and he thus missed out the final dying gasps of professional lacrosse when it suddenly ground to a halt in June 1924.

Jack Gifford played in 90 games over seven seasons, scoring 79 goals and a lone assist – numbers which rank him seventh overall for career scoring during the professional era as well as seventh for penalties (44) and tenth for penalty minutes (228) spent in the sin bin.

Apart from suiting up in the second benefit game held for former Salmonbellies teammate, now ailing invalid Irving ‘Punk’ Wintemute on August 17, 1933, Jack Gifford never returned to active playing once his professional days were over.

With his brother Jim Gifford managing the show, Jack Gifford became the head coach for the defending Mann Cup champions New Westminster Adanacs in 1940. He replaced his older brother, who had threatened to quit the team due to work and family reasons. Around a year later, Jack himself quit the Adanacs on the day prior to the annual organisational meeting when all of the Gifford clan associated with the New Westminster Adanacs stepped away from all but honourary positions.

John ‘Jack’ Gifford passed away on August 5, 1974.

(PHOTO SOURCE: CLHOF X979.150.1 excerpt)

Paddy McDonough

McDonough appearing in a 1920 newspaper.

PATRICK ‘PADDY’ McDONOUGH
(1883/84 – April 3, 1958)
Vancouver Greenshirts (1918)
Vancouver Terminals (1919-1920; 1923-1924)
Vancouver Lacrosse Club (1921)

Long-forgotten and obscure today, with a couple of blurry newspaper images to his name, Patrick ‘Paddy’ McDonough was a well-regarded journeyman player for Vancouver teams in the immediate years after the First World War and into the early 1920s.

An easterner hailing from the shores of Lake Simcoe in Ontario – with both Orillia and Beaverton mentioned as his hometown – nothing concrete is known of his early years nor where he learnt the game.

McDonough excelled both in ice hockey and lacrosse and in his early years as an athlete he moved about considerably between teams and cities, in both sports, from year to year, until ultimately finding his way out west to Vancouver and calling it home. He seems to have acquired the nickname ‘Paddy’ in Vancouver, while everywhere else tended to call him ‘Pat’.

Pat McDonough was referred to as “the famous lacrosse player” in an article printed in the Toronto Star in 1908. This is a rather surprising and astonishing statement considering the earliest mention of his name in a game report occurred only the year before. He had turned senior in 1904 and had played previously with such small-town teams as Port Hope, Fort William, and Beaverton – the latter location where he seems to have made his ‘famous’ name – but none of these were hardly any sort of world-beaters or powerhouses.

An early practitioner of the money game, McDonough was gaining enough attention around this time to try selling his services. He was slated to sign with the Toronto Tecumsehs of the professional National Lacrosse Union in 1907, but then got lured away the following month by an intermediate team from Peterborough playing two-tiers down in the Canadian Lacrosse Association league (no relation to the modern national governing body).

Toronto was rumoured to be offering him $300 for the entire season – which was expected to work out being $20 per game – while Peterborough upped the ante by offering him $25 per game. He went with the better deal on the table – but it ended up being a poor decision that backfired on him, as he ended up playing less games and Peterborough was always in danger of folding that season, and may have actually done so.

He then signed the following season with the Tecumsehs’ rivals in the National Lacrosse Union, the Toronto Lacrosse Club (the ‘Torontos’) in May 1908, but then much like he did with the Tecumsehs the year before, he soon jumped ship to play for the Chicago Shamrocks in a handful of games.

It is unknown whether any sort of employment had taken him stateside, nor the quality or type of league in which Chicago played, but by the following year he was acting as player-manager for the Shamrocks and had recruited over a dozen Canadians to fill their ranks. Two years later he was reported to be coaching the lacrosse team at Hobart College in upstate New York.

Around this time, he was also playing ice hockey in the winter months. He started out with teams in the Thunder Bay area, such as Fort William Wanderers in 1908 and a Port Arthur team around 1910; there may have also been some confusion which sport he was playing there, as lacrosse was experiencing a sudden boom in that area at this same time.

By 1911 he had moved on to Saskatoon and signed with a hockey team there. When the Great War came along, he was now in Nelson, British Columbia with three seasons of hockey there under his belt. It was likely during this time spent in the West Kootenay that he first came into contact with the Patrick brothers, Lester and Frank, whom would later employ him as an emergency referee and scout for their Pacific Coast Hockey Association.

His arrival in Vancouver, like much of his playing career, was just as murky. He was reported in June 1917 to be suiting up with the Vancouver squad in the patriotic lacrosse series games played for the war effort relief, however his involvement was limited to that of one of the timekeepers.

He then appeared for the ‘Greenshirts’ in the opening and closing matches of the 1918 Mainland Lacrosse Association campaign, picking up a couple of goals in his second appearance.

‘Paddy’ McDonough signed on with the Vancouver Terminals fulltime in 1919, and he could be found top of the midfield line at first home, or on the attack at inside home and occasionally outside home. As the season wore on, however, he started about half the matches as a substitute.

‘Paddy’ McDonough, June 1920

He paired by with ‘Dot’ Crookall on the attack in 1920 and became noted as one of the sharpshooters on the Terminals. This would be by far his most outstanding season, scoring 19 goals in 17 matches and finishing second in scoring for Vancouver, as well as winning much praise in the press in the process.

Returning to his team-jumping ways, he quit the Terminals in 1921 and signed with Con Jones’s upstart Pacific Coast Lacrosse Association. When the league folded in the second week of June, he found himself on the sidelines.

He was signed to referee PCHA pro hockey games in an emergency capacity for the 1921-22 season. After working one game, he was then sent off by the league on a scouting mission across the prairies in early 1922.

After sitting out the 1922 lacrosse season, he returned to the Vancouver Terminals the following year, but the two-year break from the game seems to have impacted and diminished his ability as he was often relegated to substitute duty.

When goaltender Jake Davis suddenly quit the team at the end of August 1923 to move to California for work, the Terminals were left scrambling to find a new backstop. Veteran keeper and future hall-of-famer Dave Gibbons had been out practising with the team, but he refused the role, claiming his eyesight was no longer good enough. Regarded as somewhat of a jack-of-all-trades, ‘Paddy’ McDonough stepped up and filled the hole in the crease.

His lone appearance in goal took place on September 3, 1923 in a close 9-7 loss to the New Westminster Salmonbellies. Despite previous club confidence with McDonough going into the match, he was replaced in the crease five days later by newcomer Andrew Jack.

McDonough’s lacrosse career ended the following year with the demise of the professional game in June 1924. Looking back at his lacrosse career in Vancouver, he scored a total of 36 goals and 2 assists in 48 games – good enough to place him 14th overall for career goals in the league and 5th in Vancouver team scoring. Statistically he is the best Vancouver pro field player from that era not in the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame.

In 1942, lacrosse beater writer Andy Paull was asked who he thought “was the roughest player that had ever played”, and he replied with McDonough’s name. With ‘Paddy’ in his later years sometimes providing occasional ‘opinion quotes’ to fill space in the papers, it is difficult to tell if Paull was actually serious or just being humourous and witty with a knowing audience, as McDonough’s 7 penalties and 31 minutes made him practically a saint in the old rough and tumble field game.

In the mid-1930s McDonough returned to his ice hockey roots and scouted for NHL teams, notably for Frank Patrick when he was coach of the Boston Bruins for two seasons. Otherwise nothing is known about his employment nor any personal details, apart from living in the Lonsdale area of North Vancouver from 1941 onwards and operating a pool room there until a year before his passing. He seems to have remained a bachelor, as when Patrick McDonough passed away in 1958, his obituary mentioned he was only survived by a sister.

(PHOTO SOURCES: Vancouver Province unknown date; Vancouver Province June 3, 1920)

George Feeney

GEORGE WILLIAM FEENEY
(December 28, 1895 – August 21, 1975)
New Westminster Salmonbellies (1920-1924)

George Feeney, younger brother of the outstanding Salmonbellies speedster James ‘Pat’ Feeney, was a versatile athlete whose lacrosse career spanned an awkward and transitional era of the game – bridging the twilight years of the professional game, the doldrum years of the amateur field game in the late 1920s and early 1930s, into the nascent days of the indoor box game. Feeney also successfully navigated the contentious divide between professionalism and amateurism in Canadian sports, and the obstacles he faced exposed some of the first cracks of double-standards and hypocrisy in the amateurism debate which dominated all sports in Canada in the early 20th Century.

Born in New Westminster in 1895, he started out in lacrosse as a goaltender with the West End intermediate team in 1911. He played between the posts for two seasons until he found his true talent at the opposite end of the playing field as an attacking midfielder.

Still in his teens, George Feeney moved up to the senior amateur ranks in 1914 when he joined the New Westminster Salmonbellies in the Pacific Coast Amateur Lacrosse Association.

1915 prove to be a very busy year for him, as he helped New Westminster Salmonbellies win their first-ever Mann Cup when the formidable Vancouver Athletic Club dynasty was dethroned after four years’ dominance.

He played baseball in the local church league that year as a shortstop, helping the Electrics team win the championship – in the process being heralded as the team’s ‘star player’ in their title game. He also played soccer in 1915 with Westminster United at inside right wing. Along with lacrosse, baseball, and soccer, he was well-regarded as a bowler, on the athletic track, and in trap-shooting.

However, “one of the most versatile athletics in the Pacific Northwest” ran into problems with the British Columbia Amateur Athletic Union in 1916. Feeney was banned from playing soccer, after the local New Westminster amateur baseball league was disrupted by the war and he was then induced to suit up for few games for a team in a league deemed ‘outlaw’ and semi-pro by the amateur authorities.

George Feeney as soccer player in a newspaper image, circa 1917.

In October 1916 he applied for reinstatement – or “whitewashing”, as it was disparagingly referred to in the parlance of the day. The issue was plagued by poor and murky communication when it ended up going to the national authorities and his case was used by some newspapers as glaring evidence of the inconsistent state of amateur sports at the time in regards to fringe or questionable ‘professionals’ inadvertently caught up in the bureaucracy that was chronic between different athletic endeavours.

Although never explicitly saying outright, it was clear in the minds of some in sporting circles and the press that their thinking was ‘who cares if a pro athlete in one sport partakes as an amateur in a completely different athletic activity?’ This thinking was compounded by the war years, when double-standards arose when those professionals who were serving military personnel, were given a free-pass exemption from the ban on playing against amateurs due to a belief about helping the war effort.

After six months spent on the sidelines, he was finally reinstated by the BCAAU on April 9, 1917, and a month later he resumed his sporting activity when he signed with the National Biscuit team in the local Commercial baseball League. He also signed on with the Vancouver Hearts soccer team. Despite the six months of inactivity, Feeney had not lost any of his form.

George Feeney suited up for some of the Patriotic lacrosse matches held in 1917. These were a series of exhibition matches which saw professionals and amateurs mixed together on the playing field to help raise money in support of the war relief effort.

In November 1917, Feeney enlisted with the Royal Flying Corps but did not leave for overseas until the last week of February 1918.

He arrived in England around April 13, 1918 and was quartered at Seaford Camp, located near the town of Eastbourne on the Sussex coast. During the trip there, he witnessed firsthand the excitement and dangers of a submarine hunt when his transport narrowly missed being torpedoed by a German submarine, by about twenty feet, before it was then sunk by some convoy destroyers.

Stationed in England, he managed to find time to play baseball with the local Seaford team versus convalescing hospital soldiers. While George Fenney had his heart set on becoming a flyer, he did not pass the medical qualifications. He was assigned to the reserves at Seaford and the only wartime action he would experience – apart his journey across the Atlantic – were those battles fought on the playing field, with lacrosse, baseball, and soccer teams in the south of England while wearing the colours of the First British Columbia Reserve Depot.

He returned home from England on July 25, 1919. Within weeks of his return, he was back out playing lacrosse with the senior Salmonbellies.

In April 1920, he was poached from the amateurs to sign with the professional New Westminster Salmonbellies.

George Feeney would play 5 seasons in the professional game, scoring 36 goals in 64 games. He was generally found in the second home position on the midfield wings, although he did play half a season as the centreman in 1920. His 1923 campaign saw him filling mostly a substitute role – although with the tabulation of assists introduced that year, his numbers showed him to be an adept player maker and set-up man. During those two seasons (or 19 games) where assists were officially recorded, George Feeney led with 15 career assists to give him a total 51 career points. He finished tied in 15th for career goals and 11th for career points – impressive numbers for such as short career as his, as well as for being a midfielder.

George Feeney as a member of the Salmonbellies team at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics.

After professional lacrosse died suddenly in June 1924, George Feeney once again applied for reinstatement to the amateur ranks. He ran into problems in 1925 whilst playing soccer for Westminster United and was once again suspended. He was reinstated, for a second time, as an amateur sometime in December 1926.

Feeney travelled with the New Westminster Salmonbellies team to participate in the lacrosse demonstration at the 1928 Amsterdam Summer Olympics, but was disqualified from playing due to strict Olympic regulations thanks to his former professional status. He ended up watching and assisting the team from the sidelines along with his also-banned teammates Harold ‘Haddie’ Stoddart and the Patchell brothers.

George Feeney’s best years as a lacrosse player probably occurred during the mid-1920s and early 1930s when the field game was dying its slow and inevitable death from disorganisation and spectator indifference.

He was at the top of his game during the 1930 season. Paired up with Harold ‘Haddie’ Stoddart, they made for a deadly scoring duo against their hapless Vancouver opponents in provincial play. He fractured a rib during the Western Canada finals against the Edmonton Native Sons and missed the Dominion semi-finals that followed versus Winnipeg Argonauts, but healed enough to return and help lead New Westminster in their losing effort against the Brampton Excelsiors in the Mann Cup finals.

His final season of field lacrosse followed in 1931, when he participated in very the last Mann Cup series played under field rules. The series was memorialised by a 360° spherical panoramic photograph taken of the players of both teams positioned on the playing field (some who devilishly moved about to appear multiple times in the same image) and crowd at Queens Park. The Salmonbellies once again fell to the Excelsiors in three games.

George Feeney travelled to Los Angeles as a spectator at the 1932 Olympic Games and ended up as the judge of play for all three lacrosse demonstration matches played.

He made a comeback in 1933, this time in the box game and scored 8 goals for the Salmonbellies at the age of 38. He broke his wrist (some reports say his arm) playing in the playoffs after being checked into the boards. He returned for the final Mann Cup game in October 1933. He started in the game in bandages (and pain) before leaving and watching the final half of the game in civvies.

There were rumours of him jumping for the rival New Westminster Adanacs in 1934 but he never played any games in the purple and gold; he later became manager of the team. He refereed in the women’s league in 1937. In June 1938 he played in an oldtimers game versus a junior squad.

George Feeney at the time of the 1931 Mann Cup.

In 1938, when some of the former 1908 New Westminster Salmonbellies players were upset and “raised beef” about the re-classification of the Minto Cup, George was one those who voiced his support in favour of the kids getting their hands on the silverware.

In 1952, he attended the first reunion of the 1928 Salmonbellies team, held at the Elks Club in New Westminster.

George Feeney was inducted into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1969, in the field player category.

There is not much information regarding his employment, although a newspaper article from 1915 mentions he worked at New Westminster City Hall in the engineering department, until he was then transferred to the treasurer’s office at reduced wages to replace a resigned staff member. Eleven days after his transfer, Feeney quit his job at city hall and was hired by the Dominion Bank.

He was a life-member of the B.P.O. Elks Lodge in New Westminster.

His only daughter Norma Phillips passed away suddenly on April 10, 1971. George Feeney passed away on August 21, 1975 and was survived by his wife Verna, 2 grand-daughters and 9 great-grandchildren. His funeral took place just two days later and he was interred at St. Peter’s Cemetery in New Westminster. His last place of residence listed was at the Edgewater apartments located at 707 Seventh Avenue in New Westminster.

(PHOTO SOURCES: CLHOF X994.98b; Vancouver Daily Province February 3, 1917; CLHOF X994.16 (excerpt); Vancouver Sun September 5, 1931)

Cliff Cao

Cliff Cao, 1905

CLIFFORD (CLIFF) CHRISTIE CAO
(ca. 1880 – May 21, 1941)
Vancouver Lacrosse Club (1902-1905)
Mount Pleasant Maple Leafs (1906; 1908-1909)

Although his playing career was a brief span of just seven or eight years, Cliff Cao was one of the more notable and talented players to suit up for the Vancouver-based teams during the first decade of the 20th Century.

Born in Liverpool, England, Clifford Cao was of mixed Italian and Scottish background. His father Angelo Cao was born in 1842 in Venice, Italy and passed away in 1888, while his mother Ada (Christie) Cao was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1846 and passed away in 1924. Young Cliff moved to Canada around the age of 9 or 10 with his mother and family in 1889.

His slight build did not seem to be a detriment although a newspaper article in August 1902 noted that his speed was not fast enough to be an effective midfield player. The following season saw him moving up to the attack line, slotted in at the inside home position, a move which clearly improved his performance. His 1904 and 1905 campaigns were described in the press as playing a ‘star game’.

During the fall of 1905 he was suspended by the British Columbia Amateur Lacrosse Association for being part of a Vancouver line-up that played against professionals, but he was reinstated in May 1906.

He had already retired from the game the previous month and it was during this down time in 1906 when Cliff Cao’s serious interest in yachting began – and once removed from lacrosse, sailing become his life passion which continued into the 1930s.

After his sailing commitments in the Bellingham regatta had come and gone, he was back out practising and playing three months later, when he signed with Mount Pleasant Maple Leafs in mid-July 1906.

When Cao made a return late in the 1906 season, the press noted that his “oldtime speed” and stick-handing ability was badly needed by the Maple Leafs, although confusingly noting that his speed was hampered by his size, compensated by his expert stickhandling and accurate shooting. While it does seem the newspapers were inconsistent and contradictory about the nature and deficiency of his running game, what was always consistently positive was his personal ability and skill with the lacrosse stick.

Cliff Cao (seated) with his mother Ada and two brothers Rico and Chris, ca. 1905-1910.

When 1907 came along, there was talk of him once again leaving lacrosse after becoming injured. Cao was listed on some suggested or potential rosters put into print that year for the Vancouver team, but it is unknown whether he actually suited up for any games due to a chronic absence of game reports and box scores during those years, which include his name. The nature of his injury is unknown, but he did recover to re-sign with Mount Pleasant Maple Leafs in July 1908.

During a meeting held in March 1909 looking into the contentious issue in of professionalism lacrosse, Cliff Cao spoke out how every amateur player was out looking for the money, but in the past there was unfairness between those who got paid and those who played for the love of the game and this created favouritism leading to demoralisation within some teams.

He signed once again with Mount Pleasant in the senior amateur league, so in the short term we can perhaps surmise where Cao may have stood in regards to the pro vs. amateur debate – however any dislike he may have had for the money game disappeared by the time he was invited out by Con Jones to try out for the Vancouver Lacrosse Club in May 1910. He gave it his all during pre-season practises and test matches, but Cliff Cao retired for good after his comeback attempt failed, at age 30 and already feeling the pace of the game to be a struggle.

He did suit up for an old-timers game played at Brockton Point on Empire Day (May 25) 1929 but otherwise his involvement in lacrosse would be relegated to name appearances in “20 years ago in sports today” recollection articles published by the newspapers.

Cliff Cao became a prominent member of Royal Vancouver Yacht Club, with local fame won as the skipper of Spirit I and Swipe. Looking back over his life, his experience and achievements on the water impressively eclipsed his experience on the grass field.

He won races organised by the RVYC in July 1919, beating the second-place finisher by three hours. His boat, Spirit I, was considered to be one of the two best sailing crafts in the RVYC. When the Cao Brothers sold Sprit I in August 1924, the trusty racing yacht had won 46 trophies for the Cao family.

Cliff Cao never married – however both his brother Rico and his wife were also expert coxswains, with Mrs. Rico Cao winning the Julian Cup for women’s sailboat racing in 1912. His employment is reported as a tinsmith. At the time of his passing, Cliff Cao resided at 216 East 27th Avenue in Vancouver. He was survived by his two brothers Chris and Rico Cao, as well as three sisters.

(PHOTO SOURCES: CLHOF X994.204 excerpt; courtesy of Brian Vivian family collection)

Special thanks to Brian Vivian (Cao’s grand-nephew) for providing biographical information and photograph.

Vernon Green

EDWARD VERNON GREEN
(August 20, 1885 – April 28, 1944)
Mount Pleasant Maple Leafs Intermediates (1903)
Seattle Lacrosse Club (1905)
Mount Pleasant Maple Leafs (1906-1907)
Vancouver Lacrosse Club (1908)
North Vancouver Lacrosse Club (1911)
Vancouver Lacrosse Club (1922)
played in California (1925)
Vancouver Waterfront Workers (1929)

Vernon Green was a tough, feisty player whose claim to fame – or infamy – was being the spark that set off the notorious ‘rotten eggs and gunshot’ riot which played out at Queens Park on Saturday, September 26, 1908.

Green would earn a reputation for being a somewhat decent player who was prone to fisticuffs and rough play, however after the gunshot riot he seemed to never land anywhere for any substantial length of time. He was often injury prone in his early years and much of his playing career seems to be spent making occasional, fringe appearances here and there over the subsequent 20 years.

Apart from a cigarette card produced with his image in 1910, some two years after he last played for Vancouver Lacrosse Club, photographs of Vernon Green and his involvement in lacrosse are very rare – just his appearances in team photographs and photo-collages from 1905, 1906, and 1922.

Vernon Green was born in 1885 with both Vancouver and Port Simpson, British Columbia referenced as his birthplace. His full given name has been cited as Edward Vernon Green and as Ebenezer Vernon Edward Green – but he was known by all as Vernon Green. His father was the Reverend Alfred Eli Green, a pioneer Methodist missionary in British Columbia and pastor of the Fairview Methodist Church while his mother was Elizabeth Jane Gilbert.

At the tender age of 17, with the Boer War raging half a world away, he enlisted with the Canadian Mounted Rifles in April 1902. He never saw any action as the war had ended by May 31, 1902, many weeks before he arrived in Durban where his unit was stationed. He returned home from South Africa in August 1902.

Vernon Green’s early playing days saw him associated with the Mount Pleasant Maple Leafs intermediate and senior teams between 1903 and 1907, although he made his senior debut with the Seattle Lacrosse Club in 1905 when the Emerald City joined the British Columbia Amateur Lacrosse Association, playing third defense and centre for Seattle. He was the captain (coach) for the Fairview Shamrocks junior lacrosse school team in 1904

In a December 1906, in a human-interest article which may now seem strange but was quite typical for its day, the Vancouver Province reported how Vernon Green and his older brother Walter shot two “panthers” (as cougars or mountain lions were sometimes called back then) on Vancouver Island. The front-page article described how the brothers hunted and shot the two eight-foot long beasts, “the largest ever shot in the neighborhood” and resulted in a bounty collected by the brothers from the government agent in Nanaimo.

Vernon Green playing for Seattle in 1905.

Green was the centreman for Mount Pleasant Maple Leafs in 1906 and 1907 although most of the 1907 campaign saw him sidelined from a broken ankle (or knee cap) from May 1907 until late August. His season was quickly cut short again, when, in a match played at Brockton Oval on August 24, 1907 between Vancouver Lacrosse Club and the Maple Leafs, Vernon Green was involved in a “regrettable” and “shameful” fight with Referee Bob Cheyne.

The incident resulted in Cheyne, a former, well-known goaltender for the Salmonbellies, feeling obliged to resign as an official after his momentary loss of temper (he is alleged to have called Green “a vile” or “foul name”) despite blatant provocation by Green, who had punched the referee and as a result was potentially facing suspension for the rest of the season and all of the next.

Surprisingly enough, in August 1908, there were rumours that Green was going to sign with the New Westminster Salmonbellies however he ended up signing with the Vancouver Lacrosse Club.

In no time at all Vernon Green would find himself once again embroiled in conflict and controversy.

On September 26, 1908, in a game played before 10,000 fans at Queens Park, Vernon Green went off the rails as Vancouver suffered from an early 8-0 rout by New Westminster. During the course of the meaningless match (the Salmonbellies had secured the championship title earlier, and Vancouver showed up having to borrow a goaltender), Green went after Gordon ‘Grumpy’ Spring, gashing the young rookie’s head. After serving penalty time, Green followed up by a hard hit laying out Irving ‘Punk’ Wintemute, before zeroing his sights on New Westminster’s captain, Tom Gifford. Two of the toughest men in the game engaged in a sticking-swinging bout from which Gifford suffered severe cuts to his face and a broken nose, but not before he managed to butt-end the tempestuous Green.

By this point, Tom Gifford’s brother Jimmy had seen enough of the mayhem and he made a mad dash for Green, as the crowd then flooded out on to the field and what was once a lacrosse game now erupted into a full-blown riot.

As Vernon Green bolted for the Vancouver dressing room seeking refuge, rotten eggs began to be pelted at the Vancouver trainer, a well-known ‘coloured’ boxer by the name of George Paris, who retaliated by pulling out his pistol and firing off a shot that almost injured (or lightly grazed) the backside of a city worker caught up in the fracas.

Vernon Green as a member of Mount Pleasant Maple Leafs in 1906.

Eventually, the riot was brought to an end when Tom Gifford walked into the Vancouver dressing room and shook hands with Vernon Green; some witnesses say that the Salmonbellie apologised to the Greenshirt.

While much of the fall-out from the ugly incident ended up focused on George Paris, the New Westminster police nevertheless issued a court summons against Vernon Green to answer charges of assault against Gordon Spring. After repeated and delayed attempts by the British Columbia Amateur Lacrosse Association to hold an inquiry into the matter and levy punishment on the worst perpetrators involved, which obviously included Vernon Green, the matter was dropped and buried under the growing concern over professionalism in the sport, which soon dominated off-field discussion.

There is no evidence or mention in the press whether Vernon Green faced suspension in the aftermath of the riot, but he did not return to the lacrosse field in 1909 as he went north with his brother Walter, where they spent the summer months from May through September on their ranch in the Kispiox Valley near Hazelton.

In March 1910, Vernon Green took his pugilism into the boxing ring to compete in the annual championships held for the Pacific Northwest, but lost the main event bout versus his better trained opponent, heavyweight Frank Westerman of Seattle, who knocked out the outclassed and lacrosse player in two rounds. The Vancouver Province remarked wryly afterwards how in the future Green should confine his fighting proclivities to the lacrosse field.

The following month he tried out and played in test matches with Vancouver Lacrosse Club but failed to make the team. Later that season, Green was then involved in the formation of the Vancouver Shamrocks lacrosse club in June 1910. He played third home for the Shamrocks in an exhibition match versus the Vancouver Athletic Club, bagging a goal in the third quarter – however the Shamrocks then disappeared into history.

He tried out again for Vancouver Lacrosse Club in 1911 and was initially listed as a reserve player – but he appeared in no games with the professional club. He was then associated with the North Vancouver Lacrosse Club outfit that unsuccessfully applied for admission to the professional ranks that same year. Vernon Green suited up in the third defense position for North Vancouver in their two pre-season test matches that were played versus Vancouver Lacrosse Club and New Westminster Salmonbellies, with lopsided results in favour of the established teams.

These were the closest instances of him seeing professional ball – and although he was branded a professional by the amateur authorities, Vernon Green never saw any actual competitive pro lacrosse action.

In 1911 he appears to have taken up competitive bowling along with some of his Vancouver lacrosse mates, Archie Adamson, Frank Ronan, and George Matheson, forming a team at the Shamrock bowling alley.

Vernon Green as a Mann Cup champion in 1922.

The following year saw him turning out for New Westminster senior practises in but he does not appear to have made the team. It was around this time in March 1912 when he was applying for reinstatement as an amateur, but he must have been unsuccessful as he was trying yet again to apply for reinstatement many years later in 1921.

This time reinstatement (or ‘whitewashing’, as it was sometimes called) must have been granted as Vernon Green signed with the amateur Vancouver Lacrosse Club team in 1922 to compete for the Mann Cup. After defeating the Victoria Capitals in BCALA league play, Vancouver were briefly Mann Cup champions for around one month until they met and subsequently lost to the PCALA champions, New Westminster Salmonbellies in a three-game series for both the Mann Cup and provincial Kilmarnock cup titles. This is the only instance of two Mann Cup champions occurring in the same year.

Green did not play any lacrosse in 1923 nor 1924 but 1925 found him playing in a series of games in California.

Along with ex-pro player John Howard, he co-coached the Vancouver Waterfront Workers lacrosse team in the 1929 BCALA Kilmarnock Cup series and suited up for at least one game. He also appeared in some old-timer games that season, including the benefit game on June 17, 1929 for ailing former Salmonbellies player Irving ‘Punk’ Wintemute – but 1929 appears to have been Green’s last involvement in the sport.

Cpl. Vernon Green (backrow left) appearing with his war comrades in the Vancouver Province in 1917.

Vernon Green served during the First World War in France and Belgium. Corporal Green convalesced in May 1917 at Woodcate Park in Epsom, England. A photograph of him and some of his military comrades appeared in the Vancouver Province holding a copy of the newspaper, which had been sent from home. He then later volunteered as part of the Canadian contingent fighting against the Bolsheviks during the civil war in Russia.

Shortly after the war, he returned to Vancouver and assisted with the dismantling of the Mount Pleasant Brewery, which was then sold to interests in Japan. He was in that country at the time of the 1923 earthquake.

Vernon Green was later employed as a plumber, and at the time of his passing he worked for Boeing Aircraft of Canada at their Sea Island Plant No.3 maintenance facility. His last residence was located at 525 West 20th Avenue.

He passed away on April 28, 1944. Green was survived by his second wife Lila Enda, three daughters, Rita, Gloria, Patricia, and son Wendell – as well as two sons from his first marriage, Calvin and Vernon. His first wife was Viola Chadwick (later Viola Wilson), whom he married on Christmas Eve 1909 but later divorced. He was given a military funeral ceremony on May 2, 1944 at Mount Pleasant funeral chapel. Reverend E.F. Church officiated the service as Corporal Vernon Green was interred in soldiers’ section of Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver.

(PHOTO SOURCES: Imperial Tobacco Card 1910; Seattle Times; CLHOF collection; CLHOF X994.155 excerpt; Vancouver Province June 5, 1917)

Laurie Nelson

Laurie Nelson, 1922

LAWRENCE (LAURIE) NELSON
(May 6, 1893 – August 14, 1972)
New Westminster Salmonbellies (1918-1924)

Always known as Laurie or Lawrey – and never by his given name Lawrence – Laurie Nelson played for the New Westminster Salmonbellies during the years after the Great War.

Laurie Nelson was born in New Westminster, but his parents Nels Nelson and Annetta Sorenson were both born in Denmark. His father, not to be confused with the famous Revelstoke ski jumper with the same name, arrived in Canada in 1881. While the elder Nelson had some connection to lacrosse, as the president of the New Westminster Salmonbellies around 1906, he was much better known in the Royal City as a businessman. He owned a brewery in Sapperton from 1896 until 1928, which later became the Labatt’s brewery site on Brunette Avenue that operated until 2005.

The Nelson family later owned Nelson Laundry Service which operated in downtown Vancouver from 1931 to 1939 – managed by Laurie Nelson, who was living downtown on West Georgia Street at the time. After the business was sold, the Nelson business name remained with it until its closure in the late 1960s.

When the former Labatt’s brewery site in Sapperton was redeveloped in 2011, two new streets that were put in by the city, Nelson’s Court and Nelson’s Crescent, were named in honour of Nels Nelson, his brewery, and his contributions to the city.

Laurie Nelson as a teenager with Sapperton in 1912.

On the lacrosse field, Laurie Nelson was a defensive player who slotted in at point, coverpoint, and any of the midfield positions behind the centre line. Not much of anything is known about his early playing career prior to his debut professional campaign during the post-war Mainland Lacrosse Association season in 1918, although he did play intermediate lacrosse with the championship Sapperton club around 1910-1912 range.

Once he became a pro player, Nelson found himself bouncing between starter and substitute duty until the 1922 season when he finally became a regular starter for the Salmonbellies. While seeing more scoring opportunities and production in those years as a substitute, and regarded early in his career as a promising scorer, once he became an established regular starter he took a much more defensive approach to the game – bagging only just a solo goal during his final three seasons playing professional ball. He scored his only hat-trick on June 21, 1919.

In terms of career statistics, Laurie Nelson played in 87 games over 7 seasons, which puts him 13th overall for games-played during the professional field era. He scored 19 goals and 4 assists, neither of which saw him dent into the top-20 numbers. His 36 penalties and 153 minutes sent off places him 12th and 20th overall in those categories. At the team level, Laurie Nelson was fourth in team scoring in 1919 with 6 goals in 12 games – his best offensive season with the Salmonbellies. The rest of his career, he was usually in the middle third for on-field production. During his seven seasons of professional ball, he won 5 Minto Cup champions with the New Westminster Salmonbellies.

Laurie Nelson, 1920.

Laurie married 17-year-old Iverna Troop Crouse in a quiet ceremony on Monday evening, December 1, 1913 at St, Mary’s Anglican Church in Sapperton. The young couple honeymooned in Victoria and Seattle before returning to reside in a home located on Brunette Street. Sadly, Ivera passed away on March 14, 1925 after a short illness at Royal Columbian Hospital, just 29 years old. She left a young son, Vorhes (Vody) Nels Nelson. Laurie’s sister Edna Nelson was married to his Salmobellies team-mate Gordon ‘Dode’ Sinclair.

Prior to his professional lacrosse career, Lauire Nelson enlisted on May 6, 1916 with the 131st Overseas Battalion CEF in New Westminster. He served in France with the 47th Battalion but was later discharged on July 31, 1917 for being medically unfit.

Lawrie Nelson passed away on August 14, 1972 at Royal Columbian Hospital and was interred at Ocean View Cemetery in Burnaby, British Columbia, the final resting place for many lacrosse players he would have played alongside and against. He was survived by his son Vorhes (Vody) Nelson as well as a daughter named Ardath Paulson and three of his sisters. Since there is no mention of Ardath when his wife Iverna passed away, it seems probable that Nelson remarried later in life although also outliving that subsequent wife as well.

(PHOTO SOURCES: CLHOF X994.8 excerpt; CLHOF X994.26 excerpt; CLHOF X979.150.1 excerpt)

Tom Rennie

There are not many good photographs existing for Tom Rennie. This one dates from 1910.

TOM RENNIE
(1883/84 – November 21, 1960)
New Westminster Salmonbellies (1903-1915)

Tom Rennie was born in Newcastle, New Brunswick. He moved to New Westminster with his family in 1889 by way of Seattle, Washington.

He played for Sapperton in the city intermediate league and went east with the Salmonbellies in 1901 as a spare. He was a reserve for the seniors in 1902 and joined the New Westminster Salmonbellies fulltime in the following year at the tender age of 19. Even before turning senior, Tom and his brother George were decent enough junior players that the Vancouver Daily World observed on October 4, 1901 that “the Rennie boys showed up much better than several of the older players” in New Westminster’s losing effort that day versus the Vancouver YMCA team.

Rennie started out at inside home but as the Montreal Gazette observed, this was “…a mistake as his position is farther out” in the midfield, and he played like a midfielder out of position as he moved the ball outside to work it around instead of driving at the net.

He missed six weeks of the season in 1910 when he ran into a hard body check by Johnny Howard and fractured his shoulder blade as a result. He then injured himself again during a practice in August after returning, missing yet several more weeks.

He moved to the United States in 1913 and worked as a lineman on large construction projects – leaving the Royal City on a bad note when striking electricians were replaced by outsiders. “Never again,” he exclaimed to the attendant media as he boarded the train south.

Tom Rennie played seven seasons during the professional era in New Westminster – scoring 13 goals during the course of 73 games. He generally played on the defensive side of the midfield, although in 1914 and parts of the 1909 and 1912 seasons he covered the role of the team’s centerman.  His career 38 penalties and 235 minutes placed him in the top-ten list for most penalised professional players on the Pacific Coast.

Rare photograph of Tom Rennie in action during a 1912 game at Recreation Park.

He was discharged from the United States Army in August 1919 and took a train from Philadelphia back to New Westminster, sparking rumours he may be returning to the field for the Salmonbellies. He discounted such rumours in correspondence with his old home town, stating “I am one of the few who quit while they were still champions”.

He became seriously ill with smallpox in January 1924 while living in Los Angeles, but a month later he make a suitable enough recovery to be involved, along with his brother-in-law Gordon ‘Dode’ Sinclair, and such ex-Vancouver players as Jake Davis, Vernon Green (the central figure involved in the 1908 gunshot riot at Queens Park), and Charlie ‘Smiler’ McCuaig, with the introduction of the sport to Southern California.

Although a four-team league was planned, ultimately a two-team championship was played between the Long Beach and Los Angeles Canadian-Californian teams, with Tom Rennie as the referee.

He was residing in Southgate, California at the time of his father’s passing in early January 1941. Tom Rennie passed away in Seattle, his home for the last twenty years of his life, on November 21, 1960 after a long illness. He was survived by his wife Gertrude and his son Robert.

(PHOTO SOURCE: CVA Sp P91 excerpt; CVA 371-585 excerpt)

Eustace Gillanders

Eustace Gillanders, May 1922.

EUSTACE DAWSON GILLANDERS
(August 4, 1893 – February 14, 1966)
Vancouver Athletic Club (1913-1915; 1919)
Vancouver Coughlan Shipyards AAA (1918)
Vancouver Terminals (1919-1920; 1921-1923)
Vancouver Lacrosse Club (1921)

Eustace Gillanders was part of the core, defensive line on the Vancouver Terminals consisting of Bay Carter, Everett McLaren, Harry ‘Fat’ Painter, goaltender Jake Davis, and Gillanders himself, all who had previously combined to form the back-half of the Vancouver Athletic Club amateur dynasty in the decade prior and had made the move to the professionals in the early 1920s.

Eustace Dawson Gillanders was born in 1893 in Sapperton, New Westminster. His parents were Wesley Clark Gillanders and Arabella Holmes of Chilliwack. His father was from near Peterbourough, Ontario and had moved west around 1873-1874 at the age of 18, settling in Chilliwack with his mother, brothers, and sisters, all who had accompanied him to British Columbia by way of San Francisco, California. There his father Wesley met Eustace’s mother Arabella, a schoolteacher. The young couple married and lived on their pre-emption which was located between Chilliwack and Rosedale. Then at some point prior to Eustace’s birth in 1893, his parents moved to New Westminster to care for Arabella’s aging parents. In 1910, the family moved again, this time to Vancouver.

Gillanders started playing lacrosse at the age of 11, with one newspaper article stating that he had moved to the West End of Vancouver at a very young age. The same article mentions that during one of his early attempts at the sport, he smashed a window and frightened several youths who had to scurry for cover. With roots in two lacrosse-playing communities, he played junior lacrosse for Sapperton and then played defensive point for the Vancouver Olympics in 1912 when he moved up to the intermediate ranks.

He turned senior in 1913 with the powerhouse Vancouver Athletic Club team during their Mann Cup dynasty run prior to the First World War – however he remained a senior and did not play when the Athletics challenged for the Minto Cup in 1913. His first season after the First World War saw him win another Mann Cup title in 1918 – this time with the Vancouver Coughlans Shipyards Amateur Athletic Association team who pushed aside the New Westminster Salmonbellies, North Vancouver Squamish Indians, and Winnipeg Argonauts on their run of 7 win and 2 ties.

On June 3, 1916 Eustace Gillanders married Gertrude Oglivie Marsh. They would have four children: Kenneth, Gordon, Marguerite, and an unnamed child who probably died at birth.

At the start of the 1919 campaign, he rejoined the Vancouver Athletic Club when the team reformed in the Pacific Coast Amateur Lacrosse Association after a three-year absence due to the war. Gillanders was elected team captain by his team-mates and was generally regarded as the best player on the roster. However, with VAC fielding a weak squad and suffering through poor results, Gillanders was convinced to turn professional around July 30, 1919 – a “bombshell” signing according to the Vancouver Province. The Vancouver Terminals had been in serious need of reinforcements for two to three weeks prior due to injuries and suspensions, and with newly-permitted substitutions now requiring more bodies to be carried by the team, the pro outfit had earlier tried to sign the Winged V star but to no avail.

Playing most of his professional career as a defensive midfielder in the first defence position, he made a great impact in Vancouver’s own end of the field, being dubbed a year later by the Terminals team manager Harry Pickering as the “find of the season”.

Eustace Gillanders, 1923.

1921 would prove to be a career production year on the field for the first defenceman. He started the season by signing up with Con Jones’s rival Vancouver team in the upstart Pacific Coast Lacrosse Association. Never a serious goal-scoring threat around the net, it would be during the league’s fifth and final match on June 11 that he would bag his only career hat-trick. After scoring Vancouver’s second goal of the match to even the score line 2-2 at the end of the first half, Victoria Capitals then built up a 5-3 lead over the next two quarters. Heading into the final stanza, Vancouver had pulled to within 1 goal, when Eustace Gillanders scored a minute later to tie the game, and then the game-winning goal a minute after that for Vancouver’s 6-5 win. The league would fold two days later. Gillanders then re-joined his old Terminals team and score another 2 goals. In all, he had 7 goals to his name for the year – out of the 11 total he would score during his five-year professional career.

Around September 1922, he was sidelined due to a bad case of appendicitis and missed games late in the season.

Eustace Gillanders’s final season as a player took place in 1923. It is unknown why he did not return the following year but it may have been due to work. He left the professional game with 68 games, 11 goals, and a lone assist to his credit, along with 21 penalties totaling 102 minutes watching from the sin bin.

Three years later in 1926 he would be involved, either as the coach or the manager (or both), with the Ocean Falls Amateur Athletic Association lacrosse team. Gillanders was a working resident of the company town, the site of the largest pulp and paper mill in British Columbia. That year saw a large contingent of former New Westminster lacrosse players gain employment there, so a lacrosse team was organised. It is unknown if the Ocean Falls AAA team played any league games, but they challenged the Richmond Farmers, champions of the Vancouver & District League, for the Kilmarnock Cup, the senior provincial championship trophy of British Columbia. The first game of the two-game total-goals series ended in a 6-6 draw, followed by a close 3-2 win for Ocean Falls. They then moved on to the Western Canada finals, where Ocean Falls won their first game over the Winnipeg Tammany Tigers 6-5 but then lost the second game 8-6 – missing out moving on to the Mann Cup finals by 1 goal, 13-12.

Eustace Gillanders passed away at home in “North Surrey, Delta” (according to his death certificate), his place of residence for the last two years of his life. His house was located at 11946 – 80th Avenue, which is now the site of a commercial office building in the Kennedy Heights area along the Surrey-North Delta border. He had worked as a pipe fitter, for 35 years, retiring the year prior to his passing. Gillanders was cremated with a memorial at Ocean View Cemetery in Burnaby, British Columbia.

(PHOTO SOURCE: Vancouver Sun May 21, 1922; Vancouver Province April 7, 1923)

Gordon ‘Dode’ Sinclair

‘Dode’ Sinclair as a pro Salmonbellies player in 1922.

VICTOR GORDON ‘DODE’ SINCLAIR
(July 18, 1898 – June 22, 1958)
New Westminster Salmonbellies (1920; 1922)
Long Beach (1924)

Victor Gordon Sinclair – better known in New Westminster sporting circles by his nickname ‘Dode’ Sinclair – was born on Mayne Island, British Columbia in 1898. His parents were James William Sinclair and Annie Isabel Irving. His father was born in Washington Territory and had moved to New Westminster in 1875, becoming a teacher in the Fraser Valley school district for twenty-five years, then later employed on steamboats and finally the British Columbia Electric Railway as an accountant.

Young Gordon moved to New Westminster at a very early age and in his youth he played on the John Robson Elementary School lacrosse team in 1913. Along with lacrosse, he was also known in the Royal City as an amateur basketball and football player.

His older brother was Irving Sinclair [1893-1969], who became famous as one of San Francisco’s best-known commercial artists from the mid-1920s into the 1960s. ‘Dode’ also had five sisters, two of whom ended up marrying the brothers George and Tom Rennie, of New Westminster Salmonbellies fame from a decade or so prior. Sinclair’s own wife Edna was the sister of team-mate Laurie Nelson. When Sinclair joined the professional Salmonbellies in 1920, he found himself team-mates with two of his brother-in-laws, Laurie and George – in what was Dode’s rookie season as a professional while George Rennie was making his final curtain-call after a 20-year career.

‘Dode’ served in the Canadian military during the Great War, and in October 1917 Private Sinclair was awarded the Military Medal for gallant conduct as a battalion runner on the front lines with the 47th Battalion. He had been serving at the front lines for several months and during combat near Lens in France, his company had come under fire and every sergeant was killed in the fighting, with the sergeant-major and two officers wounded and put out of action. Sinclair and one other soldier were the only remaining runners after four other runners had either been killed, wounded by snipers, or incapacitated by shell shock. Along with the medal and ribbon, he received a letter of commendation from the company’s brigadier general.

Sinclair signed with the professional New Westminster outfit in July 1920 and it immediately caused a major rift with the Royal City amateurs, as the pros had been raiding the amateur side that year for new blood. George Feeney and Harold ‘Haddie’ Stoddart had already been scooped by Manager Tom Gifford – and when Sinclair then backpedaled his commitment to the amateurs and jumped to the pros, the fortunes of the amateur Salmonbellies in their pursuit of the Mann Cup were put in some serious doubt. At the time of his departure from the amateur squad, Sinclair had been tied second on the goal-scoring list for the Pacific Coast Amateur Lacrosse Association, and second-place for his team.

The war hero ‘Dode’ Sinclair in 1917.

He missed out the 1921 season when he found himself stuck in Australia due to a shipping strike which prevented him finding passage back home. Sinclair returned for the 1922 season but did not seem to have the impact or promise he had shown in 1920. His short professional career of two seasons spanned 25 games and he chalked up 3 goals to his name, from playing in almost all matches as a substitute and a half-dozen starts.

Sinclair left New Westminster in 1923 and began working in California when he gained employment sinking oil wells for Standard Oil and this proved more profitable than what his lacrosse career could ever provide. The following year or so he owned and operated an appliance store in Los Angeles. Then around 1942 he made a career change once more and became an orchard farmer, running an orange grove in Los Angeles County prior to acquiring his own grove, a year prior to his death, in the city of Exeter in Tulare County.

Despite departing the lacrosse hot-bed of British Columbia for greener pastures down south, he never forgot his old love for the game. In 1924, along with his brother-in-law Tom Rennie and ex-Vancouver pro Charlie ‘Smiler’ McCuaig, they helped introduce lacrosse in the Long Beach area and a 1924 lacrosse championship was played between Long Beach and Los Angeles Canadian-Californian teams. In 1938 when the Pacific Coast Lacrosse Association started play in Southern California and raided the Canadian box leagues for players, ‘Dode’ Sinclair became the manager for the Los Angeles Canucks entry in the four-team league, which was made up of star-players from the New Westminster Adanacs and a sprinkling of Richmond Farmers and Vancouver Burrards talent. The PCLA lasted around a month before it folded in mid-season after games on January 29, 1939 due to poor arena conditions.

Victor Gordon Sinclair passed away on June 22, 1958 at his home located southeast of Exeter, California. He was survived by his wife Edna but there is no mention of any surviving children in his obituaries. While long-forgotten today as one of the many obscure, fringe players who have come and gone throughout the sport’s history, ‘Dode’ Sinclair’s short career is proof enough that all players great and not-so-great, superstar or bench-warming substitute, all have stories to tell from their lives lived.

(PHOTO SOURCES: Vancouver Province October 16, 1917; Vancouver Sun April 11, 1922)