Frances Gunn

Frances Abbott, later Gunn, and Bob Wright in Winnipeg in 1950

 

Frances Eileen (née Abbott) Gunn

Born: 1932 (Winnipeg)
Died: February 3, 2014 (Vancouver)

 

Frances Gunn won a figure skating national championship in ice dancing with partner David Ross in 1953. She later served as a judge at the world figure skating championships in 1967 (Vienna), 1968 (Geneva, Switzerland) and 1973 (Bratislava, Czechoslovakia).

A student at the University of Manitoba, where she would graduate with a degree in dietetics, she won the national ice-dancing crown at the Dominion championships in Ottawa on March 1, 1953. She and Ross, who were partnered at the Winnipeg Winter Club, scored better than runners-up Patty Lou and George Montgomery.

The Abbott-Gunn pair also came second in the waltz to Frances Dafoe and Norris Bowden of Toronto, who had just returned from a second-place finish in the pairs at the world figure skating championships at Davos, Switzerland. , an innovative and dramatic pair who won four Canadian titles and two world championships, as well as a silver medal at the 1956 Winter Olympics.

She worked as a dietitian in Minneapolis, Toronto, Bermuda and at Winnipeg General Hospital.

Frances Abbott (later Gunn) (left) with Joan Bergman in 1950

Mary Trimble (left) with Frances Aboott (later Gunn)

Bob Newton

Robert Newton

Born: March 7, 1927 (Montréal)
Died: February 4, 2014 (Montréal)

 

Bob Newton played centre for the Montreal Junior Canadiens for three seasons beginning as a 17-year-old in 1944-45.

Newton averaged about one point per game on a team whose star centre was Howie Morenz Jr.

In the 1947 playoffs, Newton scored 15 goals and added 13 assists in just eight games. Earlier in the 1946-47 season, he played seven games, scoring three goals, with the Boston Olympics of the Eastern Amateur Hockey League. The following season he skated for the Atlantic City Seagulls of the same circuit.

A gentlemanly player, Newton rarely even committed a minor infraction.

At 5-foot-6, 145-pounds, Newton was small for a postwar centreman, though he did turn professional with the San Diego Skyhawks of the Pacific Coast Hockey League in 1947-48. He scored two goals in 15 games.

Newton played senior hockey for the final four seasons of his career, suiting up with the Saint John (N.B.) Beavers, Cornwall (Ont.) Calumets and Montreal CNR.

After hockey, Newton spent 30 years in the fashion industry.

Steve Patrick

Stephen Clifford Patrick

Born: March 24, 1931 (Glenella, Manitoba)
Died: January 11, 2014 (Winnipeg)

Member:
Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame (1988)
Winnipeg Football Club Hall of Fame (1985)

 

For 13 seasons, Manitoba-born Steve Patrick played guard for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. He played in six Grey Cup games, helping Winnipeg claim four championships.

The 6-foot-2, 205-pound middle defensive guard was a key figure on the Blue Bombers through the greatest era in its history. He lost the first two Grey Cups in which he played (1953 and ’57, both against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats), but then won championships with Winnipeg in 1958, ’59, ’61 and ’62. He was captain of the Blue Bombers from 1961 until the end of the 1964 season, when he retired after 290 games. 

Patrick joined the Blue Bombers in 1952 after playing junior with the Winnipeg Light Infantry.

He was born to Catherine (née Patrebka) and Alex Patrick in Glenella, Man., working on the family farm as a youth. He attended Manitoba Teachers College and a business college. 

A Manitoba Liberal, he was first elected MLA for the Winnipeg riding of Assiniboia in 1962, two weeks after winning his fourth Grey Cup, defeating Progressive Conservative incumbent George Johnson by 239 votes. Patrick won re-election in 1966, ’69 and ’73, serving on Opposition benches for his entire electoral career.

The founder of his own realty and insurance company in 1956, he also spent a decade as a commissioner with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, a regulatory body. 

He leaves June (née Mathieson), his wife of 57 years. He also leaves two sons, five daughters, five grandchildren, a brother and two sisters. He was predeceased by a brother. Both of his sons — Steve Jr. and James — played in the NHL.

 

 

 

 

Jack Stoddard

John Edward (The Octopus) Stoddard

Born: September 26, 1926 (Stoney Creek, Ontario)
Died: January 29, 2014 (Owen Sound, Ontario)

 

One of the tallest hockey players of his era, the 6-foot-3, 185-pound forward Jack Stoddard skated in 80 NHL games with the New York Rangers. He was nicknamed The Octopus for his long reach. Trivia buffs remember him as the first NHL player to wear unlucky sweater No. 13 for an entire season. 

Stoddard played junior hockey in Ontario with the Stratford Kroehlers and Hamilton Lloyds before spending the 1946-47 season with the Baltimore Clippers of the Eastern Amateur Hockey League.

The right winger blossomed with the Providence Reds of the American Hockey League, including seasons with 25, 32 and 37 goals. The Reds won the Calder Cup championship in 1949 with Stoddard scoring four goals in 14 playoff games. He was in his fifth campaign with the Reds and was the leading scorer in the AHL (20 goals and 28 assists in 34 games) when the Rangers traded three players (Jean-Paul Denis, Pat Egan, Zellio Toppazzini) for him.

Rangers coach Bill Cook placed Stoddard on a line centred by Edgar Laprade with Reggie Sinclair shifting to left wing. After 20 games, Stoddard fractured his right wrist in a collision with defenceman Jim Ross at a Rangers practice and was out for the rest of the season.

He returned in good form the following season, scoring twice in a 3-2 victory over the defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings. The win was the Rangers’ first after going 0-4-2 to open the 1952-53 campaign. He scored 12 goals and added 13 assists in 60 games that season to go with the four goals and two assists he recorded in 20 games the previous season.

Days before the start of the 1953-54 season, the Rangers called up scrappy winger Ike Hildebrand from the AHL Cleveland Barons. Stoddard took his place in Cleveland, where he made a solid contribution with 23 regular season goals. He also enjoyed his second Calder Cup title.

Stoddard returned to Providence for a season before becoming a senior player in Ontario, wearing the sweater of the Owen Sound Mercurys, Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmen, Whitby Dunlops, Woodstock Athletics and Chatham Maroons, with whom he won the Allan Cup national senior championship in 1960. He played a series of exhibition games in the Soviet Union with the Maroons in November, 1960.

In 1972-73, he coached the senior Owen Sound Downtowners.

Stoddard’s professional career included three games as a goaltender for the Reds at the end of the 1947-48 season. Regular netminder Harvey Bennett got injured, so Stoddard took his place between the pipes. He lost all three games, surrendering 26 goals for an eye-popping 8.67 goals-against average.

Doug Mohns

Douglas Allen (Diesel) Mohns

Born: December 13, 1933 (Capreol, Ontario)
Died: February 7, 2014 (Reading, Massachusetts)

Member: Sudbury (Ont.) Sports Hall of Fame (2009)

Doug Mohns spent 22 seasons in the NHL with five different teams. He was a rushing defenceman for much of his career, but also played left wing on the famed Scooter Line for the Chicago Black Hawks.

A strong skater and an early adapter of the slap shot, Mohns skated in seven NHL All-Star Games (two as a forward, five as a defenceman). Despite his long career, he never got his name engraved on the Stanley Cup.

Mohns was born in Capreol, Ont., now part of Sudbury, a divisional point on the Canadian National Railway with branches to the west and west. He was the youngest of six children (four boys, two girls) born to Ella and Fred Mohns. He learned to skate by age 2 on a backyard rink known throughout the neighbourhood for never-ending games of shinny.

Boston Bruins scout Harold (Baldy) Cotton, a former NHLer, first evaluated Mohns at age 14s. The boy signed to play junior with Barrie (Ont.) Flyers, where he was paid $25 per week but had to form back $15 for room and board.

The Flyers were coached by the disciplinarian Hap Emms. The roster included many future NHLers including Real Chevrefils, Leo Labine, Jerry Toppazzini and Don McKenney, who was Mohns’ best friend on the team. The Flyers went 18-5 in eliminating five teams to win the Memorial Cup junior championship. Mohns scored one goal in a four-game sweep of the Winnipeg Monarchs in the final.

The Flyers repeated as Memorial Cup champions two seasons later (with Don Cherry now on the roster), by which time Mohns emerged as one of the top prospects in hockey with had consecutive 76-point junior seasons.

An injury to Boston forward Jack McIntyre opened a roster spot for Mohns, who opened the 1953-54 season with the parent club. He made the leap without a single game spent in the minors. (Mohns never played a game in the minors in his career, a rare feat.) He scored 13 goals in his rookie year and 14 as a sophomore. He also showed an unexpected physicality as a player, winning fights though in time his style led to several nagging injuries. Along the way he picked up the nickname Diesel, a nod to his roots in a railroad town and as acknowledgement of the manner in which his legs churned like pistons as he raced up ice.

In 1956-57, the Bruins moved him back to defence, where he was paired with Fern Flaman. Mohns called on his superior skating skills to rush the puck, adding an element to the Bruins attack that would see fruition a decade later when Bobby Orr joined the team. In 1959-60, Mohns became only the second defenceman in league history to score 20 goals.

In 1964, the Bruins sent Mohns to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Ab McDonald and tough guy Reggie Fleming. The Hawks placed Mohns on a line with Kenny Wharram at right wing and Stan Mikita at centre. In 1966-67, the trio all appeared in the top 10 of scorers, along with teammate Bobby Hull. Mohns scored 25 goals and added 35 assists in just 61 games in his most productive season. Chicago finished in first place, only to be eliminated in the playoffs by the upstart Toronto Maple Leafs in the final season of what was known as Original Six hockey.

The Black Hawks eventually moved Mohns back to the blue line, though he had enjoyed seasons of 22, 25, 24 and 22 goals.

Late in the 1970-71 season, Mohns was traded to the Minnesota North Stars with Terry Caffery for Danny O’Shea. Mohns played 17 games for the North Stars and added two more full seasons with Minnesota before being claimed by the Atlanta Flames in the 1973 intra-league draft.

He only skated in 28 games for the Flames in the 1973-74 season and his career looked spent until the expansion Washington Capitals purchased him on June 20, 1974. Capitals general manager Milt Schmidt had a soft spot for players who, like him, had spent time in the Boston Bruins organization. He picked up the veteran a week after an expansion draft in which he had selected players who were young and, for the most part, untested.

“I knew that Mohns was a real fantastic skater and that he was a real good team man,” Schmidt said, as recounted in the Washington Capitals official history. “I knew that he was equally as good off the ice as he was on. We needed some leadership on that hockey club because we had a lot of kids that hadn’t played much in the National Hockey League. I just thought that by getting somebody like Doug, he would instill some of his thoughts and his way of thinking and that it would be a great asset to us. Plus it gave us some real good experience, which we needed badly.”

The 40-year-old Mohns served as the team’s first captain and he would need to call on every bit of leadership he could muster, as Schmidt had put together the worst team in NHL history. The Capitals staggered to an 8-67-5 record, managing a single victory in 40 road games.

The captain retired at the end of the season. In 1,390 regular season NHL games, Mohns scored 248 goals, adding 462 assists. He scored 14 goals with 36 assists in 94 playoff games.

Mohns endured lots of kidding from teammates about his hair loss. He is considered perhaps the first NHLer to wear a toupee. On a more sombre note, Mohns was responsible for a career-ending injury. In a game at the Olympia in Detroit on Jan. 30, 1966, Mohns’ stick clipped Doug Barkley in the right eye, causing a retinal tear that left him blinded in the eye, ending the burly defenceman’s NHL career after just 253 games.

After hanging up his skates, Mohns worked for 19 years as a hospital administrator. He later worked at the Shaker Hills Gold Club at Harvard, Mass. In 1978, he co-founded the Dianne DeVanna Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to the prevention of child abuse.

Kenny Wharram, Stan Mikita and Doug Mohns of Chicago’s terrific Scooter Line

Doug Mohns (left) checks George Armstrong of the Toronto Maple Leafs

Pesky Doug Mohns bothers Eddie Giacomin in the New York Rangers net

 

 

Tim Jones

Tim Jones

Born: May 30, 1956 (Edmonton)
Died: January 19, 2014 (North Vancouver, British Columbia)

 

The sudden death of Tim Jones, aged 57, while hiking led to an outpouring of grief and praise for the well-known volunteer team leader of the North Shore Rescue team in B.C.. He was awarded the Order of British Columbia in 2011, by which time he had taken part in more than 1,400 search-and-rescue calls over 25 years.

Jones played football for Handsworth Secondary in North Vancouver, earning an athletic scholarship to Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. In 1974, he began the first of four seasons as a centre with the SFU Clan, a rare Canadian-based school to play American football against American competition.

In 1978, the Toronto Argonauts selected Jones in the fifth round (No. 41 overall) of the college player draft. He never played a regular-season game in the Canadian Football League.

Jones worked as a paramedic for 32 years. He died after collapsing while on a hike on Mount Seymour, where he had rescued many others in difficulty over the years.

Vern Uecker

Vernon Uecker

Born: December 10, 1934 (Bulverde, Texas)
Died: February 5, 2014 (New Braunfels, Texas)

 

Vern Uecker (pronounced EHK-er) played four games at guard for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 1957. He suffered a concussion and was released by the team to remain within the import limit, missing on Winnipeg’s climb to the Grey Cup final.

The 5-foot-11. 215-pound right guard grew up in New Braunfels, Tex., where he earned a football scholarship to Texas Christian University. He played in the 1956 and ’57 Cotton Bowls with the Horned Frogs, helping to defeat Syracuse 28-27 in the New Year’s Day game in 1957.

Uecker signed with the Bombers in March, 1957. 

On Sept. 14, 1957, he blocked a convert in Winnipeg’s 40-13 defeat of the Stampeders in Calgary. He suffered a mild concussion in the game.

The Bombers cut Uecker after just four games as they did want to use one of their import slots for an injured player. In his brief foray into Canadian football, he also had an unlikely kick return of 15 yards.

Uecker graduated with a business degree and worked in the insurance industry in his native Texas.

In 1986, he was inducted into the Texas Christian University Lettermen’s Association Hall of Fame.

Roy Brown

Roy Coventry Brown

Born: May 11, 1938
Died: January 25, 2014 (Penticton, British Columbia)

For 29 years, Roy Brown served as the “Voice of the ’Riders” as the stadium announcer at Taylor Field in Regina.

His voice was familiar to generations of Saskatchewan Roughriders fans, as he described plays, announced future dates, and generally kept the fans informed. He was also not above the occasional editorial comment. In 1996, when the Ottawa franchise threatened to go bankrupt, he told the crowd, “The Roughriders’ next home game is Sept. 15. Somebody will play the Roughriders at 2 p.m.”

His tenure included several seasons of struggle for a team cheered by die-hard fans known for Rider Pride.

“Fans grumble but they never give up,” he told the reporter Dave Margoshes in 1998. “There’s a kind of prairie stick-with-itness that says you just don’t jump ship.”

Brown launched his radio career in 1958 at CKBI at Prince Albert, Sask. He later worked for CKRD at Red Deer, Alta., WECL at Eau Claire, Wis., CKRM at Regina, and CKCK radio and television. He also handled public relations.

After retiring to Penticton, B.C., he became the announcer for the Penticton Vees junior team.

Moose MacMichael

Frank Robert (Bob) MacMichael

Born: February 2, 1931 (Moncton, New Brunswick)
Died: January 25, 2014 (Halifax)

 

A defenceman, Bob (Moose) MacMichael anchored Moncton (N.B.) High to consecutive provincial high school hockey crowns in 1947-48 and 1948-49. In the 1949 playoffs, MacMichael led all scorers with eight goals in just three games.

He then played hockey for the Mounties of Mount Allison University, where he also coached the junior varsity team. MacMichael was captain of the university’s hockey and basketball teams while also playing for the varsity rugby XI, who won a Maritime championship.

He was invited to hockey camps by both the Boston Bruins and the Detroit Red Wings, but signed with neither organization. 

Away from school, MacMichael played baseball for the Moncton Cubs and the Dieppe (N.B.) Cardinals.

A mechanical engineering by schooling, MacMichael partnered with Tom MacPherson to form a business called M&M Engineering.

Harry Irwin

 Harry Irwin and the Victoria Shamrocks won the Mann Cup championship in 1955.

 

Harold Gifford Irwin

Born: 1924 (Vancouver)
Died: 2014 (Victoria, British Columbia)

Harry Irwin was a stalwart with the Victoria Shamrocks lacrosse team in the 1950s, playing in the three consecutive Mann Cup finals. Irwin and the Shamrocks won the national senior championship in 1955.

Irwin debuted in the Inter-City Box Lacrosse League in 1951 with the Nanaimo Native Sons. After a season, he moved to the Shamrocks, where he played five full seasons before returning as a two-game fill-in player after a year of retirement.

In 1955, the Shamrocks finished with a 20-10-2 record for second place in the five-team Inter-City league behind the Nanaimo Timbermen. In the playoffs, the Shamrocks defeated the P.N.E. Indians by three games to one, before eliminating Nanaimo by four games to one.

Victoria then met the Peterborough (Ont.) Trailermen for the third consecutive Mann Cup final, having lost the previous two. The ’Rocks managed to win the championship in five games, 4-1. Irwin had a goal and assist in four Mann Cup games.

In a six-year career, Irwin played in 145 games with 103 goals and 34 assists. A gentlemanly player in a sport in which brawling is not unknown, Irwin was only assessed 56 minutes in penalties. He also had 17 goals in 28 Inter-City playoff games.

A well-known sportsman in Victoria, Irwin also was involved in rugby, hockey, tennis, curling, golf and lawn bowling. He was a long-time teacher and vice-principal in the British Columbia capital.