pg 55 - full page FNL - Belleville Memorial Arena

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HOCKEY HISTORY
CELEBRATING
T
THE STORY OF THE 1958/59 WORLD CHAMPION
BELLEVILLE MCFARLANDS
photograph courtesy of the Author’s collection
This is a story about a time,
a hockey team and a town
that loved them.
The year was 1959. In early
March the best teams from
12 countries met in Prague,
Czechoslovakia to face off
for the World Hockey Championships. Canada’s hopes
rested with a team from
Belleville.
hey were called the Belleville McFarlands after the team owner, H.J.
McFarland, a wealthy industrialist
and avid hockey fan from nearby
Picton. He paid the bills that brought
together a team of local farm boys,
promising rookies and hardened hockey veterans. They were the pride of hockey fans in the
Belleville area.
Belleville has always been a hockey town –
the hometown of former NHL stars Bobby and
Dennis Hull, and a new generation of players
who have groomed their skills playing for the
Belleville Bulls, a junior team in the Ontario
BY PETER LOCKYER
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Allan Cup Champs Banner, 1958; telegram from John G. Diefenbaker to
Belleville McFarlands on winning the Allan Cup.
Hockey League. But it was
the formation of a new Senior A
hockey league in the mid-1950s that was the beginning of the McFarland era.
Wren Blair, the manager of the fabled Whitby
Dunlops, urged Belleville to form a team to
strengthen the league.
Blair worked closely with Drury Denyes, the General Manager of the McFarlands, to recruit players
from across Canada. It was the beginning of an intense rivalry between the Whitby and Belleville
teams that could often erupt into brawls on the ice.
Former Boston Bruin player Charlie Burns remembers the powerful team Blair and Denyes created. “We always had a challenging time against the
McFarlands,” he says. “That was always a tough
game. I never really liked to go into their arena because they were always very physical.”
Former Dunlop player, Sandy Aire agrees, “The
Belleville McFarlands had a very good hockey club
with players like Ike Hildebrand, Barton Bradley,
Wayne Brown, Floyd Crawford and Gordie Bell in
nets…Each time we played them, it was a battle to
the finish.”
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The war between the two teams wasn’t helped by
Belleville’s rabid fans who weren’t above grabbing
opposing players as they fought for pucks along the
boards. As well, players shared the same penalty
box.
“You’d get a penalty,” says Floyd Crawford, the
captain of the McFarlands, “and the two combatants sat in the same penalty box. You know you’re
asking for trouble. Guys would get in there and
they’d be heated up from a fight, and one word
would lead to another, and another fight would
erupt again the box.”
Crawford should know. He had one memorable
fight with Harry Sinden, the captain of the Dunlops, which spilled out of the penalty box into the
aisle below.
“The thing that sticks out for me was the old police gentleman by the name of Bill Evans who was
down in the hallway when the fight started,” remembers Crawford. “He kept telling us in an English accent, ‘Now chappies, that’s enough of that.
Now please be gentlemen.’ And we’re fighting for
our lives down in the hallway!”
And yet – after even the toughest of games – players
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photos page 46 courtesy the Denyes Family collection; pg 47 courtesy Author's collection and The Hastings County Historical Society
1959 McFarlands vs. Russia; Sending the McFarlands off at the Toronto Pearson Airport 1959; McFarlands vs. Russia in World Cup, 1959
from both teams would meet with their
fans for a few beers in the Queen’s Hotel,
just 99 steps from the Belleville arena.
“After the games were over,” says Crawford, “you’d see those guys and they were
like your brother. They’d come in and have
a beer with ya. But the next time you
played them, they’d be right back to defend
their team.”
The Belleville McFarlands just got better
and better. They boasted a high-scoring offence lead by players like Bep Guidolin, the
youngest player ever to start in the NHL.
Guidolin played for the Boston Bruins in 1942 at
age 16.
Wayne “Weiner” Brown was another Boston player who came back home to join the McFarlands.
They had speed and scoring punch, a tough defence, and a seasoned goaltender named Gordie
Bell, who had starred in the Stanley Cup playoffs for
the New York Rangers the year before. The McFarlands were magic on ice.
“I think you have to start in net with Gordie Bell,”
says Belleville sports columnist Paul Svoboda. “All
the players will tell you it was not possible without
him in net. He had NHL experience with the
Rangers and the Maple Leafs, and in the American
league with several teams. He was the lynchpin
starting in goal.”
The praise still makes the Bell family blush.
Gordie’s son, Bruce Bell, says his Dad was a very
quiet, unassuming man.
“These guys heap all kinds of accolades on him
and talk about what a wonderful goaltender he was,
and how important he was, and the first thing that
always strikes me about that is how uncomfortable
he would be with it. My father was such a believer in
the team thing – always team first – and he wouldn’t
have bought into any of this stuff.”
But with Bell in goal, the team was talented,
tough and unstoppable.
As the 1958 season wore on, the McFarlands
were becoming a championship team surprising
“THESE GUYS HEAP ALL KINDS OF
ACCOLADES ON MY DAD AND TALK ABOUT
WHAT A WONDERFUL GOALTENDER HE
WAS, AND HOW IMPORTANT HE WAS, AND
THE FIRST THING THAT ALWAYS STRIKES ME
ABOUT THAT IS HOW UNCOMFORTABLE HE
WOULD BE WITH IT.” BRUCE BELL
themselves, their fans, and team sponsor Harvey
McFarland.
“He really loved the hockey players,” says McFarland’s son Malcolm. “He always called them ‘his
boys’ and I think he would do anything for them.
And I think they returned it. They would do anything for him. And I think they played over their
heads. There were other, better quality hockey
teams out there with better hockey players. But they
had the determination to win.”
Their home rink was the Memorial Arena in
downtown Belleville.
“The closeness of the Belleville fans to the players
was fantastic,” remembers Floyd Crawford. “They
were like a seventh man on the ice.”
On game nights, the Memorial was packed, noisy,
smokey, and cold. But nobody cared. Fans lined up
for hours to get into Friday night games. The team
was so popular, there was a shortage of babysitters
in Belleville and surrounding communities.
In 1958, the team swept through their season
winning the Ontario Championship finals against
the Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmen. Next they travelled to British Columbia to face off against the
Kelowna Packers for the Allan Cup, the ultimate
trophy in Canadian Senior A hockey. It would turn
out to be one of the most memorable hockey playoffs of all time.
Belleville won the first game. But they were
trounced 6-0 in the second and they lost the next
two. They were now down three games to
one against a determined Kelowna team
sensing a championship victory. And they
were injured. Star forward Davey Jones
broke his neck in one of the first games.
“I was standing in front of the net and
looking to score a goal, and somebody
cross-checked me from behind on the
neck,” says Jones. “I went down in a big
pile-up. And when everybody got up, I
couldn’t move my head. They wheeled me
off to the hospital, X-rayed me, and said,
‘You have a broken neck.’ That was scary.”
“We had other injuries too,” remembers defenceman Lionel Botley. “We were down to quite a skeleton crew. I was normally quiet in the dressing room,
but I remember I talked it up quite a bit. The goal
for me was to win the Canadian championship and
go to Europe for the World Cup.”
Back home in Belleville, their fans were worried
and sat glued to their radios listening to broadcasts
of the game from CJBQ sports broadcaster Jack
Devine in the middle of the night. They poured out
their encouragement and hockey advice in an avalanche of telegrams to the team, and the McFarlands fought back from almost certain defeat to
capture the Allan Cup.
“We knew deep down in our hearts that we had as
good a team as Kelowna and Kelowna had a very
good club,” Floyd Crawford recalls. “And I think it
was just that, the guys getting together. And one
thing led to another. We won a game, made it 3-2,
and then we tied the series up and went to a 7th
game. And well, read all about.”
Belleville went crazy.
“All the citizens were up listening to the radio
overnight. For some reason or another, some magnetic force drew hundreds of people downtown to
celebrate,” says fan, Dr. Bruce Cronk. “And I recall
there was a big pile of railway ties and logs on the
junction of Front and Bridge Streets. There was a
huge bonfire there and it melted a whopping big
hole in the pavement!”
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Page 4
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When the McFarlands arrived home by train,
thousands of fans lined the city’s main street to welcome them back.
Winning the Allan Cup was the team’s ticket to
the World Hockey Championships in Czechoslovakia one year later. At the insistence of Canadian
hockey league officials, they added players including
rookie Red Berenson, a future NHLer to their roster.
The McFarlands played a gruelling exhibition
schedule during the first weeks of their European
trip in the winter of 1959. The games were designed
to raise funds to help pay for the costs of their trip.
The exhibition series didn’t raise much money but
their physical style drew plenty of complaints from
European teams and their fans.
“I know the first time they played the Czechs in
the preliminary round, they beat them. And it was a
really a rough game,” says Wally Laverne, who accompanied the team overseas. “And we had a group
of soldiers sitting in front of us, and they kept turning around and shaking their fists at us. We were
hoping to get out of there alive! They didn’t like it
too much.”
The exhibition games left the team banged up
and tired, even before they began their world championship. But the mighty McFarlands went on to
score decisive world cup victories using their speed,
scoring and roughhouse play to dominate opposing
teams.
“We were constantly under surveillance,” says
Crawford. “It didn’t matter if you went with one
guy or 101 guys, their secret service people were
everywhere, and so that was a little upsetting. But it
just made us more determined.”
It was the era of the Cold War. And the championship games were about politics as much as hockey.
“Back then,” says team member Keith MacDonald, “there was a lot of friction between Canada
and Russia. They were the team to beat and we did
it, 3-1.”
The exhausted McFarlands lost their last world
cup game to the Czech team 5-3. It was their only
defeat. But by then, the loss was meaningless. Their
gritty play had already clinched the world title.
“We were playing for Canada,” says high-scoring
forward Wayne Brown.
“We didn’t want to disappoint ourselves and we
didn’t want to disappoint Canada, because we were
told by a lot of people that we weren’t going to win.
That made it all the better for us. We showed them.”
And when the team arrived back home, Belleville
went crazy…again.
“You couldn’t move,” recalls George Zegouras, a
fan and later, a mayor of Belleville. “You couldn’t
breathe sideways for people. And when they came
through from the CN train station, the streets were
jammed with 50,000 people. That was just unbelievable.”
The McFarlands played another two seasons, but
there were never seasons again like the 1958/59
years. Within months of their international victory,
the team fell from grace. They folded in controversy
when an audit of the city’s finances showed the
team had wracked up a deficit of more than
$100,000 which taxpayers would have to repay.
“Everybody in the area knew that they were being
paid in some way or another,” says fan Don Leslie.
“The poor boys – they were no longer heroes. For many
years afterwards some people said, ‘We’re still paying for those McFarlands.’ They forget about the advertising Belleville got and the excitement we got.”
“Somebody had to pay the bills,” states Belleville
sports columnist Paul Svoboda. “These guys were
professional hockey players…Senior A hockey at
the time was like a minor pro circuit, and the top
teams paid their players and the cities often would
contribute, whether it was made public or not.”
“It was strange how quickly people turned against
the McFarlands when they found out that there was
going to be a special levy,” recalls Belleville resident
Paul Russell. “I know my father and I had to pay
$16.05 a year for five years to repay the costs of the
McFarlands. I thought it was the best $16.05 that I’d
ever spent in my life!”
The scandal was devastating for the McFarlands.
In the following years, the magic that was once
the McFarlands abandoned them. Many received
bills from the Canadian government for unpaid
taxes. High scoring Minnie Menard and goaltender
Gordie Bell sustained eye injuries that ended their
careers. Although he tried playing with a mask, Bell
would never regain his winning form.
“He tried to play with this rudimentary piece of
fiberglass as a mask, and the first game back he let
in four goals and they booed him out of the Memorial Arena,” says Bell’s son Bruce. “He learned pretty
quickly there’s not a lot of value in a one-eyed goaltender, which was kind of a sad end for him because
he’d had such a wonderful career. I guess he went in
between the first and second periods and just took
off his equipment.” And with that, Bell’s long hockey
career had ended.
Belleville is still a hockey town. It has a Junior A
team – the Belleville Bulls – who regularly send a
new generation of players into the big leagues. But
over the decades, the McFarland legacy has endured. There are fewer of them now. However, the
remaining members of the 1958/59 team can still
draw a crowd at occasional public appearances they
make, and they are still warmly remembered by
hockey fans everywhere.
In April 2009 on the occasion of the 50th
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Celebrating the Canadian championship in 1958; Allan Cup victory parade, May 1958; Captain Floyd Crawford receives the World Cup in Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1959
“I KNOW MY GRANDFATHER SAID THAT
IT WAS ONE OF HIS PROUDEST MOMENTS IN
HIS LIFE WHEN THE BELLEVILLE MACS
DEFEATED THE RUSSIAN NATIONAL TEAM AND
THE CANADIAN FLAG RAISED UP ABOVE
THE RUSSIAN FLAG.” JOHN MCFARLAND
MACS defeated the Russian national team and
the Canadian flag raised up above the Russian flag,”
he says.
For the remaining team players, it was a chance to
remember again one great moment when they were
the very best hockey players in the world.
“You have no idea the feeling when we won,” says
Keith MacDonald. “Floyd Crawford got up on that
stage with both of the other team captains on each
side of him. I’ll never forget it. And they played O
Canada. I’m telling you something; it
makes cold chills go down your back. It was
really something I will never forget.”
“It’s something you never forget, that’s
for sure,” says star forward Davey Jones
looking down at the championship ring he
still wears. “I can still get choked up over it
just talking about it sometimes. It doesn’t
seem possible that it’s 50 years ago. But it’s
something that I have on my finger and it’s
there every day. And that’s something you
don’t forget.”
Their fiery captain Floyd Crawford struggled to
find some last words. He thanked the unsung heroes behind the team – their wives who raised the
kids and kept house while their husbands pursued
their hockey dreams – before remembering fans
and his teammates.
“The fans gave us something to shoot for,” he
said. “Thanks to all my teammates. Thanks for all
the times guys. And I want to thank the guys who
are no longer here. You are in our memories.”
photos courtesy of Author's collection and The Hastings County Historical Society
anniversary of their overseas victory, the
team members were honoured with another parade down Belleville’s main streets,
and a gala evening at the city’s new Empire
Theatre for the launch of a documentary
and book produced in their honour. The
Belleville Sports Hall of Fame sponsored
the evening, and another sell-out crowd
came out to cheer the McFarlands once
again.
For both players and their fans, it was an
emotional night. The Mayor of Belleville,
Neil Ellis, announced the city would be installing
signs to honour the team. It was a healing moment
for these proud players who plummeted from heroes to outcasts within a few months in the spring
of 1959. It was redemption.
John McFarland, the grandson of team owner
H.J. McFarland, regretted his grandfather, who died
in 1974, could not attend the special night.
“I know my grandfather said that it was one of
his proudest moments in his life when the Belleville
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