Old School Lacrosse PROFESSIONAL LACROSSE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA ®®® 1909-1924 compiled & Edited by David Stewart-Candy Vancouver 2017 Old School Lacrosse – Professional Lacrosse in British Columbia 1909-1924 Stewart-Candy, David J. First Printing – February 14, 2012 Second Printing – October 21, 2014 This version as of February 14, 2017 Vancouver, British Columbia 2012-2017 Primary research for this book was compiled from game boxscores printed in the Vancouver Daily Province and New Westminster British Columbian newspapers. Additional newspapers used to locate and verify conflicting, damaged, or missing data were the Victoria Daily Colonist , Vancouver World & Vancouver Daily World , Vancouver Daily Sun & Vancouver Sun , and Vancouver Daily News Advertiser . Research was done by the author at the Vancouver Public Library (Robson Street branch) and New Westminster Public Library between 2002 and 2012. The Who’s Who biographies were written between September 2013 and June 2016 and originally posted at oldschoollacrosse.wordpress.com. All photographs unless otherwise noted are in public domain copyright and sourced from the City of Vancouver Archives, New Westminster City Archives, or the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame collections. The photograph of Byron ‘Boss’ Johnson is taken from the book Portraits of the Premiers (1969) written by SW Jackman. Author contact information: Dave Stewart-Candy [email protected] oldschoollacrosse.wordpress.com This work is dedicated to Larry ‘Wamper’ Power and Stan Shillington... Wamper for the years of encouragement and diligently keeping on my back to ensure this project finally reached completion... Stan for his lament that statistics for field lacrosse were never set aside for future generations... until now… both these men inspired me to sit down and do for field lacrosse statistics what they did for box lacrosse... TABLE OF CONTENTS THE PLAYERS, THE GAME, AND THE HISTORY The Origins of Professional Lacrosse in British Columbia (1882-1924) . 5 1908 ...The Season That Ended With A Bang . 10 The National Game in 1911 . 13 Who’s Who in Old School Lacrosse . 17 A Short History of the Minto Cup (1901-1940) . 66 Lacrosse Grounds of Yesteryear . 70 Player Position Names . 77 THE SEASONS 1909 British Columbia Lacrosse Association . 78 1910 British Columbia Lacrosse Association . 84 1911 British Columbia Lacrosse Association . 92 1912 British Columbia Lacrosse Association . 100 1913 British Columbia Lacrosse Association . 108 1914 British Columbia Lacrosse Association . 113 1915 British Columbia Lacrosse Association . 116 1918 Mainland Lacrosse Association . 121 1919 British Columbia Lacrosse Association . 125 1920 British Columbia Lacrosse Association . 130 1921 British Columbia Lacrosse Association . 137 1921 Pacific Coast Lacrosse Association . 144 1922 British Columbia Lacrosse Association . 147 1923 British Columbia Lacrosse Association . 153 1924 British Columbia Lacrosse Association . 159 Minto Cup – Senior & Professional Champions of Canada (1901-1924) . 161 THE STATISTICS Career Statistics . 162 Career Goaltending Statistics . 164 Record Book . 165 Player Career Statistics – by Game / by Season . 167 Goaltender Career Statistics – by Season . 252 Necrology . 254 Photo and Image Sources . 255 A Final Word about Old Statistics . 257 4 THE ORIGINS OF PROFESSIONAL LACROSSE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 1882–1886 …FORGOTTEN BEGINNINGS The first ‘organised’ lacrosse game played in British Columbia (between teams representing two different cities) occurred on Saturday, August 28, 1886; played at Beacon Hill Park between the Vancouver and Victoria clubs, the visiting mainlanders won by the score of 3-1 – or three “games” to one, in the old-style nomenclature used at the time. However, while this particular match has gone into the history books as the first lacrosse game played in the province , the game’s roots in British Columbia actually go back by four years to 1882. On Thursday, February 16 of that year, an athletic club was organised in Victoria that included lacrosse as one of its sports. This was then followed by a highly-publicised match played at Beacon Hill Park on Saturday, June 17, 1882 – although it was essentially a scrimmage game between two teams made up from the mostly-inexperienced players of the Victoria Athletic Club. For unknown reasons, the club was reported or misreported in the newspaper as the “Vancouver Athletic Club”– possibly in reference to Vancouver Island, as “Vancouver” was four years away from existing as a geographical reference in British Columbia. There are also newspaper records of a match in Victoria involving an unidentified collegiate team played a few weeks later as well as a photograph in the provincial archives dated from almost exactly a year later in 1883, taken in Victoria, of an unidentified lacrosse team in that city. 1886–1890 …THE NATIONAL GAME FINDS ITS FEET In the years between the 1886 Beacon Hill match and the formation of the British Columbia Amateur Lacrosse Association (BCALA) in 1890, lacrosse clubs would make haphazard arrangements for challenge matches – usually to be held on such popular, public holiday events as Empire Day or Dominion Day. As in 1886, there was only one match reported played in 1887 – played between Victoria and Vancouver on Dominion Day with Victoria winning by two goals / “games” to none. Vancouver Lacrosse Club was formally organised in 1888. The first practices were held on the sawdust at the Hastings Mill yard but it soon became apparently that more suitable playing grounds were required. Through the efforts of Al Larwill, AE Beck, and CG Johnson work began on clearing the Cambie Street grounds which became the first home for athletic clubs in the city. New Westminster newspapers reported the formation of a lacrosse club in that city on May 12, 1888, but local fans would have to wait another year before the first ever lacrosse game played in the Royal City. The 1888 season saw multiple challenges being issued back and forth between the Victoria and Vancouver clubs. In August, Kamloops played host to a match between the Victoria Lacrosse Club and Vancouver Lacrosse Club during the Canadian Pacific Railroad picnic held there. Won 3-2 by Victoria, the match took around three hours duration to complete. At one point, high winds and a dust storm interrupted play and it took fifty minutes to complete play for the final “game”. The following spring saw Vancouver Lacrosse Club put forth the Alhambra Cup for competition – originally to be won by the team winning the most matches played in Vancouver, although as the playing season progressed, the Vancouver club would sometimes announce beforehand that, regardless of location, the upcoming game would count towards Alhambra Cup competition. 5 On June 8, 1889, the visiting Vancouver team dispatched an inexperienced New Westminster side with a 3-1 result in the debut of lacrosse for the Royal City. From such inauspicious beginnings on that Saturday afternoon, no one in attendance could have known they had just witnessed the birth of what would become arguably one of the most legendary lacrosse clubs in all of competitive sports. After some wrangling, Vancouver and New Westminster ended up making the trip in September to the Kamloops CPR picnic to play; in the meanwhile, Victoria stayed home uninvited and sulked, feeling snubbed by the two other teams. Concerns over betting at the final Alhambra Cup match in October 1889, which ended in a 2-2 draw, and disagreements between Vancouver and New Westminster over rules and player eligibility to play for what they deemed the ‘championship’, led some people to look at the example of Eastern Canada – for example, usage of a set code of rules like those used by the Manitoba Lacrosse Association. This encouraged them to look towards forming their own provincial association. A week before Christmas of 1889, during a dinner hosted by the president of the Vancouver Lacrosse Club for his players, discussion about the formation of a provincial association was brought up. The move towards formal, organised lacrosse would start to take shape in the spring of 1890. 1890–1908 …MARCHING TOWARDS PROFESSIONALISM The (original) British Columbia Amateur Lacrosse Association was formed at a meeting held in Vancouver at the Windsor Hotel between the Vancouver, Victoria, and New Westminster clubs on March 22, 1890. A schedule of six matches was drafted up and New Westminster swept their series to claim the first provincial championship (although some later historical records indicate Victoria as the champion of the inaugural season). Vancouver would then win the next two titles (1891, 1892) followed by Victoria in 1893 (some records indicate New Westminster) – however over the following years, New Westminster would dominate the championship scene with titles in 1894, 1895, and 1897 through 1902 with Vancouver picking up the slack in the intervening years. The 1892 season was a great example of early organised field lacrosse. In an incredibly close campaign, each of Vancouver’s five victories for the title was won by 1-goal margins, yet due to their losses they still managed to let in more goals than they scored for the entire season. In those days, each goal scored was actually called winning a “game” and play ended after one team had accumulated four “games” to win the match or time ran out. Victoria would have to wait until 1919 before winning a second senior amateur title for the Capital City but their closest attempt came during the 1894 season when they tied New Westminster in the league standings. As a result of the draw, a playoff game to determine the championship was played on October 20, 1894 at Brockton Oval in Vancouver. New Westminster showed up at the field an hour and a half late and this later caused the game being called due to darkness and Victoria holding a 3-2 lead with eleven minutes remaining. The referee refused to give the victory to Victoria and the club later withdrew from the BCALA on November 2, 1894 in protest of the referee’s indecision and the late arrival of their opponents.