SPORTS
A BRIEF HISTORY
A full account of sports activity on Bell Island would easily fill a large book. I will leave that project for a true sports enthusiast to compile. Instead, I will attempt to give a brief overview of sporting activity on Bell Island, mainly gleaned from Addison Bown's "Newspaper History of Bell Island," which he himself gleaned from reports in the St. John's Daily News, 1893-1939. Prior to the start of mining in 1895, there were very few newspaper reports regarding life on Bell Island. The only mention of pre-mining sporting activity comes to us from Thomas Power, who was born on a farm on Bell Island in 1882 and wrote his memoir, "Belle Island Boyhood: a Memoir of Newfoundland in the Nineties" around 1949. He mentions playing "hockey, cricket and rugby. I think our favourite was rugby, a football game played entirely with the feet. Our football was made from a part of a bull's hide and lined with a beef bladder filled with air. It was a bouncing ball far superior to any manufactured product." He does not speak of these games as having been played in any organized or competitive way.
Once mining got underway on Bell Island in 1895, there was an influx of miners and mining company staff, and a variety of sporting activity soon followed. I will fill in information on which sports were happening as time allows. Stay tuned...
The Sport Field
The work to build the Sports Field was started in October 1931. DOSCO donated the land which was just south of the Main Office. The Daily News reported that "by an outstanding example of community cooperation, it was transformed into the modern athletic grounds which are the pride of Bell Island." The mines were on shut-down at that time and due to reopen on Nov. 5th. 1736 men volunteered their labour. The Company supplied picks, shovels, dynamite, horses and expertise. Sods were laid a year later. A grandstand and dressing rooms were built in 1934, by which time 8 football teams and 3 baseball teams were using the field. The first A.A.A. Sports took place Sept. 2, 1936. 700 visitors came from St. John's and 2,500 local residents attended the events. "The grounds were gaily decorated and spectators were standing five deep outside the rails, while the grandstand seating 600 was filled to overflowing." It was the first time that championship sports were held outside St. John's, and the first time that Nfld. athletes had run on a regulation cinder track measuring 1/4 mile (440 yards). Previously they had used a turf surface for the racing events. The source of the cinders was the Power Plant at Dominion Pier.
For a time, at least in the 1950s-1960s, Bell Island had two sports days. The A.A.U. of C. (Amateur Athletic Union of Canada) Sports Day in August, and the Labour Day Sports in September.
The photos above of the Labour Day Sports are from the October 1956 issue of the ​Submarine Miner, ​p. 7.
Photos below from the September 1958 issue of the Submarine Miner, p. 5, are of the August 15, 1958 Sports Day.
In the August 1962 photo above, Frank Bennett competes in the Shot-Put. Photo by Tom Careless, courtesy of Dave Careless.​