Fred Payton
Prince Albert Historical Society
It’s that time of year again, when hockey fanatics become engrossed in the latest scores, statistics, and standings. We are a good six weeks into junior hockey play, and two weeks into play in the National Hockey League.
It might be too early to predict which team will make it to the play-offs, and who the stand-out players are going to be. But it is never too early to look back, to think about the local heroes who have made it to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
It was on August 26, 1961 that the thirteenth Prime Minister of Canada officially opened the Hockey Hall of Fame’s first public exhibition in a building on the grounds of the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, Ontario. It was the next year, on August 25th, that one of John Diefenbaker’s constituents, Samuel Russell (Rusty) Crawford, was announced as a member of the Hall of Fame.
While the announcement was made at a dinner, the official induction did not occur until the following year, on August 24th. The Daily Herald carried a wire story in the August 26th, 1963 newspaper telling of a dinner at which sixteen crests were presented. Included in that list was the name of Rusty Crawford. No fanfare, no interview, no information about the man’s incredible story. Just a little filler at the bottom of the page.
It should also be noted that the C.N.E. location was later closed and a new downtown location was opened in Toronto’s Brookfield Place (the corner of Yonge and Front Streets) in 1993.
Samuel Russell Crawford was born in Cardinal, Ontario in 1885. His love of playing hockey emerged at an early age. He began his career playing at Vernon, Ontario, close to his home community. As an adult, he moved to Vancouver, where he worked for a packing company. But in 1907, he felt the call of the east and planned to move back and join the Montreal Wanderers. On the journey east, he was met at the Regina railway station where he was convinced to stay and play for that season with the local hockey team. His abilities as a hockey player were immediately evident, and he became highly regarded throughout the province.
In the 1908/09 season, Crawford played for the newly organised Prince Albert Minto professional hockey team. The Mintos won the provincial hockey title in both 1910 and 1911. In his early years with the Mintos, Crawford roomed with fellow player J.H. “Bruno” Bennett. Bennett would later refer to Crawford as “one of the best if not the best hockey player in Canada”. It was, he would say, “a toss up between Rusty and Cyclone Taylor, as to just who was the best at that time.” He described Crawford as being an outstanding skater, “one of the fastest skaters I have ever seen.”
During his time with the Mintos, Crawford met his wife, Mary Ortloff. Originally from Thief Falls, Montana, she had moved with her family to Star City, Saskatchewan, from where she moved to Prince Albert for work. The couple married in 1910, and in 1911 established a homestead at Spruce Home.
After the marriage, Crawford started playing hockey with the Saskatoon Wholesalers, as well as an all-star team in Winnipeg. Then he joined the Quebec Bulldogs, a professional hockey team for which he played several years. The 1913 Bulldogs won the Stanley Cup, beating Toronto in what at the time was the longest official league game ever played. Scoreless at the end of regulation time, they played another fifty-two minutes before Crawford scored the winning goal. What was most remarkable was the fact that he had never left the ice for the entire 112 minutes of that game.
In 1918, Crawford was playing with the Toronto Arenas, a year in which they won the Stanley Cup. Still later, he played hockey in Saskatoon, Calgary, and Vancouver before finally hanging up his skates after playing twenty-one seasons of professional hockey.
Vazil McAnely, another local hockey fan, closely followed Crawford’s career. He credited his excellent physical condition for his surprising durability. Crawford never weighed more than 150 pounds (fewer than 70 kilograms) during his playing days. At five feet, five inches (165 centimetres), he was certainly not amongst the tallest player on the ice. His height and weight, however, probably allowed him the speed with which he was credited.
With Crawford away playing hockey each winter, the chores in the early years on the homestead were carried out by Crawford’s wife and her brother, Charlie Ortloff. In the later years, the chores could be managed by his wife and their older sons. The children, who numbered eight, remembered their father as leaving the farm wearing his hat and carrying a club bag.
Crawford passed away in local hospital on December 19th, 1971 at the age of 86 years. Curiously, he was buried in South Hill Cemetery under the name William Crawford. He was survived by his wife, five sons, and three daughters.
Crawford is not the only local product who earned admission into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Born November 8th, 1924, John William Kiszkin taught himself to play hockey using a tree branch as a hockey stick and made pads out of old mattresses. After serving in the Canadian Army during World War II (he lied about his age in order to enlist at the age of fifteen), he returned to Prince Albert in 1944 and began playing junior hockey. He turned professional in 1945, where he played for eleven seasons, mostly with Cleveland. It was in his first year of professional hockey that his surname was legally changed to Bower.
Bower was known as a hard-nosed and scrappy player. He was the first goaltender to utilize the poke check, and was known as “The China Wall”. Bower was one of the goaltenders for the Maple Leafs when they last won the Stanley Cup.
He was admitted to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1976. Bower died of pneumonia on December 26th, 2017 at the age of 93.
A third player with connections to Prince Albert was admitted to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2014. Mike Modano was born June 7th, 1970 in Livonia, Michigan. After an extensive career in pee-wee and midget hockey in the Detroit area, Modano was invited to join the Prince Albert Raiders by coach Rick Wilson in 1986. The sixteen-year-old Modano scored a hat trick in his first game, and by the following year was a member of the Western Hockey League All Star team. Four days after his eighteenth birthday, Modano was selected by the Minnesota North Stars first overall in the draft.
Modano played for the North Stars (later the Dallas Stars), and finally Detroit Red Wings before officially retiring from the National Hockey League on September 23rd, 2011. He was admitted to the Hockey Hall of Fame on November 17th, 2014. Although not a Prince Albertan, this city can claim to have been instrumental in the development of his hockey skills which in turn led him to the Hall of Fame.
It will be interesting to see which Prince Albert player or official, locally born or locally developed, will be the next to be inducted to the Hickey Hall of Fame. Perhaps one of our professional female players.
