A Great Game (35 page)

There can be no doubt that this conspiracy theory, combined with events on the ice that night, did real damage—but was it true? Maybe Chuck, who had been inconsistent all season, just had an off game? Maybe Newsy did not score because he was playing defence? Was the public not demanding he rein in his aggressiveness anyway? In the end, Tyner and Lalonde never did suit up for the Braves, as the Indians coasted to the pennant in the closing games.
²²

For Lalonde, the criticism must have been especially wounding.
The captain, whatever his faults, had been a consistent competitor. He had stuck with the club despite the offer of big money from the mining league up north. He had also thrown himself into recruiting work as the club struggled with defections. This partly explains why so many newcomers had come from Cornwall and other parts of eastern Ontario.

In any case, professional hockey was ending the local season at a new low—just as the amateur game was on the rise. In the weeks that followed, St. Mike's took the senior OHA championship and the John Ross Robertson Cup. The Queen City was on top for the first time since the Marlboro title of 1904–05. Although it turned out to be too late to challenge for the Allan Cup, the prospect of genuine national honours was capturing the public's imagination.

Both the amateur and professional hockey champions of Canada were, for now, to be found in the nation's capital. The Allan Cup was first held—albeit briefly—by the Ottawa Cliffsides, who had taken the Interprovincial title. Ottawa's Silver Seven had won the Eastern crown and thus had finally taken the Stanley Cup back from the Montreal Wanderers.

With the Toronto Professionals' season in tatters, it was understandably forgotten that they had beaten the new Stanley Cup champions just two months before. How quickly—and completely—things had changed.

Still, despite the disastrous end to the 1908–09 season, the Torontos had managed to complete their schedule. The club had not disbanded and there were no reports that it would do so. Indeed, as the city entered the fall, there were clear expectations that the Professionals would ice a squad in 1909–10. Supporters were already speculating that it would be a comeback year.

One warning sign, however, was the apparent lack of star players. Professional recruiting promised to be as competitive as ever. Alex Miln claimed to have a line out to several pro veterans, including defectors Dubbie Kerr and Bruce Ridpath. Yet fan favourite Riddy had spoken highly of his experiences in the north country and was showing no sign of returning.

The one top performer who had stuck with the club through thick and thin the past season was Newsy Lalonde. The malicious rumours that he would be a ringer for Brantford at season's end being false,
the much-maligned captain had instead travelled to Montreal. There, he had played on a hastily formed French Canadian all-star team. Reports had him staying with a Francophone club, likely the Montreal Nationals.

In early November, rumours about the club's future began to circulate for the first time. These were sparked by Miln's failure to appear at an OPHL meeting scheduled for Brantford. The reason was not clear, but the stories suggested the Toronto manager was again looking at taking his club into the ECHA.

Miln finally did show up at the league meeting that had been rescheduled for November 19. There, he stunned observers by wielding the axe. He was stepping down as president of the Ontario Pro league and withdrawing his club from the circuit. However, it was not joining any other league.

Three days short of its third birthday, the Toronto Hockey Club was no more.

The Mutual Street Rink manager went further. Noting that he was receiving numerous applications—professional and amateur—for the coming season, “Mr. Miln was of the opinion that the two brands of hockey did not mix, and he was desirous of giving the preference to the amateur clubs.”
²³
In other words, the boss of the former pro team was endorsing the separation principle of the amateur purists. More than that, he was saying professionals and amateurs could not mix,
even in the same facility
. It was a stunning and devastating rebuke of the commercial game from Toronto's chief promoter of professional hockey.

Little is known about why Miln made such a sudden about-face without warning. There was nothing new about much demand for ice time at Mutual Street—it happened every year. Money doubtless had more to do with it. Miln suggested that, by drawing the big gates, the pro club had taken the profits out of local amateur hockey. Meanwhile, reports indicated the pro club itself had lost at least $1,500 in 1908–09. In truth, leaving aside the March 1908 Stanley Cup gambling takes, the Toronto Hockey Club probably did not make money on hockey operations in any of its three seasons.

Whatever Miln's reasons, the advocates of amateurism were ecstatic. John Ross Robertson's organ was the most eloquent:

It is not often that amateur hockey can chase the pro. article out of a city the size of Toronto. But that's what has happened here. So many senior O.H.A. teams are in line that the pros. are crowded off Mutual street rink . . . The rush of amateurs is the healthiest sign any sport can show. It means that hockey in Toronto is on a healthy foundation, that O.H.A. supervision is universally satisfactory and that the future of the game is assured.
²⁴

Such self-congratulatory commentary underscored a sense of triumph among Toronto's amateurs that was total. Just as victory was inexorably moving their way in the long Athletic War, so too had the battle for control of hockey in the Queen City. The field had been vacated. The professionals had been expelled, never to return.

At least that's what John Ross Robertson and his followers wanted to believe.

The Era of Amateurism Returns to the Queen City

They learned nothing and forgot nothing.

—T
ALLEYRAND
¹

The 1909–10 Toronto hockey season was opening not just without the professionals, but also amid a genuine renaissance in the amateur game. The OHA champions, St. Michael's College of Toronto, had their eyes set on the national glory of the Allan Cup. At the provincial level, there would be as many as ten local senior amateur clubs crowding the Mutual Street Rink, and, proclaimed the
Tely
, “still the list of aspirants for the J. Ross Robertson Cup grows.”
²

In fact, amateurism was ascendant everywhere. Led by the revived Olympic Games of Pierre de Coubertin, its purists were gaining a worldwide reach. The London Games had particularly captured the public's imagination, despite a controversy during the opening ceremony when American flag bearer Ralph Rose refused to dip his colours before King Edward VII. The Games had lasted more than six months—the longest in Olympic history—thanks to the addition of four figure-skating events held later in the year. All in all, they were widely hailed as a great success for amateur sport.

Canadians' most poignant memory, however, had been the disastrous showing of Tom Longboat in the marathon. And yet, even that was a blessing to the amateur ideologues, for it had marked the beginning of the end for the pragmatists.

In the spring of 1909, this was confirmed when the Montreal-based Amateur Athletic Federation of Canada came to the Toronto-based Canadian Amateur Athletic Union seeking peace. The Union, by now rid of its most intransigent leaders, responded positively to the Federation's overtures. The country's three-year-long Athletic War was coming to a surprisingly amicable conclusion.

On Labour Day, the two bodies officially established the new Amateur Athletic Union of Canada. It would be led by CAAU president James G. Merrick, a Toronto disciple of John Ross Robertson. Montreal men were also given positions of prominence. In particular, the AAFC would form the basis of the AAUC's Quebec branch. Merrick declared the battle over with quintessential Canadian diplomacy:

The Federation, as represented by the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association, the proudest and most powerful club in Canada, was perfectly sincere in its idea of amateurism in sport, and just as ready to jealously guard it as we are. With both bodies working for pure amateurism it was only a matter of time until the points of difference were satisfactorily adjusted, and the schism bridged.
³

A bit of flexibility had been shown on the amateur definition. A broad amnesty on past bans was instituted. Transitional measures were put in place for hockey and lacrosse. As well, a few athletes—golfers, cricketers and bowlers—would be allowed to play against professionals. Nonetheless, there was no illusion about who had won this Canadian civil war.
Exceptions were just that. Going forward, an ironclad, no-mixing amateurism would generally apply, just as John Ross Robertson would have wished.

The “peace, order and good government” of Canadian athletics would be under the AAUC, with Toronto, not Montreal, as the national capital of amateur sport.

The advocates of amateur purity were also in the process of creating their own parallel national structures. The Mann Cup was introduced to displace the Minto Cup in lacrosse, just as the Allan Cup aimed to upstage the Stanley Cup. Of course, the separation of amateur and professional athletics was already in effect in hockey. With professionals now gravitating towards purely professional leagues, this led to significantly fewer eligibility conflicts in organizations like the Ontario Hockey Association. It only further convinced Robertson and his cohorts that their approach had been the right one all along.

There were, however, a few early warning signs.