EXTRAS
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE STORIES
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE STORIES
"FIVE MINUTES FOR FIGHTING!"
by
Dave Careless
Dave Careless
About the author: Dave Careless was born March 13, 1948 in Rotherham, in the coal-mining district of South Yorkshire, England. His father, Tom Careless, was working in the wages office of the National Coal Board at Aldwarke and Silverwood pits when he received a job offer in the autumn of 1957 to come to Bell Island to work at DOSCO's Main Office in charge of production and projections, determining how much ore was being produced and how much was required to fill the order books. Tom came on his own to get the lay of the land and was quickly promoted to Assistant to the General Manager (a position he held until the mines closed in 1966). In March of 1958, 10-year-old Dave and his mother, Jennie, arrived in Newfoundland. This is the story of Dave's new-found love of "the good old hockey game." (All photos by Tom Careless. You can see more Careless photos on the "Photo Gallery" page of this website. You can read more about Tom Careless in the "C" section of the "People" page.)
Dave Careless
A picture taken on the East Track, on an area that regularly flooded and froze over providing a place for pick-up hockey games that went on literally for hours on end on weekends during the winter. This photo must have been taken before March, 1964, as I got a very nice pair of hockey gloves that year for my sixteenth birthday, and I’d have been sure to have been wearing them if it had been taken after that date. In the background is father’s Ford Zephyr car, St. Cyprian’s Church and rectory, and in the far distance, the hills on the mainland side of Conception Bay, over around Bauline.
Rotherham
In my pre-teen years before emigrating to Canada and ending up on Bell Island in the early months of 1958, I was never much interested in sport of any kind. At the school I attended, Doncaster Road Junior Mixed in Rotherham, a steel-making and coal mining town in industrial south Yorkshire, physical activity was limited to running around in the playground at lunchtime, and climbing on the so-called ‘monkey bars’, plus an excursion to the nearby Clifton Park on Friday afternoons for an hour to play football. My hour was usually spent running around on the grass and attempting to look interested while at the same time making sure to distance myself as far away from the ball as possible for the entire hour! My father took me to see the local town football team, Rotherham United, play one Saturday afternoon, but I was far more interested in the ‘fans’ shouting obscenities at the referee than watching the actual game!
Bell Island
Once settled on Bell Island, my lack of interest in sports continued until that first winter, spent in the large house on the corner of Bennett Street and Bown Street. The Walker family lived in another Company-owned house just a few yards further down Bown Street, and both the Walker brothers, Bobby and David, had hockey sticks, so if I wanted to play alongside them, then I needed to get one as well. A game of street hockey, but played on a flat piece of the back garden at Bennett Street, was often on the go, and quite often the two boys from directly across the road, Tom and Eddie Kent, were involved as well.
In my pre-teen years before emigrating to Canada and ending up on Bell Island in the early months of 1958, I was never much interested in sport of any kind. At the school I attended, Doncaster Road Junior Mixed in Rotherham, a steel-making and coal mining town in industrial south Yorkshire, physical activity was limited to running around in the playground at lunchtime, and climbing on the so-called ‘monkey bars’, plus an excursion to the nearby Clifton Park on Friday afternoons for an hour to play football. My hour was usually spent running around on the grass and attempting to look interested while at the same time making sure to distance myself as far away from the ball as possible for the entire hour! My father took me to see the local town football team, Rotherham United, play one Saturday afternoon, but I was far more interested in the ‘fans’ shouting obscenities at the referee than watching the actual game!
Bell Island
Once settled on Bell Island, my lack of interest in sports continued until that first winter, spent in the large house on the corner of Bennett Street and Bown Street. The Walker family lived in another Company-owned house just a few yards further down Bown Street, and both the Walker brothers, Bobby and David, had hockey sticks, so if I wanted to play alongside them, then I needed to get one as well. A game of street hockey, but played on a flat piece of the back garden at Bennett Street, was often on the go, and quite often the two boys from directly across the road, Tom and Eddie Kent, were involved as well.
Myself on the left with Bobby and David Walker playing "street hockey" behind our house on the corner of Bennett and Bown Streets, winter 1959. (Mother Jennie Careless watching from the window.)
As I’ve noted in the other ‘personal experience’ story that I contributed to this Historic-Wabana website, “Around the Block”, games of ball hockey were regular occurrences after I’d moved from Bennett Street to the smaller Company-owned house on Greenwood Avenue in late 1959. This move coincided with my taking more of an interest in the hockey being played out on television every Saturday night, presumably as I was getting that little bit older, I was allowed to stay up and watch. One winter of that and I was completely hooked. There being only six NHL teams at that time, it was beamed from either Toronto or Montreal on alternate Saturdays, and myself and Patch, the family dog, could normally be found in front of the television watching whatever clash happened to be the one being transmitted country-wide.
Patch and myself in front of the television watching the hockey game on a typical Saturday night, circa 1961/62 or thereabouts.
Highly Collectible
The games on television were definitely a ‘must see’ every Saturday night, but the fascination didn’t end there. Back in the day, the Evening Telegram newspaper, to which my father had a weekly subscription, included a magazine with each Friday edition, and during the winter months, a feature of the magazine was a full-page photographic portrait of an NHL player, shot in a studio setting, but with the subject in his team colours and wearing full hockey gear, including skates, and holding his stick as well. Needless to say, these were avidly collected, and my dad was sometimes not best pleased when he discovered that a page of his Friday night magazine had already been carefully removed for the collection before he’d even had chance to see it for himself or to read whatever might have been on the other side! After a few seasons, a steadily growing pile of these rather splendid colour portraits could be found on the bookcase shelf in my bedroom.
Not to be outdone, the rival Star Weekly, published on the weekend, also had a magazine section, and their ‘hockey portrait’ was equally collectible. Theirs was different in that it featured a full-colour action shot of whomever they were highlighting in that particular issue. In order to get this, I had to be sure to save 15 cents from my weekly allowance and go across the waste ground to the Paradise Café on a Sunday afternoon and purchase it from there; Fleming’s Drug Store on Town Square being the other available option if Wing, the proprietor of the Paradise, had no copies of the Star Weekly left.
I well remember augmenting my collection of these hockey portraits and stories from another rather unlikely source on one particular occasion as well. My mother and I had journeyed to St. John’s one weekday, probably in about 1961 or ’62, in order to pay a visit to our dentist, Dr. Hann, who had a practice on Lemarchant Road. Whilst we were in the waiting room, I came across a Life magazine that had a feature article on the Chicago Black Hawks in it, and was particularly pleased as they were my favourite NHL team at the time. I seem to recall the article included a full-page photograph taken in the team’s dressing room, complete with a pile of sweaty hockey equipment and even several of the Black Hawks’ stars sat around smoking cigarettes! Naturally, I wasn’t leaving the dentist’s office without that! Under my mother’s slightly disgusted he’s-not-with-me gaze, I carefully ripped the applicable pages out and got her to put them in her handbag for me. She had to be complicit that day, whether she liked it or not!
You’d have thought collecting the hockey portraits and action views might have been enough, but it definitely wasn’t. In what can only be described as a rather shrewd marketing move, the Shirriff company that marketed jelly powder and pudding mixes started giving away ‘hockey coins’ in their products’ boxes, featuring a small plastic ‘coin’ with the likeness of an NHL player featured on each coin. Considering there were six teams, as already mentioned, and 20 players featured from each team, there were no less than 120 of these ‘coins’ to be collected! Unsurprisingly, my mother was even less pleased than she’d been that morning in the St. John’s dentist’s office when she discovered the horde of boxes of jelly powders and puddings hidden in my bedroom one day, and that I’d been spending my allowance money on, needless to say considerably more than I’d been forking out for the Star Weekly, much to Mrs. Vicki Carbage’s delight, I might add. In case you might be wondering, I never did manage to achieve the complete set. The only person I knew who did was Ivan Tucker, who lived around the block from me in an identical Company-owned house. Ivan had all 120 suitably mounted and displayed on a cardboard backing, of which I was extremely jealous!
The games on television were definitely a ‘must see’ every Saturday night, but the fascination didn’t end there. Back in the day, the Evening Telegram newspaper, to which my father had a weekly subscription, included a magazine with each Friday edition, and during the winter months, a feature of the magazine was a full-page photographic portrait of an NHL player, shot in a studio setting, but with the subject in his team colours and wearing full hockey gear, including skates, and holding his stick as well. Needless to say, these were avidly collected, and my dad was sometimes not best pleased when he discovered that a page of his Friday night magazine had already been carefully removed for the collection before he’d even had chance to see it for himself or to read whatever might have been on the other side! After a few seasons, a steadily growing pile of these rather splendid colour portraits could be found on the bookcase shelf in my bedroom.
Not to be outdone, the rival Star Weekly, published on the weekend, also had a magazine section, and their ‘hockey portrait’ was equally collectible. Theirs was different in that it featured a full-colour action shot of whomever they were highlighting in that particular issue. In order to get this, I had to be sure to save 15 cents from my weekly allowance and go across the waste ground to the Paradise Café on a Sunday afternoon and purchase it from there; Fleming’s Drug Store on Town Square being the other available option if Wing, the proprietor of the Paradise, had no copies of the Star Weekly left.
I well remember augmenting my collection of these hockey portraits and stories from another rather unlikely source on one particular occasion as well. My mother and I had journeyed to St. John’s one weekday, probably in about 1961 or ’62, in order to pay a visit to our dentist, Dr. Hann, who had a practice on Lemarchant Road. Whilst we were in the waiting room, I came across a Life magazine that had a feature article on the Chicago Black Hawks in it, and was particularly pleased as they were my favourite NHL team at the time. I seem to recall the article included a full-page photograph taken in the team’s dressing room, complete with a pile of sweaty hockey equipment and even several of the Black Hawks’ stars sat around smoking cigarettes! Naturally, I wasn’t leaving the dentist’s office without that! Under my mother’s slightly disgusted he’s-not-with-me gaze, I carefully ripped the applicable pages out and got her to put them in her handbag for me. She had to be complicit that day, whether she liked it or not!
You’d have thought collecting the hockey portraits and action views might have been enough, but it definitely wasn’t. In what can only be described as a rather shrewd marketing move, the Shirriff company that marketed jelly powder and pudding mixes started giving away ‘hockey coins’ in their products’ boxes, featuring a small plastic ‘coin’ with the likeness of an NHL player featured on each coin. Considering there were six teams, as already mentioned, and 20 players featured from each team, there were no less than 120 of these ‘coins’ to be collected! Unsurprisingly, my mother was even less pleased than she’d been that morning in the St. John’s dentist’s office when she discovered the horde of boxes of jelly powders and puddings hidden in my bedroom one day, and that I’d been spending my allowance money on, needless to say considerably more than I’d been forking out for the Star Weekly, much to Mrs. Vicki Carbage’s delight, I might add. In case you might be wondering, I never did manage to achieve the complete set. The only person I knew who did was Ivan Tucker, who lived around the block from me in an identical Company-owned house. Ivan had all 120 suitably mounted and displayed on a cardboard backing, of which I was extremely jealous!
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A typical Shirriff ‘hockey coin’ of the day; I found this photograph on the ‘net, but ironically, I seem to remember that No. 15 ‘Johnny Wilson’ was one of the Leafs that I was desperate to get, and spent a good portion of my allowance at Carbage’s on Town Square trying to do just that, alas to no avail! It’s difficult to describe just how crushingly disappointing it was to keep getting the same ones over and over again, while the ones you needed never appeared.
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The Real Thing
What with the ball hockey in the back yard, the ice hockey on the frozen pool of water behind Bennett’s garage on Church Road, not to mention the sheaf of studio and action portraits of the NHL stars of the day, the Saturday night ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ broadcasts on television, and the hidden packets of jelly powder in my bedroom in an attempt to collect the entire series of ‘hockey coins’, it was only a matter of time before I was desperate to ask for some hockey gear of my own so that I could attempt to play organised hockey. I had skates, of course, but that was it as regards any proper hockey equipment, so I was fortunate that my father was generous enough to indulge me when it came to outfitting me to play. I can’t remember now just where it was we bought the stuff from, but I seem to recall it was purchased from somebody who sold the equipment more or less out of their house, and it was somewhere perhaps down at the bottom of Armoury Road, near Neary’s Barn, in that general area. For some reason, perhaps they didn’t have any at the time, I didn’t have any proper hockey gloves, but I managed to get everything else I needed, including what today would be considered a very rudimentary helmet. I can remember posing for a ‘studio portrait’ in it all, skates and stick included, just like my NHL ‘hockey coin’ heroes, in our den in the small Greenwood Avenue house, feeling very pleased with myself. My mother made me a hockey bag, complete with drawstring and, as far as I was concerned, I was all set for the real thing.
I can’t remember now just how it all came about, but the first Saturday morning after I’d gotten all the hockey gear, except the gloves, I got completely dressed for a game, apart from the skates, and my dad and I headed for the Monsignor Bartlett Memorial Arena up on the Ridge. My neighbour, Gerry ‘Butch’ Forshner, played up there, and the idea was that I could play on his team. There was no hard and fast list of players; it was basically an organised scrimmage as much as anything else. Anyway, it was a whole lot of fun, as I recall, getting the skates on in the upstairs dressing room and all and, more or less at that point, I was ‘living the dream’. Unfortunately, the dream was destined not to last very long at all.
It’s all very hazy now, so many decades later but, after only a few shifts, some verbal exchange occurred with a player on the other team. Kevin Kennedy, I remember it was, and we both ended up being guilty of attempting to imitate our heroes in the big leagues that we watched on television every Saturday night when we grabbed hold of each other and wrestled one another to the ice! I can just recall my dad, who was looking on, shouting, “No, Dave, no, don’t do that!” before both Kevin and I tumbled to the ice in a heap! An inglorious debut it most certainly was! Albert Ash, the poor chap who had volunteered to be the referee that morning, looked just about as startled and unsure of what to do next as we both were. He sent us to the penalty box for a few minutes to cool off, but the rest of the morning’s activity was pretty much desultory after that, I have to say! Father had calmed down sufficiently after the Saturday morning ‘hockey game’ was over, and we actually had a bit of a laugh about it all on the way back home again in the car. I seem to recall it was a bit of a topic for discussion at the Saturday matinee at the Prince’s Theatre that afternoon, but for the life of me I can’t remember putting that hockey gear on or going back to the rink for a Saturday morning organised hockey game ever again! Somewhere there’s a slide of me posing in the spare room on Greenwood Avenue wearing all that hockey equipment, but that’s about it. I’ve often wondered if Kevin Kennedy ever remembered that ‘hockey fight’ we had at the rink on Bell Island that Saturday morning all those years ago. I know I certainly do!!
And for the record, I did get a very nice pair of hockey gloves for my sixteenth birthday the following Spring.
What with the ball hockey in the back yard, the ice hockey on the frozen pool of water behind Bennett’s garage on Church Road, not to mention the sheaf of studio and action portraits of the NHL stars of the day, the Saturday night ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ broadcasts on television, and the hidden packets of jelly powder in my bedroom in an attempt to collect the entire series of ‘hockey coins’, it was only a matter of time before I was desperate to ask for some hockey gear of my own so that I could attempt to play organised hockey. I had skates, of course, but that was it as regards any proper hockey equipment, so I was fortunate that my father was generous enough to indulge me when it came to outfitting me to play. I can’t remember now just where it was we bought the stuff from, but I seem to recall it was purchased from somebody who sold the equipment more or less out of their house, and it was somewhere perhaps down at the bottom of Armoury Road, near Neary’s Barn, in that general area. For some reason, perhaps they didn’t have any at the time, I didn’t have any proper hockey gloves, but I managed to get everything else I needed, including what today would be considered a very rudimentary helmet. I can remember posing for a ‘studio portrait’ in it all, skates and stick included, just like my NHL ‘hockey coin’ heroes, in our den in the small Greenwood Avenue house, feeling very pleased with myself. My mother made me a hockey bag, complete with drawstring and, as far as I was concerned, I was all set for the real thing.
I can’t remember now just how it all came about, but the first Saturday morning after I’d gotten all the hockey gear, except the gloves, I got completely dressed for a game, apart from the skates, and my dad and I headed for the Monsignor Bartlett Memorial Arena up on the Ridge. My neighbour, Gerry ‘Butch’ Forshner, played up there, and the idea was that I could play on his team. There was no hard and fast list of players; it was basically an organised scrimmage as much as anything else. Anyway, it was a whole lot of fun, as I recall, getting the skates on in the upstairs dressing room and all and, more or less at that point, I was ‘living the dream’. Unfortunately, the dream was destined not to last very long at all.
It’s all very hazy now, so many decades later but, after only a few shifts, some verbal exchange occurred with a player on the other team. Kevin Kennedy, I remember it was, and we both ended up being guilty of attempting to imitate our heroes in the big leagues that we watched on television every Saturday night when we grabbed hold of each other and wrestled one another to the ice! I can just recall my dad, who was looking on, shouting, “No, Dave, no, don’t do that!” before both Kevin and I tumbled to the ice in a heap! An inglorious debut it most certainly was! Albert Ash, the poor chap who had volunteered to be the referee that morning, looked just about as startled and unsure of what to do next as we both were. He sent us to the penalty box for a few minutes to cool off, but the rest of the morning’s activity was pretty much desultory after that, I have to say! Father had calmed down sufficiently after the Saturday morning ‘hockey game’ was over, and we actually had a bit of a laugh about it all on the way back home again in the car. I seem to recall it was a bit of a topic for discussion at the Saturday matinee at the Prince’s Theatre that afternoon, but for the life of me I can’t remember putting that hockey gear on or going back to the rink for a Saturday morning organised hockey game ever again! Somewhere there’s a slide of me posing in the spare room on Greenwood Avenue wearing all that hockey equipment, but that’s about it. I’ve often wondered if Kevin Kennedy ever remembered that ‘hockey fight’ we had at the rink on Bell Island that Saturday morning all those years ago. I know I certainly do!!
And for the record, I did get a very nice pair of hockey gloves for my sixteenth birthday the following Spring.
‘No fighting’!! Gerry Forshner had obligingly flooded his front yard to make a rink in this view taken likely circa March of 1963 or thereabouts. From left to right are brothers Tom and Ed Kent, Gerald Jr. ‘Butch’ Forshner, and myself. It must have been before I got those very nice yellow hockey gloves for my birthday, otherwise I’d definitely have been wearing them on this day, no doubt about it!
"BALL HOCKEY"
As much fun as playing organised ice hockey was, although admittedly not all that often, and hockey on the frozen flooded meadow on the west side of the East Track, there was equally as much, if not more fun to be had playing ball hockey, literally for hours on end, usually on the piece of relatively flat waste ground at the top of the unpaved laneway between and up behind the Paradise Cafe and Leonard's Dry Goods Store on Bennett Street. As I remember, Saturdays in the early Spring months of 1963 and '64, and often Sundays too, were spent engaged in this simple pursuit, that required only a hockey stick each and one of those red, white and blue striped rubber balls; not a major outlay, unlike in today's world, where a hockey stick can cost an exorbitant price, unlike the maximum $5 purchase of one from Charlie Cohen's shop on Town Square or from Clarke and Clarke's hardware store on Scotia Ridge!
These games would literally go on for hours on end, usually with a break for lunch, ending only when darkness fell and it became too difficult to actually see the ball! Anybody could play, it was always a case of "the more the merrier," but without a doubt there was a steady core of main protagonists who were always involved. These included the three Dunn brothers, Mike, Gordie and the diminutive younger brother Lenny, who lived at the corner of Bennett Street and East Track; Kevin 'Junior' Kennedy, who resided in a family flat in the lower reaches of Town Square; my good friend Eddie Mercer from his house on Church Road; Ronnie Leonard, whose house above the family shop overlooked where we were playing; and myself, living just on the other side of this field on Greenwood Avenue adjacent to St. Boniface High School. So none of us had more than a few hundred yards to walk, from any direction, with hockey sticks, in order to reach the site of the action!
I look back on these days, some sixty years later, with much pleasure and fond recollection. I can vividly remember keeping a record of my goals that I scored, just for fun and nothing else because at the time in NHL hockey scoring fifty goals was the much sought after number, and the one that the professionals were always shooting for. I took a lot of good-natured ribbing initially for doing it, but as I inevitably got closer to the magic number, (believe me, it wasn't particularly hard to score!!) it wasn't quite so funny, and the rest of them were wishing they had done the same! Back at home after every session over at the field, I recorded my goals in a small green diary (remember, they nearly always had a detailed map of the London Underground system on the inside front cover?!). The diary has long been lost or thrown out, but there are times, like now, when I'm reminiscing about those much-missed ball hockey games on that piece of waste ground, when I dearly wish I still had it!
Sadly, Eddie Mercer is no longer with us, and of the rest of that gang who played for hours on that piece of waste ground with hockey sticks, I'm not sure. If anybody from that era and from that group happens to read this and has any particular thoughts or recollections somewhat akin to my own, I'd be more than pleased to hear from them. [email protected]
The ball hockey game pictured below took place at the bottom of the Careless yard on the corner of Greenwood Avenue and Church Road. Dave is in the middle of the photo.
These games would literally go on for hours on end, usually with a break for lunch, ending only when darkness fell and it became too difficult to actually see the ball! Anybody could play, it was always a case of "the more the merrier," but without a doubt there was a steady core of main protagonists who were always involved. These included the three Dunn brothers, Mike, Gordie and the diminutive younger brother Lenny, who lived at the corner of Bennett Street and East Track; Kevin 'Junior' Kennedy, who resided in a family flat in the lower reaches of Town Square; my good friend Eddie Mercer from his house on Church Road; Ronnie Leonard, whose house above the family shop overlooked where we were playing; and myself, living just on the other side of this field on Greenwood Avenue adjacent to St. Boniface High School. So none of us had more than a few hundred yards to walk, from any direction, with hockey sticks, in order to reach the site of the action!
I look back on these days, some sixty years later, with much pleasure and fond recollection. I can vividly remember keeping a record of my goals that I scored, just for fun and nothing else because at the time in NHL hockey scoring fifty goals was the much sought after number, and the one that the professionals were always shooting for. I took a lot of good-natured ribbing initially for doing it, but as I inevitably got closer to the magic number, (believe me, it wasn't particularly hard to score!!) it wasn't quite so funny, and the rest of them were wishing they had done the same! Back at home after every session over at the field, I recorded my goals in a small green diary (remember, they nearly always had a detailed map of the London Underground system on the inside front cover?!). The diary has long been lost or thrown out, but there are times, like now, when I'm reminiscing about those much-missed ball hockey games on that piece of waste ground, when I dearly wish I still had it!
Sadly, Eddie Mercer is no longer with us, and of the rest of that gang who played for hours on that piece of waste ground with hockey sticks, I'm not sure. If anybody from that era and from that group happens to read this and has any particular thoughts or recollections somewhat akin to my own, I'd be more than pleased to hear from them. [email protected]
The ball hockey game pictured below took place at the bottom of the Careless yard on the corner of Greenwood Avenue and Church Road. Dave is in the middle of the photo.
