Book Feature From Rinks to Regiments: Hockey Hall-of-Famers and the Great War (by Alan Livingstone MacLeod)

[Theokritos]

@A L MacLeod: I know your book is about World War I, but do you happen to also have any insights on World War II? First Canada had volunteers going overseas too before they were forced to introduce conscription again. Do you happen to know if the geographical distribution of the volunteers was similiar to WWI? Were volunteers from the Western provinces (especially Manitoba) overrepresented again and volunteers from Quebec rare too?

 

[A L MacLeod]

@A L MacLeod: I know your book is about World War I, but do you happen to also have any insights on World War II? First Canada had volunteers going overseas too before they were forced to introduce conscription again. Do you happen to know if the geographical distribution of the volunteers was similiar to WWI? Were volunteers from the Western provinces (especially Manitoba) overrepresented again and volunteers from Quebec rare too?

Having not researched WWII enlistment patterns I can't tell you whether history repeated itself in the early years of the Second World War, but I do know a little about the response of hockey players to the call to arms. Almost two hundred players with NHL experience joined the military between 1939 and 1945. Thirty player members of the HHoF had served in WWI. Two-thirds as many -- 21 -- did the same in WWII. Two hall-of-famers -- Conn Smythe and Frank Fredrickson -- served in both wars. Political correctness would forbid the name in our time but there was a celebrated line -- the "Kraut Line" -- that went to war against Adolf Hitler's Nazis. There were all of German heritage: Bobby Bauer, Woody Dumart and Milt Schmidt. Each was an all-star and each is recognized by a tablet in the Hall of Fame. No hall-of-famer was killed in action in WWII but at least one -- Howie Meeker -- was very seriously wounded.

 

[Theokritos]

Thirty player members of the HHoF had served in WWI. Two-thirds as many -- 21 -- did the same in WWII.

That's an interesting contrast.

Speaking of a contrast: My field of research is Russia and while Canadian hockey was not yet played there prior to WWII, many future hockey greats were already renowned athletes prior to the war. Instead of Canadian hockey, they were playing "hockey with the ball" (bandy) during the winter months and association football (soccer) during the warm season. So here are a few war-time insights on future Soviet hockey greats that might be interesting for some of the readers here.

Vsevolod Bobrov had an older brother named Vladimir who, by some accounts, was an even more talented athlete. Vladimir Bobrov was drafted into the Soviet army and had just finished his term when the German invasion began in June 1941. He was called back to arms, spend the next years at the front and was wounded several times, which forced an end upon his athletic ambitions. Vsevolod had more luck. Having been called to arms August 1942, he was lined up with others to be sent to Stalingrad, but the Army captain overseeing it happened to be a football and bandy player from Leningrad who knew Bobrov and was aware of his talent. That captain sent Vsevolod Bobrov to the Military Academy instead of the front. Essentially, his athletic talent saved him from being sent to one of the bloodiest battles in history.

The two future coaches of the Soviet hockey national team, Anatoli Tarasov and Arkadi Chernyshov, were already members of the Armed forces when the war began (Tarasov with the Soviet Army, Chernyshov with the police). Both spent the war training soldiers. I guess they were something like drill sergeants. Neither saw combat.

Interestingly, bandy (hockey with a ball instead of a puck and 11 players per team on a soccer-sized ice rink) kept being played during the invasion. Bobrov's father worked in an arms factory in Leningrad that was relocated from the front to the safety of Siberia together with the entire staff, so the Bobrov family (minus Vladimir) had moved to Omsk in 1941. Vsevolod Bobrov played bandy there with the factory team. Now that was far away from the Germans, but even in Moscow bandy games were continued, despite of German air attacks. In order to avoid crowds that would have offered the Germans a target, games were announced to be held in one place and then moved to another on short notice, so the official competitions like the USSR Cup went on with little attendance. The idea was that the rest of the country and the soldiers on the front should hear the reports of the games and get the impression that life in Moscow was going on as usual, unchallenged by the enemy.

 

[Theokritos]

@A L MacLeod

Is there any particularly impressive or sad story you learned about over the course of your research that you had not been aware before?

 

[A L MacLeod]

Oh yes, yes indeed. The stories of the four hall-of-famers who died -- Canadians Scotty Davidson, Frank McGee, and George Richardson and American Hobey Baker all all inherently sad. Baker survived the war only to die in the crash of his SPAD just 40 day after the Armistice. A number of observers had reported that Baker saw his life's post-war prospects as bleak. Nothing in boring civilian life could compete with the joy and exhilaration of being a combat airman. As I write in the book, "Was the crash an accident? More than a few people wondered."

Frank McGee was doubtless the greatest hockey player of them all before the war. He was hell-bent on doing his duty as a soldier; he managed to get himself enlisted despite being blind in one eye. A very serious war wound took him out of action for several months. He had "paid his dues": he could have taken a safe job away from the front lines, but that wouldn't do for Frank McGee. He returned to his battalion and was killed in action for his troubles. His family didn't even have the comfort of a known grave: his body was never found and identified.

In the last hockey game Scotty Davidson ever played, March 19, 1914, against the Victoria Capitals, Davidson got into an on-ice fistfight with Bobby Genge, who just happened to be Davidson's first cousin. It is easy to imagine what Genge might have felt at the news a little more than a year later that the cousin whose nose he had tried to bust in a hockey game had been killed in action while he, Genge, continued to play hockey. Like McGee, Davidson has no known grave. They are both among the 11,285 names on the Vimy monument to the missing.

George Richardson was both a wealthy man and a generous one. Out of his own pocket he paid for myriad items that would bring a degree of comfort to the men in the trenches under his command. His will left considerable sums to the widows and families of men who had been killed while serving under him. A 1917 article in the Toronto Star quoted a fellow officer as saying, "No officer was ever more beloved by his men, who were ready to follow him anywhere." You can bet that the sad news of Richardson's passing caused many a soldier to shed bitter tears.

 

[Theokritos]

Baker survived the war only to die in the crash of his SPAD just 40 day after the Armistice. A number of observers had reported that Baker saw his life's post-war prospects as bleak. Nothing in boring civilian life could compete with the joy and exhilaration of being a combat airman. As I write in the book, "Was the crash an accident? More than a few people wondered."

Gee, I didn't know that.

Frank McGee was doubtless the greatest hockey player of them all before the war. He was hell-bent on doing his duty as a soldier; he managed to get himself enlisted despite being blind in one eye. A very serious war wound took him out of action for several months. He had "paid his dues": he could have taken a safe job away from the front lines, but that wouldn't do for Frank McGee. He returned to his battalion and was killed in action for his troubles. His family didn't even have the comfort of a known grave: his body was never found and identified.

In the last hockey game Scotty Davidson ever played, March 19, 1914, against the Victoria Capitals, Davidson got into an on-ice fistfight with Bobby Genge, who just happened to be Davidson's first cousin. It is easy to imagine what Genge might have felt at the news a little more than a year later that the cousin whose nose he had tried to bust in a hockey game had been killed in action while he, Genge, continued to play hockey. Like McGee, Davidson has no known grave. They are both among the 11,285 names on the Vimy monument to the missing.

George Richardson was both a wealthy man and a generous one. Out of his own pocket he paid for myriad items that would bring a degree of comfort to the men in the trenches under his command. His will left considerable sums to the widows and families of men who had been killed while serving under him. A 1917 article in the Toronto Star quoted a fellow officer as saying, "No officer was ever more beloved by his men, who were ready to follow him anywhere." You can bet that the sad news of Richardson's passing caused many a soldier to shed bitter tears.

Certainly some memorable fates that you have preserved in your book.

Did Canadian servicemen have any opportunity to play or watch hockey while they were in Europe? Obviously they were busy doing other things most of the time, but I remember reading somewhere that e.g. in World War II some hockey (involving North American soldiers) was played soon after the fighting had stopped (I think in Bohemia).

 

[A L MacLeod]

Gee, I didn't know that.



Certainly some memorable fates that you have preserved in your book.

Did Canadian servicemen have any opportunity to play or watch hockey while they were in Europe? Obviously they were busy doing other things most of the time, but I remember reading somewhere that e.g. in World War II some hockey (involving North American soldiers) was played soon after the fighting had stopped (I think in Bohemia).

They played plenty of baseball but I have never come across a battalion war diary account of a hockey game, nor a single photo of soldiers playing hockey.

 

[Theokritos]

They played plenty of baseball but I have never come across a battalion war diary account of a hockey game, nor a single photo of soldiers playing hockey.

Was there any organized hockey within the Armed Forces in Canada prior to or after World War I? I know that there was after World War II since the Royal Canadian Air Force Flyers won the Allan Cup in 1942 and successfully represented Canada at the 1948 Olympic Games.

 

[A L MacLeod]

Was there any organized hockey within the Armed Forces in Canada prior to or after World War I? I know that there was after World War II since the Royal Canadian Air Force Flyers won the Allan Cup in 1942 and successfully represented Canada at the 1948 Olympic Games.

No, none that I have ever come across, and I think I would have had it existed.

 

[sr edler]

No, none that I have ever come across, and I think I would have had it existed.

I may have misinterpreted or misunderstood Theo's original question, and I'm not gunning for organized hockey per se, or organized league hockey at least, but weren't some of early 1890s Winnipeg amateur teams kinda military based/influenced? I'm thinking of the Winnipeg Dragoons and the Fort Osborne Rifles, for instance. One early player, with both said teams, who also played for the Toronto New Fort in the early OHA, was Thomas D.B. Evans. As a soldier Evans took part in both the North-West Rebellion in 1885 (in present-day Saskatchewan & Alberta) and the Second Boer War in 1900–1902 in South Africa.

 

[A L MacLeod]

I may have misinterpreted or misunderstood Theo's original question, and I'm not gunning for organized hockey per se, or organized league hockey at least, but weren't some of early 1890s Winnipeg amateur teams kinda military based/influenced? I'm thinking of the Winnipeg Dragoons and the Fort Osborne Rifles, for instance. One early player, with both said teams, who also played for the Toronto New Fort in the early OHA, was Thomas D.B. Evans. As a soldier Evans took part in both the North-West Rebellion in 1885 (in present-day Saskatchewan & Alberta) and the Second Boer War in 1900–1902 in South Africa.

Well, there may well have been connections with militia organizations--as opposed to regular army--but I am not familiar with them. Apropos Evans' teams--Fort Osborne Rifles and Winnipeg Dragoons--it certainly seems reasonable to infer the teams had military connections. SIHR doesn't tell us how well the Dragoons did in '92-93 but the Fort Osborne skaters don't seem to have been especially memorable: they went 0-6 in '91-92.

It is perhaps telling that during the Stanley Cup Challenge era, 1893-1914, no army-based team challenged for the Cup. As for the Allan Cup, no army-based challenger arose until the war was well underway, namely, the 61st Battalion club led by Bullet Joe Simpson that won in 1916.

 

[Theokritos]

It is perhaps telling that during the Stanley Cup Challenge era, 1893-1914, no army-based team challenged for the Cup. As for the Allan Cup, no army-based challenger arose until the war was well underway, namely, the 61st Battalion club led by Bullet Joe Simpson that won in 1916.

When you say army-based, do you mean a team formally associated with and funded by the Army or what was the connection?

 

[A L MacLeod]

Essentially, yes. The members of the 61st Battalion hockey club that won the Allan Cup in 1916 were soldiers of that battalion who happened to be good hockey players too. That they were soldiers first and hockey players second is reflected in this: two of them were killed in action during the war. Before he became a flier in the RFC/RAF Frank Fredrickson was an infantryman with the 223rd (Canadian Scandinavian) Battalion. In 1916-17 the 223rd iced a team in the WAPHL--Winnipeg Amateur Patriotic Hockey League. Yes, they were good hockey players--Fredrickson would make it to the Hall of Fame--but they were soldiers first.

One of the reasons the military promoted hockey was that it was felt to be a useful recruiting tool: having a team of soldiers do well at hockey was seen as a way to induce young men to enlist. Perhaps the best example was the 228th Battalion Northern Fusiliers. The army managed to get the Fusiliers into the NHA in its last season, 1916-17. Imagine, a team of hockey player-soldiers in hockey's major league. Some of the Fusiliers argued that they had enlisted under assurances that their military duties would be confined to hockey, not war, but every one of them enlisted, every one of them was a soldier. The Fusiliers didn't finish the season: with casualty rates soaring and recruiting dwindling, the army decided it needed honest-to-goodness soldiers more than it did hockey players, the 228th went off to war. Two of them balked and managed to get themselves excused on questionable grounds.

 

[Theokritos]

Essentially, yes. The members of the 61st Battalion hockey club that won the Allan Cup in 1916 were soldiers of that battalion who happened to be good hockey players too. That they were soldiers first and hockey players second is reflected in this: two of them were killed in action during the war. Before he became a flier in the RFC/RAF Frank Fredrickson was an infantryman with the 223rd (Canadian Scandinavian) Battalion. In 1916-17 the 223rd iced a team in the WAPHL--Winnipeg Amateur Patriotic Hockey League. Yes, they were good hockey players--Fredrickson would make it to the Hall of Fame--but they were soldiers first.

One of the reasons the military promoted hockey was that it was felt to be a useful recruiting tool: having a team of soldiers do well at hockey was seen as a way to induce young men to enlist. Perhaps the best example was the 228th Battalion Northern Fusiliers. The army managed to get the Fusiliers into the NHA in its last season, 1916-17. Imagine, a team of hockey player-soldiers in hockey's major league. Some of the Fusiliers argued that they had enlisted under assurances that their military duties would be confined to hockey, not war, but every one of them enlisted, every one of them was a soldier. The Fusiliers didn't finish the season: with casualty rates soaring and recruiting dwindling, the army decided it needed honest-to-goodness soldiers more than it did hockey players, the 228th went off to war. Two of them balked and managed to get themselves excused on questionable grounds.

Thanks. That's approximately what I had in mind, but I didn't express myself in a clear manner ("organized hockey within the Armed Forces").

 

[kaiser matias]

I just finished reading the book, and I have to say I was really impressed @A L MacLeod. There are a lot of names to go through, and each of them is given a good overview. I really liked the details on their military service, which combined with their hockey career gave a nice overview of their life. And there's a lot of information here: I tend to take notes when I read, and I ended up with 12 full pages from the book. I had said before I was looking forward to the Victoria Cougars book, and now I'm even more excited for it.

I'll also say I really like the photo at the end, of the 1958 Hockey Hall of Fame inductees. Like it says in the book, you can recognize some of the players instantly, even if they were all 60+ (I caught Lester Patrick and Cyclone Taylor right away, for example). In light of that, do you have a higher resolution of the photo available? I'd love to take a better look at if if possible.

 

[A L MacLeod]

Well, it's good to know that the book is appreciated. Given what you say about Rinks, I'm confident you will plenty to like in Cougars. I understand Heritage expects to publish it in September.

Yes, I have a high-resolution image of the 1958 inductees. It is the one from which the photo in the book was cropped. Send me a private message and I'll tell you more about it.