Reg Primeau

Robert Reginald Primeau
Born: August 13, 1936 (Prince Albert, Saskatchewan)
Died: May 28, 2014 (Fort Wayne, Indiana)

A tiny centreman, the elusive Reg Primeau was a star player with the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Komets of the International Hockey League in the 1960s. He helped the Komets win Turner Cup championships in 1963 and ’65.

Primeau spent 7 1/2 seasons with the Komets, who named him to the team’s hall of fame and retired his No. 12 sweater in a ceremony in 2001.

The productive forward was lured to Fort Wayne by manager Ken Ullyot, known as Mr. Komet, who had coached a young Primeau in junior hockey.

Primeau was the second youngest of 16 children born to Mary Catherine and Richard Primeau. He played four seasons of junior hockey with the hometown Prince Albert (Sask.) Mintos, coached by Ullyot. In 1955-56, he scored 51 goals in 50 games. The 19-year-old also earned a three-game tryout with the senior Saskatoon Quakers that season. He recorded three assists.

After a full season in the Western Hockey League in 1957-58 with Saskatoon, during which the team moved to St. Paul, Alta., Primeau divided the 1958-59 season with three teams in three leagues — Quakers (WHL), Trois-Rivieres Lions (QHL) and Troy Bruins (IHL), under the unforgiving direction of Eddie Shore.

In 1959-60, Primeau scored four goals in a game against the Minneapolis Millers, two of those coming just seven seconds apart. Near the end of the season, the Falcons players agreed to take a pay cut to keep the team afloat. Primeau and one other player refused.

A disappointing stint with the Portland Buckaroos (three goals and seven assists in 28 games) was followed by the much more successful time with the Komets. On the midwinter cross-continent drive from Portland, Primeau had considered returning to Prince Albert with his wife and young family. His mother talked him into continuing with his hockey career.

The 5-foot-9, 170-pound player was a second-line centre behind Len Thomson, a league legend, offering the Komets a potent one-two punch. The Komets appeared in the Turner Cup finals for three consecutive seasons, winning twice.

Primeau’s mother was a Cree and his teammates called him Chief and Hawkeye. The organist at the arena in Fort Wayne played “war dance” music from the movies whenever Primeau poised to take a face-off.

His final campaign with the Komets came in 1968-69, when he scored 18 goals with 32 assists in 55 games. It was the only Komets season in which he recorded an average of less than a point per game. His best campaign came in 1961-62, when he netted 39 goals with 66 assists for 105 points.

Primeau worked as a food salesman. Late in life, he lost his right leg to diabetes, but was eventually fitted with a prosthetic leg, returning to the ice to skate.

In 1998, he was inducted into the Prince Albert Sports Hall of Fame.

Jim Pritchard

James George Pritchard

Born: February 14, 1948 (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
Died: April 1, 2014 (Vancouver)

A rushing defenceman, Jim Pritchard was a first-round draft pick of the Montreal Canadiens in the 1968 NHL amateur draft. He spent nine seasons as a professional in the minors without getting a chance to play in the NHL.

After playing junior hockey with the hometown Winnipeg Monarchs, the 5-foot-9, 175-pound defenceman joined the Winnipeg Jets of the Western Canada Hockey League for the 1967-68 season. He had 30 goals and 34 assists, as well as 158 penalty minutes, in 53 games. He was loaned to the St. Boniface Mohawks for four Allan Cup games in 1968, scoring two goals with three assists.

The Canadiens selected him third overall in the 1968 NHL draft, the first player from Western canada to be taken. (The Canadiens also had the first two picks in the draft, taking goalie Michel Plasse and centre Roger Belisle.) Pritchard spent the 1968-69 season with the Houston Apollos.

The Habs kept Pritchard on their protected list for several seasons.

Meanwhile, the defenceman began a peripatetic career in the minors, skating in four different minor-pro leagues (CHL, WHL, EHL and NAHL) for such teams as the Kansas City Blues, Salt Lake Golden Eagles, Amarillo Wranglers, Jacksonville Rockets, Clinton Comets, Long Island Ducks, Long Island Cougars, Erie Blades and Johnstown Jets.

He was an Eastern Hockey League first-team all-star with the Ducks in 1971-72, and he was a North American Hockey League second-team all-star in 1974-75 with the Cougars and in 1975-76 with the Blades. In his only full season with the Blades, Pritchard had his most productive campaign with 16 goals and 54 assists in 71 games.

“Good defence wins hockey games and Jimmy Pritchard us a top flight defenceman,” Blades coach Nick Polano said after the free-agent defenceman signed with Erie.

Though he never made the NHL, Pritchard did play in two games for the Chicago Cougars of the World Hockey Association in 1974-75. He did not get on the scoresheet.

 Jim Pritchard (middle row, far right) was an EHL first team all-star with the Clinton Comets in 1971-72.

Jim Mikol

John Stanley Mikol

Born: June 11, 1938 (Kitchener, Ontario)
Died: March 15, 2014 (The Villages, Sumter County, Florida)

Jim Mikol was a handsome, lantern-jawed hockey player whose 11-season professional career included two brief stints in the NHL. He was a high-scoring minor-league defenceman and forward who was a bit too old to benefit from the NHL’s 1967 expansion.

Born in Kitchener, Ont., Mikol (rhymes with nickel) learned to skate at age four on frozen ponds and sloughs in his hometown. He played junior hockey with the Waterloo Siskins before joining the Peterborough Petes for the 1957-58 season. He spent the following season with the senior North Bay Trappers.

Known for his quick release when shooting, Mikol turned professional with the Johnstown Jets, scoring 11 goals and adding 14 assists in his Eastern Hockey League debut in 1959-60. He also had 101 penalty minutes.

Mikol moved up to the Cleveland Barons of the American Hockey League, where he became one of the team’s stop scorers. He scored 32 goals with 48 assists in 1961-62. Such a performance earned him a tryout with the Toronto Maple Leafs, who kept him on the roster after the 1962 training camp.

“We’ll keep him,” Leafs coach and general manager Punch Imlach said. “He showed us enough to rate a good look. You have to remember he just switched from defence to forward a couple of years ago.”

The 6-foot, 175-pound left-winger was seen as a possible replacement for Bert Olmstead, who had been picked up in the offseason by the New York Rangers.

He made his NHL debut on Oct. 14, 1962, against the Rangers in New York, where he played on a line with Billy Harris and Eddie Litzenberger. After Harris suffered a pulled muscle, Frank Mahovlich was added to the line.

Mikol got only spot duty. “Jim has seen little action with leafs and is nor furthering his hockey career sitting on the end of the bench,” Red Burnett wrote in the Toronto Star. “He needs work — and lots of it.” After just four games, during which he got an assist, he was loaned to Cleveland with an option for immediate recall. In the end, the call never came from the Leafs.

The forward enjoyed another solid season in 1963-64 with the Barons under coach Fred Glover, scoring 24 goals with 44 assists. He had three goals and four assists as the Barons swept nine consecutive playoff games to eliminate the Rochester Americans (2-0), Hershey Bears (3-0) and Quebec Aces (4-0) to win the Calder Cup championship.

On June 10, 1964, the NHL’s Boston Bruins grabbed his rights in the inter-league draft from the Barons. The Rangers then claimed him from the Bruins the same day.

Mikol got a measure of revenge against his old team be recording two assists in a 3-3 tie when the Leafs played at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 18, 1964. The Rangers sent him down to the farm club in St. Paul, Minn., on Christmas Eve. When Don Marshall got injured, Mikol got a call up to the parent club, only to be snowed in while flying through Cleveland. (Trevor Fahey of the New York Rovers became the emergency replacement in what would be the only NHL game of his career.) Mikol wound up splitting the season between New York (30 games, one goal) and St. Paul (33 games, 14 goals).

In May, 1965, Mikol and three other players (Sandy McGregor, Marcel Paille and Aldo Guidolin) were traded by the Rangers to the Providence Reds for goalie Ed Giacomin. The future Hall of fame netminder said in a 1987 interview with the New York Times that the Reds owner wanted Mikol because he thought his good looks would be a box-office attraction.

Mikol played three seasons with the Reds before winding up his playing career with two seasons with the Barons. He scored 167 goals in nine AHL seasons. His NHL totals were one goal and four assists in 34 games played.

The retired player became an owner and coach of the Erie Golden Blades for the 1982-83 season. He later became a part-owner and coach of the Lakeland Ice Warriors of the Soithern Hockey League in 1992-93.

Away from hockey, he worked as a club golf pro in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and North Carolina, before settling in Florida.

Gordie Jamieson

Gordie Jamieson (back row, No. 5) with the 1955-56 Clinton Comets.

Gordon Melville Jamieson

Born: September 16, 1930 (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
Died: March 7, 2014 (Monroe Township, New Jersey)

A 5-foot-11, 190-pound defenceman, Gordie Jamieson guarded the blue-line for the Clinton (N.Y.) Comets for six seasons in the 1950s.

The rugged skater was a stay-at-home defenceman. He scored nine goals and added 18 assists in his debut with the Comets in 1950-51, which would be his strongest contribution to offence for the team. He also spent 102 minutes in the penalty box.

Over six seasons with the Comets, Jamieson scored 36 goals with 81 assists. He also scored three playoff goals.

Born in Winnipeg, Jamieson grew up in Kingston, Ont. He was added to the Inkerman (Ont.) Rockets’ roster for the 1950 Memorial Cup playoffs, during which he recorded a lone assist in 13 games.

Jamieson was predeceased by his wife Arley Constance (Connie) (née Cantlon), who died in 2012, aged 81. Born in Saskatoon, Sask., she was the daughter of Ralph Cantlon, general manager of the saskatoon Star-Phoenix newspaper. She worked as a figure skating coach for 60 years. The couple met at the rink in Clinton.

The couple raised their family in East Brunswick, N.J. Jamieson leaves three sons, two daughters, nine grandchildren, and five sisters.

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.

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.

Ian (Andy) Anderson

 Ian MacKenzie Anderson

Born: May 29, 1938 (Kirkland Lake, Ontario)
Died: November 20, 2013 (Kirkland, New York)

Member: Greater Utica Sports Hall of Fame (2002)

Ian (Andy) Anderson’s five seasons with the Clinton Comets looked like deleted scenes from the movie “Slap Shot.” The fearsome 6-foot-1, 210-pound defenceman registered a long rap sheet as the Comets enforcer in the notoriously scofflaw Eastern Hockey League.

His penalty minute totals in those campaigns — as much wars as hockey seasons — read 212, 201, 172, 143 and 33. That’s more than 12 complete games watched from the vantage point of the penalty box. He was recovering from a knee injury in that last season of 1969-70 and only played 13 games, hence the low penalty total. He made up for it in the playoffs with a league-leading 73 penalty minutes in just 17 games.

“If you get yourself into trouble,” he would tell teammates, “just try to hang in there and tread a little water until I get there.”

Anderson was more than a goon, receiving EHL First All-Star team honours in 1967-68 and 1968-69. He also skated for three consecutive Walker Cup championship teams in Clinton in 1968, 1969 and 1970.

The fearless defenceman understood hockey’s brutal code of a slash for a slash, a punch for a punch. His motto: “You have to have someone who is tougher than their toughest guy.”

Anderson was born in Kirkland Lake, Ont., to Florence and Ernest Anderson. An older brother, Brian, played varsity hockey at the University of Toronto before skating in a handful of games for professional teams. At the same time, Ian Anderson, three years younger, left Northern Ontario to play junior hockey for the Toronto Marlboros. In 1958, the Marlies were Eastern finalists in the Memorial Cup, eliminated by the Hull-Ottawa Junior Canadiens. Anderson belonged to a Marlies defensive corps that featured future NHL blue-line stalwarts Bill White and Carl Brewer.

The NHL Toronto Maple Leafs, who owned Anderson’s rights, traded him and cash to the minor-league Cleveland Barons of the American Hockey League for veteran defenceman Steve Kraftcheck in the summer of 1958. Anderson played only 13 games for the Barons in 1958-59, spending most of the season with the Quebec Aces.

The rugged rearguard spent the next season wearing the sweaters of three teams — Trois-Rivieres (Que.) Lions, Sudbury (Ont.) Wolves and the Providence Reds of the AHL. He was a regular with the Reds until the end of the 1961-62 seasons. Anderson’s four years in and out of the AHL included 97 games played with four goals, 11 assists and only 113 penalty minutes.

In 1962, he played senior hockey with the revived Ottawa Montagnards of the Ottawa-St. Lawrence Senior Hockey League, who played host to a visiting Soviet squad for four exhibition games. A few years later, the Montagnards embarked on a tour of Europe. In January, 1965, the Monties, guided by playing coach Johnny Wilson, a former NHL ironman, rampaged through Western Europe look like a liberating army, brawling in Innsbruck, Austria, against the Eislaufverein team one day, then with West Germany champions E.V. Fuessen two days later. Anderson got tossed from the latter game, which featured a bench-clearing brawl with pushing and shoving that ended only after police separated the combatants. Such shenanigans outraged European hockey officials, but sparked interest at the box office.

Though it had seemed his career had peaked years earlier, Anderson was lured back to the pro minor leagues by an offer from the Clinton Comets. He asked playing coach Pat Kelly to team him on the blue-line with Len Speck, another Kirkland Lake native with a more peaceable style. Speck was a six-time EHL First Team All-Star. The duo provided the Comets with an impenetrable and intimidating presence in their own end.

In five seasons with the Comets, Anderson scored 33 goals and 212 assists in the regular season. He had nine goals and 37 assists in 63 playoff games.

In 1967, he was twice punished by the league for attacking officials, being levied a $50 fine in a January incident and a $100 fine and a three-game suspension in a December incident.

His career ended after he skated over a coin on the ice, shattering his knee. Anderson stayed in Central New York’s Mohawk Valley, promoting hockey and coaching youth teams. Born in Kirkland Lake, he settled in Kirkland, N.Y.

He leaves Robin (née Owen), his wife of 33 years, and their son, Jordan. He also leaves two sons and two daughters from a previous marriage, as well as a brother, Bevan. Another brother, Brian, who was also a hockey player, died 11 days after Ian.