Autoworkers embraced junior hockey,
Automaker’s employees filled stands in Oshawa after hard day on the line
Legendary junior hockey executive Sherry Bassin has witnessed the type of impact General Motors of Canada employees once had on the Ontario Hockey League’s Oshawa Generals.
The relationship ran much deeper than just a team name and logo in his days with the club.
“These people that worked hard on the lines, I can’t say enough about them, they were a big part of our support,” said Bassin, who was with the Generals from 1976 to 1989.
“Those guys that worked hard on the line, administrative people, they were all diehard supporters of the Generals.”
The Generals were born in 1937 and took their nickname from GM, which was their original sponsor when they played in the Ontario Hockey Association. GM expanded over the years and eventually opened the Oshawa Assembly Plant in 1953. That helped grow not only the city of Oshawa, but the team’s fan base as well, with many workers becoming season-ticket holders right up until the present day.
Bassin was in charge of the Generals when GM was at its peak with upwards of 23,000 employees in Oshawa. But those numbers declined heavily with layoffs in the early 2000s. On Monday, GM announced it would be closing its Oshawa plant for good and letting go of the remaining 2,500 workers by the end of 2019.
It was news that didn’t sit well with Bassin, a 79-year-old Oshawa resident who won two league titles with the organization and had his finger prints all over a Generals team that would capture the 1990 Memorial Cup.
“The passion that you saw from the General Motors employees, this whole community survived around it. This is a blue-collar community where the workers worked hard and were doing well,” said Bassin, who was born in Semans, Sask., but has lived in Oshawa for more than 40 years.
“Because of their efficiency and proficiency (in making automobiles), whatever they were going through they’d find a way to make it work. You kept thinking they’ll find a way.”
Generals games often kept employees entertained while doing their shift work.
“The boys used to tell me when the cars were going down the line, the radios would be on to the Generals game,” Bassin said.
In Bassin’s era, the relationship between GM workers and Generals employees was intertwined, with some people working for both concurrently.
Bassin once had two scouts that put in their hours on the factory line at the plant while one of his hockey operations staff members Wayne Daniels eventually took over from him as the team’s general manager while putting in a full career in the auto industry.
“Our fans were all kinds of General Motors employees, my secretary was even a General Motors employee, she got me deals on cars,” Bassin said.
North Bay coach Stan Butler, who entered this season second on the OHL’s all-time wins list, broke into the league with the Generals in 1994-95 and remembers Daniels balancing both roles.
“Wayne worked full time at GM, so basically what would happen we’d all get to work those days around noon, practice at 3:30 p.m. and if you had to meet with Wayne it was right after practice because he would leave GM and then come right to the arena,” Butler said.
Bassin and Daniels have since been inducted into the Oshawa Sports Hall of Fame for their contributions to the Generals.
Over the years, GM employees have been there to see a14-yearold Bobby Orr make his junior debut in 1962, the acquisition of a 17-year-old Eric Lindros in 1990 and John Tavares being the first player in the modern era drafted under exceptional player status in 2005.
After the Generals’ first home, Hambly Arena, burnt down in 1953 and the team was put on hiatus for nine years, GM employees returned when the Oshawa Civic Auditorium opened in 1964.
Team president and governor Rocco Tullio said the organization “shares a very storied history with GM and we (are) very proud of the number of GM workers who are our fans and season ticket holders. “In the coming days and months, the Oshawa Generals will look for ways to support our GM worker fans, tickets holders and their families.”