Dora (Shero) Witiuk

Doris (née Shero) Witiuk

Born: May 22, 1929 (Winnipeg)
Died: January 26, 2014 (Spokane, Washington)

 

Dora (Shero) Witiuk played two seasons in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the professional circuit glorified in the Hollywood movie, “A League of Their Own.”

Witiuk, who played before she was married and so appears in box scores as Shero, was an outfielder for the Racine (Wis.) Belles in 1950. She managed just 18 hits — all singles — in 194 at-bats for a terrible .093 batting average. She retained a roster spot for her speed (10 stolen bases) and her prowess as a fielder. Her nickname was Baser and her salary was $55 per week.

The utility outfielder moved with her team to Battle Creek, Mich., for the 1951 campaign, during which she appeared in 14 games. She had just four hits — again, all singles — in 40 at-bats for a .100 average. 

“Once I started throwing a ball, I never put my glove down,” she said in 1992. “All the girls were good. They could take the ball and in one motion throw you out hard. Just like the men.”

She was the youngest of eight children born to Emilia and Alexander Shero in the Manitoba capital. She was an outstanding athlete at Isaac Newton High, playing on a championship volleyball team. In 1946-47, she played on the Winnipeg Pegs basketball team, finalists for the Dominion senior women’s championship, which they lost in a three-game sweep — 31-15, 41-20, 35-25 — to Vancouver Nut House. She scored five points in the final game.

In 1953, she married Steve Witiuk, a professional hockey player who had been her high school sweetheart. (The right winger scored three goals and added eight assists in 33 games with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1951-52.) The couple moved in with Dora’s older brother, Fred, a pro defenceman himself who skated three seasons with the New York Rangers and would later become a Hockey Hall of Fame coach with the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers. Steve Witiuk’s career lasted 17 more seasons in the minor pro Western Hockey League. The couple moved to Spokane, Wash., in 1962. 

In 1998, the 64 Canadian-born athletes who played in the All-American league were inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame at St. Marys, Ont.

Dora Witiuk, who died aged 84, leaves her husband; four children; nine grandchildren; and, six great-grandchildren.

Tom Butler

 

Thomas Andrew Butler

Born: December 20, 1925
Died: January 30, 2014 (Toronto)

 

Tom Butler played defence professionally in Scotland and the United States following a brief wartime stint in junior-B in Toronto with Victory Aircraft.

In 64 games with the Dunfermline Vikings of the Scottish national League in 1947-48, Butler scored 31 goals and added 20 assists. He spent the following season with the Muncie (Ind.) Flyers of the International Hockey League, scoring four goals in 31 games, before returning to Scotland to spend the 1949-50 season with the Perth Panthers. He scored seven goals and added 12 assists in 36 games with Perth.

Butler concluded his playing career in the Eastern Hockey League in 1954-55. He began the season with the Washington (D.C.) Lions before being cut on Feb. 2, 1955. He was then picked up by the New Haven Blades. He had three goals and 10 assists in 48 games for the two teams.

Butler was also an owner and trainer of thoroughbred horses, having some success with Cough Drops, a stakes winner who won four of 23 starts.

Butler spent 30 years as a member of the Etobicoke (Ont.) fire department.

Butler, who died aged 88, leaves his wife, the former Mary Ann Auth; nine children; 19 grandchildren; and, seven great-grandchildren.

Keith Allen

 Keith Allen celebrates the Flyers’ first-place finish at end of 1967-68 season. He was the expansion team’s first coach, later built a Stanley Cup-winning team as general manager.

Courtney Keith (Bingo) Allen

Born: August 21, 1923 (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
Died: February 4, 2014 (Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania)

Member: Hockey Hall of Fame

 

Keith Allen was the architect behind the Broad Street Bullies, a fearsome collection of goons, scofflaws and ne’er-do-wells who won two Stanley Cups in the 1970s.

The general manager of the Philadelphia Flyers built a championship team around modest goal scorers, a solid if unspectacular defence, and a brilliant goaltender in Bernie Parent. The team, which won successive Stanley Cups in 1974 and ’75, is also remembered for a supporting case whose role is best captured by such nicknames as Moose Dupont, Don (Big Bird) Seleski, and Dave (the Hammer) Schultz.

The Flyers reached the Cup finals for a third successive year in 1976, only to be defeated by a flashier, more skilled Montreal Canadiens team. The Montreal team, which won four Cups in a row, halted the NHL’s shift towards unapologetic violence as a deliberate tactic, though such teams long thrived in the minor professional leagues and is best remembered through the movie “Slap Shot” and the antics of the comical Hanson Brothers.

Allen’s genius in building the Flyers into the first 1967 expansion team to win the Stanley Cup gained him induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder in 1992.

As a player himself, Allen was a solid (5-foot-10, 190-pound), mostly peaceable defenceman. In 18 seasons as a junior, senior and professional, he incurred just 347 penalty minutes. Schultz, his Flyers enforcer, was punished more than that in a single season.

So astute was Allen as a trader and an evaluator of talent, he was known as “Keith the Thief.”

Born in Saskatoon, Sask., Courtney Keith Allen played junior hockey for the hometown Quakers in 1940-41. He spent a season with the Washington Eagles of the Eastern Amateur League before turning professional with the Buffalo Bisons of the American Hockey League in 1942-43. He scored a goal and added 14 assists in 55 games with the Bisons.

In 1943, he enlisted in the Canadian navy, playing for naval teams in his hometown when not serving aboard HMCS Nanaimo, a corvette.

After the war, he spent eight seasons in the AHL with the Springfield (Mass.) Indians and the Syracuse (N.Y.) Warriors. He was a late-season call-up to the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings in 1953-54, skating in 10 games. He also played in five playoff games, failing to get his name on the scoresheet, but qualifying to have his name engraved on the Stanley Cup after Tony Leswick’s overtime goal in Game 7 glanced off Doug Harvey’s glove and into the Montreal goal.

Allen had another call-up to the Red Wings the following season. In 28 career regular-season NHL games, he scored no goals, had four assists, and served eight minutes in penalties.

He closed out his playing career in the Western Hockey League with the Edmonton Flyers, Brandon (Man.) Regals and the Seattle Americans, where he spent a decade as a coach, general manager, bookkeeper and publicist. He won The Sporting News’ first Minor League Executive of the Year Award in 1959-60 for his work with the Totems.

The Flyers hired him in 1966, a year before the expansion team’s first game. He served as the club’s first coach, directing the Flyers to a 31-32-11 record, tops among the six new clubs and good enough for first place in the West Division. They were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the St. Louis Blues. He also coached the team in their second season.

Allen became general manager on Dec. 22, 1969, holding the position until May 27, 1983. The Fyers compiled a 563-322-194 record for a .612 winning percentage during his tenure. He traded for such players as Rick MacLeish and Reggie Leach, as well as reacquiring Parent. The Flyers showed acumen in draft selections, snagging the likes of Bill Barber, Tom Bladon, Jimmy Watson, Ron Sutter, Pete Peeters, Pelle Lindbergh, and Ron Hextall. He also hired as coach Fred Shero, who was also from Saskatchewan.

In 1988, Allen received the Lester Patrick Trophy for outstanding contributions to hockey in the United States. He was inducted into the Flyers’ Hall of Fame the following year.

Allen, who died aged 90, ended his time with the Flyers as an executive vice president. He leaves his wife, Joyce; three children; and, four grandchildren.

Coach Keith Allen (centre) with captain Lou Angotti and André Lacroix in 1967-68.

General manager Keith Allen (left) hired Fred Shero as coach in 1971. Shero guided the Flyers to successive Stanley Cup championships.

Keith Allen, a defenceman, was a career minor leaguer who played only 33 NHL regular season and playoff games. He never scored in the NHL, but had his name engraved on the Stanley Cup in 1954.

 Keith Allen (left) with the Edmonton Flyers in 1954-55.

Margaret Valentine

Margaret (Marg, Maggie) Eileen (née Wallace) (Cooke) Valentine

Born: May 17, 1923 (Warner, Alberta)
Died: January 24, 2014 (Delta, British Columbia)

Member: Canadian Curling Hall of Fame (1986)

Margaret Valentine served as president of the Canadian Ladies Curling Association in 1965 and 1966. She then served a one-year term as president of the B.C. Ladies Curling Association in the Centennial Year of 1967. 

In 1966, known at the time by her married name of Marg Cooke, she skipped her Vancouver Curling Club team to the provincial championship. The national championship, then known as the Diamond D, was to be held in Vancouver that year. She missed winning the national crown by an inch after losing 11-10 to Alberta’s Gale Lee in an extra end in the final round. B.C. finished third in the tournament with a 6-3 record.

Cooke’s teammates were Ruth Hebert, Eva Glover and Marion Ellison. Her foursome had a reputation for conservative tactics, according to press reports, “turning to a smooth draw style when their knockout attack almost invariably fails.”

Valentine was inducted into the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame in 1986 in the builder category, a recognition of her term as president.

Bill Boivin

1939 Grey Cup champion Winnipeg Blue Bombers

William Elric Boivin

Born: October 21, 1914 (St. Boniface, Manitoba)
Died: January 28, 2014 (Vancouver)

 

Bill Boivin, who has died, aged 99, won two Grey Cups with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers as a halfback and quarterback before enlisting in the army during the Second World War.

He later served as general manager for the Bombers, importing such playing talent as Leo Lewis, known as the Lincoln Locomotive, and such coaching talent as Bud Grant. Both Lewis and Grant were enshrined in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, an honour not afforded Boivin in his lifetime.

Boivin displayed a clever offensive mind in junior football with the Winnipeg Victorias, juggling running and passing plays in such a fashion as to leave opponents befuddled. He joined the Blue Bombers in 1937 and played four campaigns for the team over five years, missing out on the 1940 season with a knee injury.

The Blue Bombers won the Grey Cup in 1939 by defeating the Ottawa Rough Riders by 8-7 at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa. Boivin gained his second championship two years later when the Bombers nipped the Rough Riders again, 18-16, in a thriller not settled until a missed field goal in the final minute of play at Varsity Stadium in Toronto.

The halfback enlisted on May 2, 1942, playing football later that year for a military team before he was transferred to British Columbia. By 1944, he was a lieutenant in the Queen’s own Cameron Highlanders based on Vancouver Island.

After the war, he returned to Winnipeg, where he became business manager of the Blue Bombers. In 1955, he became general manager. During his tenure, the board of directors promoted end Bud Grant, a player retiring from the field at age 29, as head coach. The brilliant Grant guided the Bombers to six Grey Cup appearances in 10 seasons, winning four. He then became a head coach for the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League.

Boivin missed out on Winnipeg’s glory years, moving to Vancouver in 1958. He was soon after made a director of the rival B.C. Lions, though he quit in 1961 in a dispute over the firing of Wayne Robinson as coach.

Both of his Grey Cup-winning teams from 1939 and ’41 have been inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame. During his time in Winnipeg, he also coached football at Gordon Bell High and at the University of Manitoba.

Boivin lived the final 17 years of his life at the George Derby Centre, a residential care facility for veterans. He leaves a son, a daughter, eight grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wife of 53 years, the former Shirley Jackson, who died in 1999.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers celebrate 1941 Grey Cup victory.

Pep Young

Harold Colvin Young

Born: November 23, 1927 (Montréal)
Died: January 29, 2014 (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Pep Young was a hockey legend in Scotland, where his association with the Fife Flyers team lasted more than six decades.

The 5-foot-11, 170-pound right winger joined the Flyers for the 1950-51 season, after which he married Sheena Balfour, a three-time Scottish figure skating champion. A serious injury to his right ankle forced him off the ice for a decade, during which he coached the Flyers. He returned as a fill-in playing coach in the early 1960s, lacing up for forward or defence depending on the Flyers’ needs.

Young was credited with keeping the game alive in Fife during the 1960s. He also cofounded the Kirkcaldy Kestrals as a farm team for the Fifes with whom they shared the Fife Arena in Kirkcaldy.

His coaching stint ended in 1973, though Young remained involved with the junior program he began until 1980.

“I don’t believe in dressing down a player, if he makes a mistake, in front of another player,” he said in an interview last year. “I don’t believe in that. You get some coaches who do, who sit you on the bench and yell at you. That’s not my philosophy.”

Even in retirement, Young was a familiar figure rinkside and in the dressing room at Murrayfield and Fife.

The Montréal-born forward played junior for the Verdun (Que.) Maple Leafs when lured to England for the 1948-49 season. He skated for the Earls Court Rangers in 1948-49, scoring five goals in 13 Autumn Cup games.

He played for a senior-B team in Granby, Que., in 1949-50 before joining the Scottish team the following season.

He spent seven weeks in hospital and was told he would never skate again after an opponent’s skate blade severed four tendons in his right ankle.

The popularity of ice shows temporarily halted the highest level of pro hockey in Fife, but the game revived in 1962 with Young playing for the Edinburgh Royals before rejoining the Flyers.

In 2013, the Flyers celebrated the 75^th anniversary of their founding. Young was a central figure in the ceremonies.

Verne Gregor, Pep Young, Andy Napier and Joe McIntosh of Fife Flyers in the 1960s.

Bob Fox

Robert W. Fox

Born: July 1, 1934 (Verdun, Quebec)
Died: January 25, 2014 (West Lafayette, Indiana)

Bob Fox was only 19 when his stellar goaltending led Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to the 1954 American college hockey championship.

Born on Dominion Day in Verdun, a bilingual working-class suburb of Montréal, Fox was a star pupil and athlete at his high school. His physics teacher, who was also his hockey coach, recommended he attend the polytechnic at Troy, N.Y. He arrived as a freshman at age 16. He soon after gained an athletic scholarship.

In his sophomore year, the Engineers earned their first berth in the NCAA tournament, which pitted two teams from the east against two teams from the west. RPI lost a semifinal match and a shot at the national title. They finished third in the nation.

The team opened the 1953-54 season with six consecutive victories on the way to building an 18-5 record. Fox had six shutouts, blanking Michigan State, Hamilton, Springfield, Northeastern, Middlebury and Carleton. Fox had a 3.14 goals-against average with a .892 save percentage in 22 games in his junior year.

RPI returned to the NCAA tournament at the Broadmoor Ice Palace at Colorado Springs, Colo., where they faced a semifinal against prohibitive favourites Michigan, defending champions who happened to be on an 11-game undefeated streak.

The mismatch seemed all the more obvious after Boston College, ranked No. 1 in the east ahead of RPI, lost to Minnesota, No. 2 in the west, by 14-1.

The Engineers persevered in a seesaw battle, settled only after an empty-net goal made the score 6-4 with 29 seconds left.

In the championship game, RPI jumped to a 3-0 lead, but the score was tied 4-4 after regulation. An overtime goal on a rebound by Gord Peterkin gave the NCAA championship to the Engineers. A relieved Fox and coach Ned Harkness, of Ottawa, embraced at centre ice. Fox was a unanimous pick to the tournament’s all-star team.

Fox maintained a grade-point average of 3.40 in his senior year, during which he was Grand Marshal of the student body, the highest student office. The hockey team was rebuilding and finished with a losing record, though Fox was named to the Second All-Star Team. (He had been a First All-Star the previous season). In his four seasons at the school, the Engineers had a 57-24-3 record.

Fox graduated with a science degree in 1955, before earning a masters degree from the University of Colorado two years later and a doctorate from Stanford University in 1961. He joined the faculty of Purdue University the following year as an assistant professor before becoming a professor in 1966. He co-authored an undergraduate textbook — “Introduction to Fluid Mechanics” — published in five languages and in print for more than four decades.

After retiring in 1999, he and his wife, the former Beryl Williams, traveled to all seven continents. He leaves his wife of 51, a son, a daughter, four grandchildren, and a sister.

Rensselaer Engineers coach Ned Harkness is hoisted on shoulder of players after team won 1954 NCAA championship.

Bev McCool

Bev McCool (front row, right) won a mixed 5-pin world championship on a team coached by Jim Lee (back row, left) in 1975.

Beverley J. (née Wagner) McCool

Born: November 22, 1940 (International Falls, Minnesota)
Died: January 22, 2014 (Fort Frances, Ontario)

Bev McCool won a world championship in mixed 5-pin bowling in 1975. Her team, coached by Jim Lee, was inducted into the Northwestern Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1982.

McCool was living in a house above a bake shop next door to a bowling alley in Fort Frances, Ont. The bowling proprietor convinced her to take up the game. She and her husband eventually purchased Plaza Lanes in 1979, operating the alley for 14 years.

McCool became a bowling coach, while also serving as an executive with several bowling associations.

She was a high school student in Minnesota when she ran into the back of a car driven by Derald McCool. They exchanged telephone numbers and, eventually, wedding vows. She is survived by her husband of 52 years, as well as by a son, a daughter, four grandsons, two sisters and three brothers. She was predeceased by a sister and two brothers.

Elva Carrol

Elva Irene Carrol

Born: 1929
Died: January 20, 2014 (Hamilton, Ontario)

Elva Carrol (Social Sciences, ’51) was a dominant athlete while a student at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. She competed in archery, golf, basketball and volleyball, and served as president of the Women’s Athletic Council in 1950-51. That same year, she received an Honour M award, as well as the Dr. Edna Guest Trophy, which is awarded a graduating female student athlete who shows noteworthy athletic ability.

Carrol was ladies champion at the Hamilton (Ont.) Golf and Country Club for four yearsm from 1957 to 1961, winning a Hamilton District title during the run.

In 1957, she lost in the quarter-finals of the Canadian Open ladies tournament to Mary Gay of Calgary after 22 holes.

Two years later, Carrol was eliminated in the first round of the Open. Gayle Kitchens, a 15-year-old sensation from the Capilano Golf and Country Club of West Vancouver, B.C., defeated Carrol, 2 and 1.

She had a lengthy business career including becoming an assistant vice-president of Merrill Lynch Canada. She was later a financial consultant with Wood Gundy.
Carrol was inducted into the McMaster Sports Hall of Fame in 1984.

Jason Baird

Jason Baird

Born: September 16, 1980 (Cayuga, Ontario)
Died: January 17, 2014 (Corpus Christi, Texas)

 

Jason Baird, a burly forward, spent seven seasons in the minor pros in the United States. His career ended after a lawnmower on which he was riding exploded, burning two-thirds of his body.

He died in hospital five years later of complications from pancreatitis, possibly brought on by medication to treat his burns and many subsequent surgeries.

He was working as a landscaper in Youngstown, Ohio, in the summer of 2008 when he suffered his injuries. He fought for his life in a burn unit at a hospital in Akron, and needed extensive grafts to his chest, back and arms. As he recovered, fund raisers were held for him in Ontario, where he was born, as well as in Texas, where he lived and spent four seasons as a player.

The 6-foot, 205-pound left winger played four seasons of junior hockey with the Erie (Pa.) Otters before turning pro with the Cincinnati Cyclones for the 2001-02 season.

He skated for the Indianapolis Ice for two seasons and was in his fourth season with the Corpus Christ (Texas) Rayz when traded to the Youngstown Steelhounds early in the 2007-08 season.

An agitator with enough skill to average better than a point a game, Baird was also a fan favourite, the kind of player beloved by teammates and disliked by opponents. In 375 pro games, he scored 132 goals with 239 assists. He served 1,018 penalty minutes.

Baird leaves his wife, two sons and a daughter. He was 33.