Editor’s Note: This article was submitted by the Stayner Siskins.
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Canadian hockey fans were gripped with emotion as Russia challenged to upset Canada’s claim to be the best in the world 50 years ago. Canadians from sea to sea seemingly spoke of nothing else but the game. In Stayner, there was more hockey history being made.
In 1972, Stayner formed a Junior D hockey team and was about to start tryouts. The local population buzzed with excitement.
Bill Keith was the mastermind behind the Siskins. Keith noticed there were many good midget hockey players in and around Stayner. He saw potential.
In the spring of 1972, the Stayner Siskins made their entry into the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA). Pearson Spellman, who was on the original executive, recounted the beginning of the club.
“After Thanksgiving, the season started but we were thinking about players we could get to ice a team from Stayner, Creemore and surrounding area,” he said. “The first year was no hell. We just wanted to be competitive. We finished in the middle of the pack.”
The club’s record was 13-9-5.
Keith took over the coaching reins a few months into the season from the club’s inaugural coach, Father Bill Scanlon, who played for the legendary Flying Fathers and was the local priest at St. Patrick’s parish. Paul “Sivvy” Carruthers was the general manager and Barney Parker was the first team captain.
The following three seasons can be remembered as the heyday years for the club. Stayner went to the Ontario finals every year, capturing two provincial Junior D championships. They also won three Junior C league championships, beating teams from bigger centres. Kevin McInnis captained the team during those three years. The big turnaround for the team, he concluded, was several players joined.
Rick Gowan became junior age. Gowan was a real point-getter. Mark Hannon came from Honeywood and he was a heck of a hockey player.
“We got a little bit older, tougher and better,” he said. “Barry Corby was a money goaltender; he stood on his head. We just blended. We did things together on and off the ice. We were a tight group. We were proud of what we achieved in the first four years. It was fun times when you were 17,18, 19, 20.”
Players from those winning teams were too old to play junior hockey and would go on to form the nucleus for many championship years playing intermediate and senior hockey in Creemore.
Siskins teams didn’t dominate again until 1986-95, finishing first during seven Georgian Bay Junior C Hockey League seasons, winning five league titles and reaching the Schmalz Cup finals in 1991-92. The Schmalz Cup is equivalent to the Stanley Cup in Ontario Junior C hockey. It also means the winner is the best in Ontario.
The 1986 and 1987 clubs were feisty and talented. Led by Puckman (Rob Swanton) and the Trott twins, Bryan and Brent, the green and gold machine rolled to 54 wins, one tie, three overtime losses and just four losses in a 62-regular-game span over those two years. The team didn’t do as well in the Georgian Bay Junior C Hockey League playoffs, never winning the title, but there never was any doubt this team was talented.
The next two years, three players joined the team, and they would go on to have remarkable hockey careers. Steve Walker, 15, and defenceman Richard Gauthier, 17, made the 1988 team; Jason Arnott, 14, joined the team the following year.
Walker left the Siskins after one year to play Junior B hockey with the Collingwood Blues and Major Junior A with the Owen Sound Platers under coach Orville Tessier. During the 1991 season, the young forward made a difficult decision to leave the Platers. Stayner’s general manager, Bruce Beacock, gave Walker the opportunity to reboot his hockey dream partway through the 1991-92 season. Head coach Tim Dickey and assistant coaches John Nixon, Bob McKean and Sivvy Carruthers were delighted to get Walker’s scoring prowess, which only added to a strong nucleus.
Big and strong on the back line and with goal scorers galore, the local team dominated, finishing the regular season with a 34-4-0 record. Stayner won the league and advanced to the Ontario finals against Belle River Canadiens. The series was riveting and went six games, but Belle River was better. This would be the last time Stayner reached the provincial finals, until last season, when the team went to the final-four series.
By 1993, Walker turned pro, playing in several leagues including the IHL, where he captained the Detroit Vipers and got to play on the same line with Gordie Howe, then age 69, in his last game. Walker enjoyed a storied career playing for the Berlin Polar Bears, scoring 213 goals and 379 assists. He served as captain nine of the 11 years there. His No. 27 was retired on Boxing Day 2014 and hangs from the rafters in the Berlin Arena.
Interestingly, Stayner gave Walker another opportunity and, like his playing days, he made the best of it. Looking to get back into hockey and with former Siskins teammate Richard Gauthier, then-team general manager Gauthier gave him the head coach job from 2013-15, when he developed his craft.
In 2015, Walker was back in the German league. He was assistant coach for a couple of years with the Mannheim Hockey Club. He took a stint as head coach in the Austrian league but has returned to the German league as assistant coach with Munich Red Bull.
The most accomplished player to ever wear a Siskins uniform was NHL all-star and Stanley Cup champion Jason Arnott. When Arnott was bantam aged, he scored 21 goals and 31 assists for the Junior C squad. One year as a Siskin is all he lasted as scouts heard about the hockey prodigy. Over 22 seasons in the
NHL, the 6-foot-5 power forward scored 417 goals and 938 points.
Gauthier joined the team in 1988 and played tough, rugged Siskins defence for four years including with the 1991 provincial finalist team. The last 25 years, however, is what differentiates him from all others. He has served as assistant coach, coach, general manager, president, and director of operations. Since that time, the Siskins have won nine regular-season titles and four league or division championships, and twice came close to winning the Schmalz Cup, in the 2017 and 2021 seasons.
Walker, who knows Gauthier well, commented from Munich about his former teammate and general manager, saying, “Richard’s work over the years has been second to none. He is truly the heart and soul of hockey in Stayner. Most of the work he does is behind the scenes and is a thankless job. He has given the team and community so much and he’s the reason the Siskins have remained in Stayner.”
The 1998 to 2004 Stayner teams excelled, winning the regular season four times and the playoffs twice. Thinking back to those years, Gauthier recalled those teams were made up of some extraordinary local talent — Matt Lougheed, Garbutts and Schaaps, Johnny Patterson, Chris Grier and lots of guys out of the Clearview and Collingwood areas. Those kids won a lot of all-Ontarios growing up playing minor hockey.
The next decade belonged to the Alliston Hornets, but the Siskins figured it out and are back on top.
In 2017, Stayner’s season record was a remarkable 40 wins and two losses — the best in their long history. The team advanced as expected before losing in a seventh game Ontario semifinal thriller against the Lakefield Chiefs, the eventual Ontario champions.
COVID-19 voided the entire 2020 season and the 2019 season championship division series between Stayner and Alliston.
Back on the ice in 2021, teams in the Provincial Junior C Hockey League had the difficult task of icing a team because of COVID-19. Stayner’s green and gold managed to do extremely well and put together an enviable 25-4-0-1 season to win the Carruthers division, aptly named after Stayner’s Paul “Sivvy” Carruthers, who contributed in a big way to the success of junior hockey in Ontario.
Winning the Carruthers Division championship is no cakewalk.
“Last year, we were down 3-0 in the league semifinal against Alliston; we made a switch in goaltending and Cameron Hanson won the next four, Game 7 in overtime, swept Schomberg and then we beat Mitchell in six to get to the Schmalz Cup,” said Gauthier. “We were a skilled hockey club. We expected to win our league. We expected to win the (Ontario) quarterfinals. But when we were down 3-0, I mean, we were going to blow up the whole team, and then we come back, and we are great again.”
Stayner advanced to the Ontario Schmalz Cup final four to compete against three other teams in a Memorial Cup-style playoff. The talented local club went 2-2, losing to the Clarington Eagles in the semifinals. The Lakeshore Canadiens won the cup.
“It was a good year to get us to our 50th. The plan is to win the Schmalz Cup. Maybe I’ll retire when I get the ring,” Gauthier hinted.
He was referring to winning the provincial championship and the Schmalz Cup that has avoided him since 1988.
Fifty years in hockey deserves to be golden for the Stayner Siskins.
The Siskins played their first game of their 50th season on Oct. 6.
