Cape Breton Eagles players visited Glace Bay hockey royalty, Fred Courtney at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital.
"I remember my father saying how Courtney could lift the fans out of their seats with his end-to-end rushes playing with the Cinderella Miners." said Glace Bay Minor Hockey President, James Edwards.
The Eagles players were at the hospital to meet with patients and gift them teddy bears gathered from last weekends Teddy & Toque Toss.
****FRED COURTNEY****
ARTICLE BY JOHN WHITE
During the 1955-56 Cape Breton Junior Hockey League (CBJHL) season, fans who can remember remark that the Glace Bay Junior Miners went from the “outhouse to the penthouse.” In the process, the team was fittingly dubbed the “Cinderella” Miners.
The three-team CBJHL consisted of the Junior Miners, the Sydney Eastmount Millionaires and the Northside Franklins. Xavier Junior College of Sydney had started the campaign, but later folded.
For the longest time, the Glace Bay club couldn’t win a game. Consequently, fan support at the Miners Forum was slipping. Finally, in December, the Miners defeated the Franklins 7-1, but the team went on another long losing streak. Finally, in mid-January, to no one’s surprise, the arena’s board of directors, which was the club’s sponsor, ended it’s association.
Good fortune quickly intervened, however, when a group of sports-minded citizens banded together to keep the squad afloat. On January 31, 1956, with less than two weeks remaining in the regular season, the Junior Miners at long last won their second game.
The regular season ended with the Millionaires in first place, followed by the Northside. Bringing up the rear was Glace Bay who, according to reports, managed just two wins. All clubs, however, qualified for the postseason. More on the playoffs later.
A key performer for Glace Bay was Fred Courtney, originally from Donkin. In spite of playing for the cellar-dwelling Junior Miners, Courtney won the league scoring crown and did so in fine fashion.
Heading into the team’s last regular-season contest at the Miners Forum, he trailed leader Greg MacIntosh of the Millionaires by five points. However, the flashy winger struck for a pair of goals and added four assists in a 11-9 loss to the Franklins to overtake MacIntosh by a single point. Not surprisingly, Courtney was voted the circuit’s MVP.
A little while back, I had the privilege of sitting with Courtney at his kitchen table in Glace Bay, and he talked about the 1955-56 Junior Miners.
“We were in the process of folding,” he said. “But a group took over and put their own money into it. Bill Sidney was there. Gordie Grant, Howard Wadden, Angus MacDougall, Johnny Read, Leo MacIntyre, Ernie Beaton and Willie Hines. Also a new coach, Manning MacIntyre, was brought in.
“The biggest thing was we got in shape,” added Courtney. “We skated and skated and skated in practice. Johnny Read (one of the group of new owners) was dying of cancer and we’d come out on the ice and there he’d be skating with us. That motivated us. So we got ourselves in shape and once we started winning we kept on winning.”
Of note, at the start of the season, both the Millionaires and Franklins brought in players from the mainland to bolster their respective rosters — “imports” they were called. Glace Bay, on the other hand, didn’t go that route. What they did, however, made a huge impact on their playoff success.
The Junior Miners picked up four individuals from the Xavier Junior College team that had earlier ceased operations. Bob MacKenzie (later of Riverview High School fame), Angus MacDougall and Slim MacKinnon, all from Sydney, along with backup goaltender Bobby Andrea of North Sydney were added.
“Once those guys came in, things improved,” recalled Courtney, “and the crowds started to get better, even though we were still losing. Then the playoffs started, and it was a different story.”
Because they finished in first-place, the Millionaires received an opening-round playoff bye. Thus, the semi-final featured Glace Bay and the Northside, who had won the four previous CBJHL titles to go along with the three preceding Maritime crowns. And the defending champs appeared to be in total control as they took a commanding 3-1 series lead. But the Junior Miners caught fire and won four consecutive contests to capture the best-of-nine series 5-3.
“Nobody expected us to win, not even us,” Courtney said. “The players played their hearts out. And the Glace Bay fans were a big help. We were skating in the warm up before the first game at the North Sydney Forum, and I looked up in the stands and saw all these people that I knew coming into the building to support us. I found that a huge inspiration.”
Next was the league final against the Millionaires. Right off the opening face-off in Game 1 of the best-of-nine at the Sydney Forum, Courtney scored on a long shot from center ice. “Their goalie, Pokey Betts, who was an import, normally would have stopped a shot like that,” said Courtney. “It all started from there. We won that first game and thought we could win the series.”
And a very lengthy playoff round it was. The winner wasn’t decided until Game 9, witnessed by a packed house in the vicinity of 5,000 fans at the Sydney Forum.
“There were so many trying to get through the door that night,” recalled Courtney, “that the referee and the two linesmen had to be passed over the shoulders of the people so they could get into the building. It was the biggest crowd ever for a game at the Sydney Forum. The fans that couldn’t get in broke the doors down. They were hanging from the rafters and everywhere.”
With time running out late in the third period, the Junior Miners held a slim 2-1 lead. Of course, things rarely came easy for Glace Bay that season, and wouldn’t you know it, with just 21 seconds showing on the clock, Sydney’s Bill Stephenson scored to send the contest into overtime.
Understandably, the Junior Miners were devastated by the turn of events, particularly goaltender Murray Matheson who felt solely responsible for allowing the game-tying disc to enter his net. During the intermission, he cried in the dressing room.
“Yes, I recall that,” remembered Courtney. “Murray was quite upset, and he was crying, but it wasn’t his fault. It was tough to see Sydney tie it up in the last few seconds. We thought we had the game won. But we regrouped for the overtime.”
As mentioned, the series was a best-of-nine affair, but it was also based on a point system. Therefore, only one full 20-minute overtime period was scheduled. As Courtney noted, the Junior Miners did indeed regroup. They scored twice in the frame to prevail 4-2. Timmy Hines potted the winner and Fran Finlayson notched an insurance marker. Thus, after two hard-fought postseason rounds, the amazing Glace Bay “Cinderella” Miners were CBJHL champions.
“I still remember that goal,” said Courtney of Hines’s winning tally. “I carried the puck over the Millionaires’ blueline and their two defencemen knocked me down. The puck squirted loose behind both defenceman and who came in behind them but Timmy Hines. I was laying on the ice yelling, ‘You better score, you better score!’ Then I said, ‘He’s going in too close, he’s going in too close!’ All this happened in a matter of seconds. Then Timmy whipped the puck into the top corner. It was wonderful!”
The Junior Miners then faced the Halifax Canadiens for the Maritime Junior “A” title, and once again the Cape Bretoners were victorious, taking the best-of-seven series in six games. Next, with the Eastern Canadian championship up for grabs, Glace Bay faced Quebec’s St. Jean Braves of the Montreal Metropolitan Junior League. The best-of-five round was played entirely at the Miners Forum.
Interestingly, two local lads were members of the St. Jean team: Sydney forward Ches Melski and goaltender Art McIntyre from the Bridgeport area of Glace Bay. Also with the visitor’s was 15-year-old Bobby Rousseau, whom many of you may recall as a long-time member of the Montreal Canadiens during the 1960s. Rousseau scored 53 goals and assisted on 32 others for 85 points that season in just 44 games.
“We almost beat them,” the 81-year-old Courtney recalled. “We lost the series in five games and the rink was packed every game. The Glace Bay fans were wonderful all through the playoffs.”
Local resident Dal MacIntyre witnessed just about every Glace Bay home playoff game that year. “As I remember, it was a hard-fought series,” he told me. “St. Jean did not expect the quality and talent they came upon from the Junior Miners. And they didn’t want to lose to what they considered to be a lower-calibre team. After all, most of their players were NHL prospects. The Glace Bay boys were part-time players and during the day some even worked in the coal mines.”
Said the still-proud Courtney of his team’s amazing turnaround: “We were losers. Then we got used to winning and we became winners. It was exciting.”
Hats off to the never-say-die 1955-56 Glace Bay Cinderella Miners who, as many pointed out at the time, went from the “outhouse to the penthouse.”
GrayJay Sports
