To celebrate 125 years of The Varsity, the sports section will run a series of articles tracing the history of sports at U of T. Here is part one, which focuses on the development of this fine institution’s hockey programs.
If you take a walk through Varsity Arena, it’s virtually impossible not to notice certain elements about its construction. If you look down, you see the worn down floors at its base. If you look to the side, you see the seemingly ancient stone walls that line the corridors. If you look up, you see the rusty girders that line the peaked ceiling.
But it is from these same girders that hang the banners of the numerous championships that make up U of T’s hockey resumé. On the walls hang the pictures of past players and teams that hit the ice for the teams of yesteryear. As you walk on that same floor at Varsity Arena, you are retracing the steps of a school with a long and immensely proud hockey tradition that stretches back over 100 years.
In 1891 the University of Toronto Hockey Club (UTHC) was formed. The squad won its inaugural game 2-0-a sign of good things to come. In the decade to follow, U of T teams became a part of the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA), as consistent intercollegiate competition did not surface until 1903.
It was in this year that the Intercollegiate Hockey Union (IHU) was formed, with U of T-along with McGill and Queen’s-as a founding member. In the first intercollegiate hockey game in Canada’s history, Toronto battled Queen’s and found itself on the losing end of a 7-1 score, but this futility was not to last.
It was a short four years later that U of T won its first Queen’s Cup and were acknowledged as intercollegiate hockey champions. This achievement was the first of many astonishing accolades and accomplishments that would follow for Toronto’s hockey club.
The UTHC moved into its current home, Varsity Arena, upon its completion in 1926 (five years before the legendary Maple Leaf Gardens was finished). The move occurred during a period of dominance at both the intercollegiate and national levels, as the team won ten straight Queen’s Cups in the 1920s and competed for the Allan Cup-the championship trophy for amateur hockey in Canada-on several occasions.
These feats of hockey greatness on the collegiate and national levels were soon to be eclipsed by the ultimate international victory. In 1928, the Varsity Grads-a team consisting of University of Toronto graduates and alumni-traveled to Saint Moritz, Switzerland to compete in the Winter Olympic Games. The team rolled over competitors from Great Britain, Switzerland, and Sweden en route to capturing the gold medal in Olympic ice hockey, helping to build the long-standing Canadian excellence in men’s international competition (this year’s Olympic squad notwithstanding).
The celebrated Varsity Grads team was put together and coached by a man named Conn Smythe, himself a former U of T hockey captain. Smythe, however, did not accompany the Grads on their historic trip overseas, mainly because he was slightly preoccupied with his newly purchased Toronto St. Patricks hockey team.
After one season, Smythe, the patriotic war veteran, renamed the St. Pats the Maple Leafs and changed the team’s colours from green and black to blue and white-which also happens to be U of T’s colour scheme.
The involvement of the Maple Leaf patriarch wasn’t Toronto’s only brush with the NHL. After a career-ending injury at the hands of Eddie Shore, Irvine ‘Ace’ Bailey, a star forward for the Leafs, took on head coaching duties for U of T’s senior hockey team for much of the 1930s. Bailey worked to rebuild a team that had fallen on hard times after the massive successes of the 1920s.
Bailey however, is most famous for having the first NHL all-star game organized in his honour, and is (along with Smythe and fellow U of T graduate Angus D. Campbell) a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame.
The university’s involvement in the history of Canadian hockey is not exclusive to the men’s team; the women’s program has a historic tradition that also stretches across many decades, as women’s hockey has been played here in some shape or form since 1900.
It was in February, 1922 that the first women’s intercollegiate game was played between McGill and U of T at Toronto’s Mutual St. Arena. However, this precedent was not to last as both McGill and Queen’s withdrew from intercollegiate play shortly after, and the U of T squad was forced to play Toronto city league and Ontario-based teams.
But the lack of intercollegiate competition did not phase the women’s team. It won the 1924-25 Ontario women’s championship with a team that is regarded as one of the greatest hockey teams ever to don Toronto colours. This team was led by star forward Marion Hilliard-the namesake of U of T’s preseason invitational hockey tournament and a legend in women’s hockey circles.
Women’s play at the intercollegiate level did not return on a consistent basis until the 1960s, although sporadic competition did occur in the mid-to-late 1950s. Now the women’s intercollegiate hockey program here is one of the strongest in the nation, and it owes a great debt to those who pioneered its conception on this very campus.
The current women’s hockey team is set to add another glorious chapter in U of T history, as it is going for gold at the national finals this weekend. The tradition of success is continuing.
The Varsity has been present since the beginning to trace the formation of this proud tradition of hockey at U of T.
After the first intercollegiate men’s game in Toronto, a reporter for The Varsity remarked that the game still needed to be fine tuned and reworked: “The features usually looked for in Intercollegiate sports, team work, speed and clean play were conspicuously absent.”
A few short years later, the paper was at the front lines of lobbying for a new arena. A 1911 issue states, “We deserve and should have an Arena of our own.”
The Varsity has gone stride-for-stride with U of T’s hockey teams throughout all the ups and downs over the decades, and will continue to do so as long as Varsity Arena is filled with the sounds of blades hitting the ice and cheering in the stands. Old footsteps may be replaced with new ones, but the proud tradition of hockey at this university is not going to change.
