For two brief seasons, a hockey legend played in Kitchener
Not many people know who Albert Charles Siebert was, because in hockey-mad 1920s and ’30s Canada, he was simply “Babe.” And in Kitchener, people watched Babe play here for two seasons.
Babe was a popular sports nickname of the era, but this youngest of five children had been Babe Siebert since his birth in 1904 Plattsville. The moniker stuck for 35 years, even though he grew into an intimidating five-foot-10, 182-pound NHL star.
That’s just one of the contradictions in the life of Babe Siebert. You’ll find him listed in the Hockey Hall of Fame (Class of 1964), even though there is no category or award for being the roughest, toughest player in that era of ferocious on-ice brutality. You’ll find him in the Waterloo Region Hall of Fame, yet he never lived in Waterloo County except for parts of the two years he played hockey in Kitchener.
Following Babe’s first five years in Plattsville, the family moved 100 kilometres west to Zurich, where William and Emma Siebert’s general store became a town landmark.
Although excelling in all sports, Babe was passionate about hockey. At 16, he was already playing intermediate with Zurich and the Exeter Hawks; at 18, he vaulted to junior, boarding in Kitchener. On Oct. 10, 1922, before the season began, the Daily Record’s sports editor predicted that Kitchener “will win the junior OHA title.
It is a team that will have one of the best forward lines in junior hockey with Gerald Schnarr at centre, Walter Molson at right wing and Siebert, formerly of the Exeter intermediates, at left.” Babe’s reputation had preceded him and there seemed no need to write his full name.
Skating on the Queen Street Auditorium’s natural ice surface, the Kitchener Kolts played a six-game regular season, finishing first and then capturing the John Ross Robertson Cup as OHA junior champions in 1922-23 after plowing through teams representing Woodstock, Preston, Clinton, Toronto St. Mary’s and University of Toronto. In the ensuing two-game, total-goal Memorial Cup series against the
University of Manitoba western champs, Kitchener lost 14-6. Babe was one of the Kolts’ stars with his hard-nosed play on left wing.
In 1923-24, he stepped up a rung and shone for the senior club, known oddly as Kitchener Twin City. Despite Babe’s powerful hitting and offence, the team finished in the middle of the pack. Other cities soon beckoned, but before leaving Kitchener in spring 1924, Babe took something with him — the heart of a two-years-younger hockey fan named Bernice Milhausen of 11 Maynard Ave. It’s fun envisioning
Bernice hanging out at the freezing rink, then being walked home warmly by Babe along Queen as far as Ahrens then being delivered safe and sound to her parents’ home.
Niagara Falls was Babe’s next stop and he helped the Cataracts go deep into the 1924-25 Allan Cup playoffs. Montreal’s “forgotten” NHL club, the Maroons, was already full of stars, but added Babe, and in his first year he was second in team scoring with 16 goals and eight assists in 35 games.
The Maroons’ lineup included 1924 Olympic gold medallist Dunc Munro; the NHL’s first Jewish player, Sammy Rothschild; as well as several other future NHL Hall of Famers: high-scoring Nels (Old Poison) Stewart, legendary goalie Clint Benedict, centre Reg Noble and power forward Punch Broadbent. Babe’s first NHL year begat Babe’s first Stanley Cup as Montreal defeated the Victoria Cougars.
In 1932, the Maroons, hard up for money, traded Babe to New York and in his first year there, naturally, there was another Stanley Cup victory.
Babe Siebert played in the NHL for the Montreal Maroons, New York Rangers, Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens, and won the 1926 Stanley Cup with the Maroons
Two years later, he was shipped to Boston where coach Art Ross, thinking the aging Babe’s skills were deteriorating, shifted him to defence.
It must have been a strange time: he was often paired with Eddie Shore on the Bruins’ blue line. The two detested one another so much after several previous vicious and bloody incidents that they never talked.
Despite being a first team all-star for the Bruins in 1935-36, Babe was shipped off to the Montreal Canadiens. The Habs immediately named him captain and he won another all-star selection. As sort of a thumb-to-the-nose to the Bruins, Babe won the NHL’s Hart trophy as MVP. At the end of the 1939 season, he decided to hang up the hockey stick, but Montreal wasn’t done with him, naming Babe the Canadiens’ coach for the upcoming year.
In two weeks’ time, Flash from the Past finishes the Babe Siebert story. It’s both heart-rending and heartwarming … and it renews the Kitchener connection.