Frank Selke Jr.

Gordie Howe and Johnny Bower withstand an on-ice interrogation by Frank Selke Jr.

Francis Donald Selke

Born: September 7, 1929 (Toronto)
Died: March 18, 2013 (Toronto)

Frank Selke was born into hockey as the namesake son of one of the sport’s greatest general managers. His own brief term as a hockey general manager was undistinguished, though he enjoyed success as a hockey broadcaster.

Mr. Selke, who has died, aged 83, also spent more than four decades supporting and promoting the Special Olympics for children and adults with intellectual disabilities. His connections ensured many popular athletes lent their support to the charity.

Mr. Selke worked for the famed Montreal Canadiens as a publicity director before adding on-air duties as a host and between-periods interviewer for Saturday night telecasts from Montreal.

“Hi, everybody,” he said. “Frank Selke Jr. here at the Montreal Forum. A very warm welcome to one and all to ‘Hockey Night in Canada.’ ”

He became a familiar figure in households across the land at a time when television options were limited. He was a soft-spoken and gentlemanly broadcasting partner to the excitable play-by-play man Danny Gallivan and the phlegmatic colour commentator Dick Irvin, Jr. Mr. Irvin’s father had been a coach of championship teams in Toronto and Montreal for which Mr. Selke’s father worked in the front office.

Francis Donald Selke was born in Toronto on Sept. 7, 1929, the sixth of what would be seven children. His mother, the former Mary Agnes Schmidt, was born in Wisconsin before moving to Ontario as a girl. His father, Francis Joseph Selke, was born in Berlin (now Kitchener) to Polish immigrant parents. The pair met when he came to New Hamburg to scout one of her brothers. Mr. Selke, an electrician by trade and manager of a minor professional hockey team in Toronto, was hired by Conn Smythe of the Toronto Maple Leafs on the very day of Frank’s birth.

The boy played midget and bantam hockey in Toronto, as well as football for St. Michael’s College School. Meanwhile, his father helped build the Toronto Maple Leafs into perennial contenders, as the club won three Stanley Cups and appeared in six other finals before he left the club in May, 1946. Two months later, he was hired by the Montreal Canadiens, where he would win six Cups as general manager.

The eastward move interrupted a young man’s academic and sporting careers, as the teenager convinced his father to let him drop out of high school in favour of a job at the Montreal Forum.

“Starting at the bottom,” Mr. Selke once told hockey historian Paul Lewicki, “I would clean the seating area and sweep the ice as a general labourer for a grand total of $28 per week.”

He advanced to working with the ice crew and as an electrician’s helper before becoming the team’s publicity director with duties ranging from appearing on national television broadcasts to responding to children’s letters seeking autographs. He was also responsible for negotiating deals for the objects that marked many Canadian childhoods — Parkhurst hockey cards, Eagle Toys table-hockey games and Bee Hive Golden Corn Syrup hockey photographs.

In 1967, the National Hockey League doubled in size by adding six American franchises. Mr. Selke joined the new Oakland Seals as president, though he thought established teams were soaking the new owners by demanding $2-million expansion fees while offering only rejects and castoffs as players.

“They’re really giving away a lot,” Mr. Selke told columnist Dick Beddoes of the Globe during the expansion draft. “They’re giving us free elevator rides in the hotel, for example, plus all the fresh air we can breathe.”

The Seals stumbled from the start, doing poorly on the ice and worse at the box office. Only 2,426 fans attended an early home game.

“Sure the fans are not breaking down the doors to get into the place, but we didn’t expect that they would,” Mr. Selke told the Globe. “Things certainly aren’t going as well as we thought they would but we’re not ready to push the panic button after 12 league games. It’s far too early.”

The owners sought to sell, or move the team. After the inaugural season, Mr. Selke was asked to become general manager, a move that came with a cut in salary. The club changed hands before reverting to the original ownership group, which at last succeeded in selling the franchise to Charles O. Finley, a flamboyant character who also owned baseball’s Oakland Athletics.

Minutes after having his ownership confirmed, Mr. Finley was asked about the fate of coach Fred Glover. Mr. Finley said he would be rehired. What about Frank Selke? “Is he the manager?” Finley asked. “I don’t mean that in a facetious manner. Frankly, I didn’t know who the manager was.” Mr. Selke resigned five months later.

Despite his brief tenure, Mr. Selke had a reputation as an astute judge of talent, according to hockey writer Ross Brewitt, who recently recounted Mr. Selke’s assessment of a player’s disappointing career: “Great legs, great hands, all adeptly guided by the heart of a mouse.”

After returning to Canada, Mr. Selke took an executive position with the company responsible for producing “Hockey Night in Canada.” After retiring in 1992, he proved to be an indefatigable supporter of the Special Olympics, for which he was named honourary coach for the Canadian team at the 2003 summer games in Dublin.

Like his father before him, Mr. Selke served on the Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee.

The elder Selke is enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame and Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. The NHL awards the Frank J.Selke Trophy each year to the forward who best excels at defensive play.

The younger Selke’s lifetime achievements were of a more modest nature. He was the inaugural inductee into the Special Olympics’ hall of fame and last year was awarded the group’s Harry (Red) Foster Award. In 2004, Mr. Selke was inducted into the Etobicoke Sports Hall of Fame, for which he was one of the founding directors.

Mr. Selke died at his home in Toronto on March 18. He leaves the former Dorothy Julia Letts, known as Red, his wife of 59 years; a daughter; two sons; seven grandchildren; a brother; and, three sisters. He was predeceased by two sisters.

As a member of the front office of the Canadiens, Mr. Selke was invited to sit for six official team portraits after seasons in which the club won the Stanley Cup. In spite of his contribution, he never had his name engraved on the storied trophy.

Originally published in The Globe and Mail on April 1, 2013.

Ardy Wickheim

 

Brothers Jube (left) and Ardy Wickheim practice logrolling near their home at Sooke, B.C.

Ardiel Wickheim

Born: July 8, 1929 (Saseenos, B.C.)
Died: January 20, 2013 (Sooke, B.C.)

Ardy Wickheim’s job was as easy as not falling off a log.

The British Columbia lumberjack won four world championships as a professional log-roller. He and a younger brother dominated the sport through the 1950s and ’60s.

Mr. Wickheim, who has died at 83, was a rugged, quiet man who preferred physical labour to a desk job. He rarely spoke to reporters, even after winning world titles.

The brothers – Ardiel and Jubiel, known as Ardy and Jube – also displayed the peculiar skills of log-rolling in performances at a trade show in Tokyo in 1965, at Expo 67 in Montreal and at the Pacific National Exhibition fairgrounds in Vancouver. An audience of city slickers whose daily exertions were no more dramatic than running for a bus marvelled as the brothers skipped atop a log floating in a pond.

The venerable sport, which traces its first world championship to a competition in Nebraska in 1898, demands quick wits and nimble feet. In 1955, Ardy Wickheim became the first Canadian to win the world title when he flipped his American opponent into the water in two consecutive falls. Jube Wickheim won the following year. The Wickheims claimed 14 world titles in 15 years, with Jube winning 10 to Ardy’s four.

Their success gained them notice in newspapers and magazines such as Sports Illustrated. The consecutive world titles earned an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records.

The sport, also known as log-rolling, or birling, and dubbed “roleo” to rhyme with rodeo, even made a cameo appearance on television’s Wide World of Sports.

The Wickheims earned barely more in prize money than their travel costs to competitions in such woodsy locales as Hayward, Wis., Spokane, Wash., and Priest River, Idaho. In 1957, the world championship was held in their hometown of Sooke on Vancouver Island. (Jube won.) As many as 12,000 spectators gathered to watch annual log-rolling competitions at Sooke.

In July, 1971, B.C. premier W.A.C. Bennett designated logger sports, including birling, axe-throwing and pole climbing, as the official industrial sport of the province. It was about then that the sport began a long decline, not coincidentally at a time when fewer workers earned their living as loggers.

“Logging used to be dangerous, hard work,” Ardy Wickheim told Erin Kelley of the Sooke News in 2005. “It used to be a respected industry. People forget this is where most of the wealth came from in B.C.”

Ardiel Wickheim was born on July 8, 1929, at the family farmhouse at Saseenos, a townsite established only a few years earlier about 30 kilometres west of Victoria. His father Mikael, known as Michael, had been originally lured from his native Norway in search of gold along the Klondike. He found none, returning home empty-handed. The Bergen farmer married Karen Alterskjaer of Narvik and, after their first child was born, the family immigrated to Vancouver Island in 1922, living at first in a tent on a four-acre stump ranch.

Even before he left school, Ardy began working atop log booms in Cooper’s Cove in the Sooke Basin for Eric Bernard, a logging entrepreneur who supplied cedar utility poles as tall as 25 metres for use throughout the continent. The still waters of the basin were ideal for booming and birling, though in winter the loggers had to break ice on the salt water to practise.

Jube, five years younger, eventually joined his brother on the booms. Of similar height and weight, they spent hours after work trying to knock each other off a log through clever spins and counterspins. By 1953, they had won enough local contests to travel to Albany, Ore., to compete at their first world championship.

“It was an education,” Jube Wickheim said. “We were just a couple of kids off a farm who had never seen a major city.”

The farm they left behind had neither running water, nor electricity.

Soon, the Wickheims were a force in the sport, known for their balance, their determination and their concentration, a necessity in a sport where an opponent can legally kick water in your face.

“One little mistake,” Jube Wickheim said, “and you’re in the water.”

(The competitions were not without risk. The 1956 contest included the death of a competitor, who was believed to have suffered a heart attack after falling in the water.)

The Wickheims won their share of prize money, including purses worth as much as $500 – “better than wages” – returning home at the end of each summer to work as loggers.

The Wickheim brothers travelled to Japan in 1965 to demonstrate their sport – and to promote B.C. timber – at the International Trade Fair at Harumi Pier in Tokyo. The sight of the lumberjacks in trademark dungarees, checked woollen shirts and caulked boots caused a sensation among the Japanese audience. One of the tricks shown by the brothers included Jube standing atop a chair at one end of a floating log while Ardy used a pole and his feet to maintain balance.

Ardy Wickheim returned to Japan five years later to give more demonstrations at the Canadian pavilion at the Osaka world’s fair. He won the birling competition there and was presented a trophy by a visiting premier Bennett.

Many thousands of Canadians also saw the brothers perform at Expo 67 in Montreal, as they put on four shows daily on Dolphin Lake in the shadow of Old Fort Edmonton at La Ronde.

Both brothers had a reputation for being taciturn, so they faced a dilemma when the announcer hired to work as ringmaster for their summer show at the Vancouver fair pulled out at the last minute. They chose lots. The younger brother lost, unhappily adding emceeing duties to his daily routine.

Later, Jube formed the Wickheim Timber Show to travel the globe, including a 1992 performance at the opening of Euro Disney outside Paris. (Among the log-rollers employed by the show over the years were the four Herrling brothers, known as the Birling Herrlings. One of them, Paul Herrling, died in Sooke on Jan. 27, 2013, at 54.)

Ardy retired from the sport to work on his acreage, building trout ponds on his land. He also helped to build many homes in his community, always preferring to work based on a handshake instead of a contract.

Ardy liked to attend events hosted by the local Sons of Norway, where he was known for his nimbleness on the dance floor, especially during a waltz.

Ardy died at his home in Sooke on Jan. 20 after a diagnosis of leukemia. He leaves a son, two daughters, five grandchildren, two sisters and two brothers. He was predeceased by a sister and his wife, Barbara, who died in 1981.

Despite his many victories, Jube considered Ardy the superior birler, both as a competitor and an entertainer. So, during long demonstrations, it was left to Ardy to pronounce an end. He would say, “Time to take a flyer,” before allowing himself to be hurled backward into the drink.

Originally published in The Globe and Mail, March 6, 2013

Ardy Wickheim shows off trophies won at Expo 67.

Leo McKillip

 

Leo McKillip wore No. 40 for the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.

 

William (Leo) McKillip

Born: January 26, 1929
Died: December 24, 2013 (McCook, Nebraska) 

 

Leo McKillip designed a punishing defensive system for the Edmonton Eskimos that helped them preserve a 9-8 victory over Calgary in the 1975 Grey Cup with a fearsome defensive line nicknamed Alberta Crude. McKillip was the architect for a defense that contributed to five consecutive Grey Cup championships, though by that time he had left to become defensive coordinator with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. For some seasons, the two stingiest defences in the CFL came from blueprints drawn up by McKillip.

A U.S. college head coach, McKillip came north in 1974, fashioning a defence for the Eskimos under head coach under Ray Jauch. He handled similar chores for a season under new coach Hugh Campbell in 1977 before rejoining Jauch with the Blue Bombers.

He abandoned the CFL in 1982 to take a defensive coaching job with the Washington Federals of the U.S. Football League.

McKillip starred with the high school football team in McCook, Neb., playing both ways, as well as handling punting chores. He guided the Bisons to a 24-4-1 record over three seasons, including a state championship in 1946. He also starred at basketball and track as a sprinter and hurdler, even setting a state record in the high hurdles. The star athlete then shocked the state by joining the football program at Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., instead of suiting up for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. The player had already decided he wanted a future coaching career, so he chose to be tutored by Frank Leahy, the successor to Knute Rockne. McKillip was a spare on championship Notre Dame teams. When he made a late-game appearance for the Irish in a 1948 match at Lincoln, Neb., McKillip was booed by the Nebraska faithful for his treachery. 

After two years in the Air Force Reserve, McKillip began a long coaching career that included 15 seasons with Idaho State (Bengals), four years with St. Mary’s University (Gaels) near Oakland, Calif., and eight years at Dana College (Vikings) at Blair, Neb.

After he earned a doctorate from the University of Idaho, he gained the nickname “Doctor of Defence.”

McKillip was inducted into the Nebraska High School Sports Hall of Fame (1996), the Dana College Sports Hall of Fame (2009) and the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame (2011).

Leo McKillip (81) laterals the ball in a 1946 game for McCook High in Nebraska.

Peter Johnson

Peter Johnson (left) shows a yellow card to the great Pelé in 1976.

Peter Thomas Johnson

Born: January 19, 1935 (London, England)
Died: February 22, 2013 (Burlington, Ontario)

Peter Johnson, a soccer referee, suffered a hairline fracture and needed 12 stitches to close a gash to his forehead when struck by a chair thrown by an irate fan. About 200 fans stormed the pitch at the Autostade in Montréal after the Rochester (N.Y.) Lancers scored to go ahead 4-0 in a North American Soccer League (NASL) match against the Olympics. The 1971 game was called with 25 minutes left on the clock.

“When those fans came after me I ran for the officials’ dressing room,” Johnson told the Montreal Gazette the next day. “I’d just got to the door and thought I had made it. Then the lights went out. I was unconscious for some time.”

He said the incident would not keep him from the pitch.

“It’s unfortunate a few barbarians can spoil it for so many.”

The school teacher, who lived at the time in Windsor, Ont., returned to Montreal five years later as an official for the soccer matches held during the Olympic Games.

Johnson’s career as a soccer referee was also notable for his having once booked Pelé, showing the Brazilian legend a yellow card in a 1976 NASL match in Tampa, Fla.

Johnson became a soccer referee in his native England, where he worked the rough English League. He immigrated to Canada in 1969, becoming one of the top officials in his adopted land. He refereed 11 international matches in his career. Johnson, a carpenter and joiner by training and, later, a teacher, became a referee instructor and took positions on the executive of soccer bodies. He opened an antique shop late in life and also served as president of the local lawn bowling club in Burlington, Ont.

Connie MacNeil

Conrad MacNeil

Born: February 16, 1929 (Reserve Mines, Nova Scotia)
Died: May 2, 2013 

Member: Acadia Athletics Sports Hall of Fame (2011)

 

Connie MacNeil once scored three goals in six seconds, a feat as incredible as it sounds.

MacNeil’s spectacular scoring took place on Feb. 27, 1950, as his Acadia Axemen faced the Kentville (N.S.) Wildcats in a playoff game in the Annapolis Valley Hockey League, a senior-B circuit.

The university student’s goals, assisted by centreman Robert (Gint) MacKenzie came at the expense of Wildcats goalie Al Tomari.

Despite MacNeil’s scoring prowess, the Axemen lost the seventh and deciding game of the series.

The 5-foot-9, 165-pound forward was named league MVP that season.

MacNeil graduated in 1953, becoming a high school teacher, including many years at Horton District High School at Wolfville, N.S.

The Axemen posthumously retired his No. 6 sweater in a pregame ceremony in October, 2013.

In the passing years, MacNeil’s historic hat-trick seemed to be more legend than fact. Some discounted the accomplishment as an impossibility. It got limited notice at the time, reflecting both the low-level of competition and the lack of media interest in Maritimes hockey. In comparison, the NHL’s fastest hat-trick by an individual is Bill Mosienko’s famous three goals in 21 seconds in 1952.

On the 60^th anniversary of MacNeil’s historic hat-trick, the Chronicle Herald decided to re-enact the feat with two current Axemen skaters serving as stand-ins for MacNeil and MacKenzie. With the clock stopped after the first goal, could two more be scored from a centre-ice faceoff in less than six seconds? A clean face-off win was followed by a wrist shot from the blue-line into the net. The act was repeated several times, and the players managed to repeat, proving MacNeil’s feat was possible.

The newspaper described MacNeil monitoring the proceedings like an expectant father.

Frank (Danky) Dorrington

Frank Dorrington

Born: January 21, 1933 (New Glasgow, Nova Scotia)
Died: March 11, 2013 (New Glasgow, Nova Scotia)

Member:
Newfoundland and Labrador Hockey Hall of Fame (1996)
Pictou County (N.S.) Sports Heritage Hall of Fame (2005)
Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame (2007)
Newfoundland and Labrador Sports Hall of Fame (2008)

 

Danky Dorrington led the Corner Brook (Nfld.) Royals to four Herder Memorial Trophy wins as senior provincial champions in the 1960s, later adding a fifth title as coach. He recorded more than 800 points in senior hockey, during which he became a legend in his home province of Nova Scotia as well as his adopted province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Born in 1933 to Donelda (née MacKay) and William Dorrington in New Glasgow, N.S., Dorrington began his hockey career with a Maritime midget championship (at age 16), a Maritime juvenile championship (at age 17) and a Maritime junior championship (at age 19).

The 6-foot, 185-pound right-winger was known for his size and speed. He added a Martime senior championship to his resumé with the Moncton (N.B.) Hawks in 1955. In 1956-57, he joined the Miramichi (N.B.) Beavers, becoming New Brunswick’s top goal scorer in his two seasons in the circuit, scoring 94 goals in just 76 games.

Dorrington went to the United States to play for the Johnstown (Pa.) Jets of the EHL in 1958. His statistics were more modest in that tough pro league — he recorded 92 points in 124 games in two seasons. He enjoyed yet another championship season when Johnstown knocked off New Haven to claim the EHL title in 1960 with a 4-2 victory in Game 5 of a best-of-seven series. Dorrington scored his team’s final goal.

After yet another stellar season playing senior hockey in the Maritimes, with the Amhert (N.S.) Ramblers, Dorrington made a move to Newfoundland late in the 1961-62 season, arriving in time to guide Corner Brook to a provincial title. (While they played a playoff game, the hotel in which they were staying burned down and the players lost their personal possessions.) The triumph ended a 37-season drought for the Royals. Dorrington and the Royals were perennial contenders, winning the Herder Trophy again in 1964, 1966 and 1968. He was coaching in 1977 when the Royals again claimed the Newfoundland senior championship.

In 13 seasons as a player with the Royals, Dorrington scored 349 goals in 340 games. He also had 529 assists and retired as the league’s all-time leader in goals, assists and points. 

A popular figure with hometown crowds, but a hated one when on the road, Dorrington was competitive at all times, even during practice. The city of Corner Brook adopted Dorrington as a favourite son, proclaiming a Frank (Danky) Dorrington Day in his honour in 1972, the only athlete ever said to have been so honoured. His No. 17 sweater was retired to be placed in the rafters of the arena.

Dorrington was also a notable softball player in summer. He led the Corner Brook league with a .428 average in 1969, further evidence, if any were needed, for his being named the city’s male athlete of the year.

Away from the rink, Dorrington earned his keep delivered heating oil in Corner Brook.

In recent years, Dorrington was inducted into provincial sports halls of fame in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. As well, his 1960-61 Amherst Ramblers team has been named to the Nova Scotia hall.

Dorrington was diagnosed with dementia a year before his death. He leaves the former Angie Pitts, his wife of 50 years; a son; a daughter; two granddaughters; two brothers; and, a sister. He was predeceased by two brothers.

The Corner Brook Royals pose for a championship portrait after the 1961-62 season.

Adrian Dudzicki

 

Adrian (Dudz) Dudzicki

Born: December 26, 1989 (Latina, Italy)
Died: November 20, 2013 (Toronto)

 

Adrian Dudzicki’s dream was to compete in squash at the 2015 Pan American Games to be held in Toronto in 2015. He took up the sport with his father at age 14. After moving to Toronto from his home in Ottawa, he was so broke he lived at the National Squash Academy for six weeks. His dedication to the sport made Dudz something of a mascot with the staff. Described as “a warrior on the court,” he had been ranked No. 9 in Canada in men’s open singles in 2012. He won the provincial singles title in Ontario that year, during which he also attained No. 136 in the Professional Squash Association’s world rankings. Dudzicki was cycling to the academy in Toronto when he was struck and killed by a car whose driver was charged with dangerous driving and criminal negligence causing death. Dudzicki was 23.

Phylis Barclay

Phylis Barclay (far left) stands next to skip Maybelle Spooner and teammates Merle Dertell and Eileen Sexsmith, Saskatchewan women’s curling champions in 1952.

Phylis Murial (née Tufts) Barclay

Born: 1915 (Delisle, Saskatchewan)
Died: March 24, 2013 (Burnaby, B.C.)

Member: Saskatoon (Saskatchewan) Sports Hall of Fame (1993)

Phylis Barclay won Saskatchewan’s amateur golf title in 1948 and 1951. She was runner-up for the title to Renee Robins in 1949 and Mavis Palko in 1950.

Barclay was also a four-time Saskatoon city champion. She qualified for Saskatchewan’s team in interprovincial play 11 times, including in 1958 when the tournament was held in Saskatoon.

In May, 1969, she shot a hole-in-one on her home course, the Saskatoon Golf and Country Club. A month later, her husband, Howitt, matched her feat.

After moving to Vancouver in 1970, Barclay joined the Fraser View Golf and Country Club. She qualified for B.C.’s senior team in 1972, joining Joan Campbell of Kelowna, and Margaret Todd and Joan Lawson, both of Victoria. The latter three were defending champions. B.C. finished third in the 1972 championship. Barclay shot a 93-87 for the second best score in her quartet.

Barclay also curled, winning the 1952 provincial women’s title as second on a rink skipped by Maybelle Spooner. The other curlers on the team were Eileen Sexsmith (third) and Merle Dertell (lead).

Her first sporting success came as a schoolgirl when she won a silver medal in the 1932 Saskatoon half-mile speedskating championship.

She was born to Anna and Philip Tufts in Delisle, a rural town whose most famous exports would be the Hockey Hall of Fame brothers Max and Doug Bentley, Phylis’s contemporaries. The Barclay family moved to nearby Saskatoon in 1926.

Barclay, who died of natural causes, aged 98, was predeceased by Howitt Barclay, her husband of 54 years, who died in 1993. She was also predeceased by a brother and three sisters.

Eileen Burke

Eileen Mabel (née Giles) Burke 

Born: July 14, 1920 (Sutton-in-Ashfield, England)
Died: May 17, 2013 (Halifax) 

Member: Sackville (Nova Scotia) Sports Hall of Fame (2007)

 

Eileen Burke won eight consecutive provincial waterskiing championships in eight years of competition in Nova Scotia. She utterly dominated the sport in the Maritimes in the 1950s.

She had learned to waterski near the family cottage on Comeau’s Beach on First Lake near Sackville, N.S. In 1957, she got an offer to join the famed Tommy Bartlett Florida Water Ski and Jumping Boat Thrill Show. She declined the invitation. Her son was born four days later. She did not retire from competition until 1960.

The former Eileen Giles immigrated to Halifax from England with her parents at age 2. She worked in the communications office at HMC Dockyard during the Second World War.

Burke often accompanied her husband, Jock Burke, who competed in power-boat races.

Clark Brown

Clark Matthew Brown

Born: March 4, 1918 (Windsor, Nova Scotia)
Died: May 6, 2013 (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

Member: Horseshoe Canada Hall of Fame (2007)

Clark Brown learned to play horseshoes while serving as a sergeant in the Canadian Army in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia during the Second World War. After the war, he worked at HMC Dockyard in Halifax until retirement. He formed a local club at the dockyards. In 1972, he was a founding member of the Halifax Horseshoe Club.

As a player, he competed at world horseshoe championships in Syracuse, N.Y., in 1994, and in Kitchener, Ont., in 1997.

He held many positions as an executive for horseshoe governing bodies over the years.