Last night I watched the Toronto Maple Leafs win against the Minnesota Wild in a hard fought game.
But the activity before the game was a salute to all the black hockey players that have made it to the NHL. There was also a mention about Herb Carnegie who did not make it to the NHL and that he may have been the best hockey player to ever play the game and not make it to the big time.
Wayne Simmonds came out for the ceremonial face off and that is when my memory went back 69 years to a special event in my life and it joins Wayne Simmonds and Herb Carnegie together in a way that very few of us would remember.
So here is the story. To start with, you need to understand that my father was a sports nut. He was crazy about baseball and hockey. In the 1950’s, he invented stacked TV watching having two TV’s stacked so that he could watch two games at the same time. He also somehow could manage to watch one game on TV and listen to another on the radio at the same time. In the 1980’s, my mother said that he was the only Canadian male to winter in Florida so that he could sit inside and watch sports on TV.
But, in the 1950’s, he was a big fan of the Owen Sound Mercury Senior A Hockey team. This franchise existed for 10 years and won the Alan Cup in 1950-51emblamatic of Senior Hockey supremacy in Canada. Over their 10 years they had a total of 14 players on the team that had played or got to play in the NHL. Most notable were Ken Douglas and Leo Reise who both had long and outstanding stays at the top of the game. But there was also one additional exceptional hockey player that donned the Mercury uniform.
In the 1953-54 season, after an outstanding nine-year career dominating Senior Hockey in Quebec, Herb Carnegie signed with the Owen Sound team. That year the Mercury’s led the OHL Senior League going 39-16-1 over the 56-game schedule before losing the Eastern Canada final. Herb Carnegie had led the team with 20 goals and 35 assists in the 54 regular season games he played. This was the swan song for Herb and, at season’s end, the 35-year-old retired from hockey.
That year, my father took me to a number of Mercury games, so I got to see Herb play on a few occasions. My only recollection today is that he was smaller than most of the others and was fast and handled the puck exceptionally well. In fact, he was 5 ft. 8” and 170 lbs.
So now, we move the clock ahead 53 years to 2006, and an 18-year-old Wayne Simmons arrives in Owen Sound. He is considered an “Elite Prospect” and plays like one, scoring 23 goals and adding 26 assists over 62 games along with 112 penalty minutes indicating his rugged play. He is drafted in the second round of the NHL draft, 61st overall, by the Los Angeles Kings. Part way through the 2007-08 season he is traded to the (Sault Ste. Marie) SOO Greyhounds to be part of their playoff run.
And there he was on Thursday night being honoured for his contribution to hockey by playing in the NHL for 13 years. And at the same time Herb Carnegie was being mentioned as the greatest Black Hockey player to “never” play in the NHL. His hockey career was recognized when he was inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 2014 and there is a strong move afoot to have him inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
In 1938, Conn Smythe had made this statement after watching him play with the Toronto Young Rangers, “If someone could turn Herb Carnegie white, I would pay them $10,000.”
Both Herb and Wayne got to play in Owen Sound.
Researched and written by:
G. William (Bill) Streeter
With Thanks to my dad George
