A Great Game (23 page)

The American pro game did not disappear immediately. In Pittsburgh, the Western Pennsylvania Hockey League was re-established. The clubs of Sault Ste. Marie and Houghton, home of Doc Gibson, went amateur, but continued to barnstorm. Every preseason, reports on the imminent founding of a new U.S. pro league would circulate. Nonetheless, the IHL's day had passed.

This led outgoing OHA President D. L. Darroch to dismiss the pro threat in his final address, a speech that could have been written by Robertson himself. Darroch attributed the previous year's rebellion to mercenary rink managers—which would include both Miln and Guelph's Buck Irving. He blamed Irving especially, seeing his famous “charges” as an orchestrated plot to encourage professionalism. This reading was probably accurate, but his assertion that the Ontario pros had given up all hope was just wishful thinking.

While the Barrie and Belleville professional clubs had quietly fizzled, Toronto, Guelph and Berlin had completed the previous year on a high note. Games with the Montreal Wanderers and with each other had been well attended. Now a flood of exiled OHA talent was pouring back into Ontario from the defunct International league. With professional hockey already flourishing on the province's periphery, conditions were set for the first pro league in the OHA's heartland.

On November 12, 1907, the remaining Ontario professional clubs gathered in Berlin to form the Canadian Hockey League. Despite its official name, the organization was widely called the Ontario Professional
Hockey League almost immediately. Brantford was admitted as the circuit's fourth member.

Although the Telephone City was alone in not having an existing club, Brantford had been a rumoured centre of pro insurrection for some time. It had been hit hard by the OHA's expulsion of lacrosse players in 1904. In the winter of 1905–06, local exile Roy Brown had attempted to organize a team in the city while he was also part of Toronto's pro practice squad. A top defenceman, Brown had wanted to play in Ontario rather than the International league. He was immediately named the playing manager of the new team.

The OPHL was clearly feeling confident. Before it had played a single game, it announced that its champion would challenge for the Stanley Cup.

Alex Miln found himself wearing two hats as president of the new Ontario pro league and manager of its Toronto club.
⁹
After his IHL plans had fallen through, he had worked with Irving—now OPHL secretary—to put together the new provincial body. He had not pursued a rumoured possibility of getting Toronto into the big Eastern league; without a larger building to pay the freight, he wanted a more compact circuit with modest travel costs.

This does not mean Miln had given up on making Toronto's “new rink” a reality. His backers were buying the land all around the existing building. By the end of 1907 they had everything along Shuter Street from Mutual to Dalhousie Street. In truth, the venture seemed only a matter of time.

In the meantime, Miln's Ontario partners had carefully chosen each other from a number of applicants. They were trying to put together a stable and collegial outfit. They also sought to address some of the complaints against professionalism. Miln was particularly clear about getting rid of late-season ringers:

The addition of a very strong residence rule . . . will not give the clubs a chance to import players at any stage of the season, as was done by Kenora last year in the Western League when they brought in nearly all the Ottawa team. We don't intend to have any farce of this kind.
¹⁰

However, President Miln's number-one job was to keep the Ontario teams from raiding each other. This was essential, given the intense competition already coming from the other pro circuits. The OHA news organs—the
Telegram
,
Star
and
Globe
—needled the OPHL every time it lost a player to its competitors. As noted, Robertson's
Tely
was particularly savage:

All the hockey world is laughing at a so-called professional hockey league that can only get players that real professional leagues don't want. It's not a professional league at all. It's a disqualified amateurs' league.
¹¹

The unfortunate truth for the OHA was that, whatever the OPHL lost to other pro leagues, it made up for by raiding the old association. It had already taken all of Guelph and Berlin—probably the two best OHA teams before their defection. To these it added a few new amateur signings. It also grabbed many of the Ontarians returning from the States, although some would wait till after Christmas in order to first play for a few weeks on Pittsburgh's artificial ice.

On the whole, the Ontario teams looked decent. Roy Brown brought fellow International travellers like Billy “Lady” Taylor, Jack Marks, John Ward and Alfred “Cap” McDonald back to Brantford with him. Berlin had preserved a quality core of men who had been performing together for years. They had, of course, been OHA senior champions in 1905–06. Among the group, only Guelph was suspect. The Royals had had the best record of the barnstorming teams of 1906–07; however, while hyping his efforts to sign IHL star Fred Taylor, Irving had let much of his local talent slip away.

The Toronto Hockey Club was building on its lineup from that first year. While the team had come in for some criticism over its shifting personnel, there had been a stable core of familiar names. Mark Tooze (goal), Hugh Lambe (point), Rolly Young (usually cover), Bruce Ridpath (usually rover) and Jack Carmichael (centre) had played all eight games in 1906–07. With Frank McLaren apparently retired, Charlie Liffiton and Harry Burgoyne had settled in at the wings.

Preseason reports indicated all the veterans were available, but that
they would have to compete against a wider talent pool. Ridpath, who was in Europe on a canoe tour, was considered safe. So was Young, who succeeded him as captain. The rest would be tested in December tryouts against IHL returnees and a number of Varsity students wanting to turn pro. Only Bert Brown, the team's spare man at last season's end, was trying to get back into amateur athletics.

The consensus was that the Torontos would enter the year with a strengthened roster. Howard Gee returned from Manitoba to play cover once again. He would be joined on defence by point man Con Corbeau. Corbeau was a 185-pound International league veteran who had once captained Victoria Harbour, the OHA intermediate champion of 1904–05. Bert Morrison also returned to squeeze out Carmichael at centre. A former star at Upper Canada College, Morrison had been on American payrolls for years, although he had also been part of the stillborn Toronto pro team of 1905–06.

The real coup for the Professionals was getting the goalie they had wanted all along: Chuck Tyner of the disbanding Marlboros. Tyner was another in the long line of players who had been the subject of Irving's charges, been given a clean bill of health by the OHA and then gone pro anyway. The aspiring doctor would be joined by IHL forward Ken Mallen. Soon to play rover, Mallen was said to be Tyner's fellow student at the University of Toronto. Tooze was forced to look elsewhere, as were Liffiton and Burgoyne, while Lambe was retained as the spare man.

By the time this lineup had come together, Toronto was within a week
of its home opener. In the lead-up to the big event, it was announced the club would be changing its colours for the upcoming campaign. Brantford wanted purple and white, so the locals decided to switch to garnet and grey. The inspiration for the choice was likely an OHA junior club, the Toronto Simcoes. The irony was that the Simcoes had been started up many years earlier by no less than John Ross Robertson himself.

The Simcoes of this day were managed by Edward Marriott. “Teddy” had taken over the club after leaving the Marlboros in 1905.
¹²
When Miln became the boss at Mutual, he recruited Marriott for increasingly important assignments, including as icemaker and boss of the building's restaurant. For all practical purposes, Teddy became the assistant manager of the Toronto Professionals.

The Professionals would wear the new colours on Saturday night, January 4, when Berlin would be their scheduled guests at the old Mutual Street Rink. The Dutchmen were an ensemble that had endured since the players were youngsters in the Western Ontario Athletic Association. They would face what was, at best, a two-piece outfit.

One part was the previous year's barnstorming team and its antecedent, the Toronto Marlboros. Ridpath and Young—moved to left and right wing respectively—had been together for three seasons. They had been joined by Lambe and (briefly) Gee the previous year. Tyner had played with them the two years before that. The other half was the former Calumet Miners of the International league. That was where Mallen had spent most of the past three winters. Corbeau had been there part of the past two. Morrison became their teammate in 1906–07.

Berlin almost did not come to town. During the preseason, a serious dispute had arisen with the other OPHL owners. Guelph's Irving had signed one Berlin star, Nelson “Uncle” Gross, while Brantford manager Brown and owner Fred Westbrook had poached another, Edward “Goldie” Cochrane. The Dutchmen threatened to quit the league if they were not returned. The rivals relented and Berlin stuck.