The man who changed senior hockey
Don Robertson wins the Gold Stick for his work in the game. But it doesn’t happen without a gruesome baseball injury, some foresight and a gigantic break.
If you want to understand why Don Robertson was named winner of the Ontario Hockey Association’s Gold Stick Award for outstanding service to the game, you simply need to know that he’s as responsible as anyone for senior hockey still being played in this province.
To understand how, grab a tea, as he would say, and settle in.
Had things gone to plan, we would have no story to tell. Instead, the 64-year-old would be wrapping up a career as an NHL referee right about now rather than running the Dundas Real McCoys. But, 40 years ago while playing fastball, his officiating career ended painfully.
“I caught my foot on home plate and dislocated my foot,” he says. “They took bones out of it.”
He was basically still a kid but, at that time, the Rockton Real McCoys were in a pinch because the president and general manager had been suspended for using illegal players. Robertson knew the league and had some credibility so the team asked him to come run things. Plus, he lived close to the rink.
They won the championship that year. And the next. Eventually they moved up from the Intermediate loop to the Senior league where they played as the Flamborough Real McCoys then the Flamborough Motts Clamatos and eventually the Brantford Motts Clamatos. Which is where our story really picks up.
Anyone who knows Robertson knows but-this-is-the-way-they’ve-always-done-it are words that have never crossed his lips. So, in 1985, he came up with the crazy idea of seeing if he could lure some former NHLers to join the squad.
“Nobody else did it (then),” he says.
To the shock of many, ex-Vezina Trophy winner Don Edwards was signed to play net, Rocky Saganiuk, Stan Weir, Stan Jonathan, Fred Boimistruck and others were added to the roster. Then, for good measure, two of Bobby Hull’s kids — Blake and Bobby Jr. — were recruited.
The group won the Allan Cup. That championship was still front of mind a few years later when Robertson brought the Real McCoys to Dundas. This new team started winning almost immediately. By the second season, they were league champs. As they were nine out of the next 12 seasons.
Trouble was the early 2000s weren’t the glory days of senior hockey anymore. Drawing a crowd wasn’t as easy as simply announcing there was a game and opening the door to the rink. Trying to figure out how to solve that riddle led to Robertson’s brainwave.
Rick Vaive hadn’t just been captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs but the first player in team history to score 50 goals in a season. Did it three times. A decade after he’d retired, he was still playing in alumni games. He was in his early 40s by then but he could still play.
Robertson met up with him at one of those old-timers’ games at Copps Coliseum and convinced Vaive to come out for a bite afterwards. All with the ludicrous thought that maybe he’d be able to convince him to join the McCoys.
Bobby Hull was the guest coach that night and, as luck would have it, they all ended up at the same restaurant. At some point in the evening, the Golden Jet stopped at their table on the way to the bathroom to say hi.
“Bobby looked at Rick and says, ‘Why don’t you play for him? My boys played for him,’ ” Robertson says. “He carried on to the washroom.”
What did Vaive say?
“Rick picked up the pen and signed the card.”
Remarkably, No. 22 actually followed through. He played in Dundas for two seasons and then coached for one after that.
It changed things. Soon other former NHLers with strong resumés were willing to come to the league.
Other teams took the hint and started doing it, too. It changed the dynamic of senior hockey, raised the level of play and brought muchneeded attention to the game. Which has all served to keep it going at a time when it could’ve been lost.
Robertson’s not the sole reason the league is still around, but he’s a big part of it. He’s poured enough time into it to make it a second career and enough of his own cash that he could’ve bought a nice cottage with what he’s spent. Making him an obvious candidate to receive the Gold Stick, which is given for outstanding service to the game for at least 10 years.
As for that night in the restaurant, when Hull disappeared to the bathroom, Vaive turned back to Robertson.
“What did you pay him to do that?” he asked. Robertson laughed.
“I didn’t even know he was here.”