Although The Senators left the N.H.L. in 1934, the team played on in the Quebec Amateur Hockey Association, Senior League, until the late 1950s. The team was not just a pale imitation of its N.H.L. predecessor; indeed, many of the N.H.L. Senators played with the Senior Senators, either leaving the N.H.L. team which had picked them up after 1934 to return to Ottawa, like Eddie Finnigan, or returning to Ottawa in their twilight years, like Syd Howe. Ex-N.H.L. Senators like Alex Smith and George "Buck" Boucher coached The Senators, who were owned during much of this period by Jim MacCaffrey. The Senior Senators also produced many players who went on to play in the N.H.L, like Larry Regan who played many years for the New York Rangers and then coached the Los Angeles Kings in their early expansion years.

        The Shamrocks won the championship in 1928. The next year I played for Rideau Juniors, and they won the championship in 1929, and then in 1930 I played for Rideau Juniors again. They were in the playoffs against Primrose and it was a matter of how many goals we were going to beat Primrose by. The Cowleys played for them — both Bill and Dan. And the first game Primrose beat us 3-1 and their goalie kicked out more shots than any goalie you ever saw in your life. Anyhow we laughed about it and thought, "Well the next game we'll give them a real hiding." So the next game we beat them 2-1. At that time it was total goals to count, so they won by one goal.

        And then Rideau Seniors came in to the playoffs, and they were allowed to pick up Juniors, so they picked up myself and Bobby Walton. We played for the Rideau Seniors and we won the championship for the City League in 1930. After that — I'd be eighteen — after that we played against Hamilton. Two games, one in Ottawa and one in Hamilton, and we were tied and we had to play the third game and it was booked in Montreal and we played in Montreal in the Forum. We were beat out by Hamilton by one goal. That's the night I lost my big front tooth. We were playing overtime and I was skating down the ice — beat the defence, beat the goalie, staggered into about ten feet from the net and shot, missed the net, with nobody in it! It would have tied the game.

        So after that game I got the offer from the Montreal Maroons to come down and have a tryout. If I didn't make it for the Maroons, I was going to play for the Montreal Royals and they'd get me a job in Montreal. Well then the Ottawa Senators picked me back up again. Yes, Ottawa stepped in and said, "Hey, Finnigan's our property. You've no business touching him. You've no business offering him a contract or anything else." In other words this is why they put you on a negotiation list. You'd almost think at that time — Toronto did it too — and you'd almost think at that time that they're holding you if they need you and if they want you then they'd take you; if they don't — well, nobody else can get you and make a better team. Dog in the manger. They claimed at one time that Toronto had eight hundred players on the list.

Eddie Finnigan of Ottawa,

Frank's brother, was also a

          The next year the Boston Cubs disbanded. I was still Boston property and I was to go to Providence. It was sixty dollars a week plus a split of the gate receipts. Less money. Half the money. I think my original contract with Boston was four thousand dollars if you played for the season in the N.H.L., and if you "went down" it was either two thousand or twenty-four hundred. I didn't go. So then I got a letter in Ottawa that I was suspended from playing anywhere. I was Boston's property. I couldn't play for anybody else. And nobody else would take you if you were Boston's property. I was untouchable.

           And the same went for other clubs. There was like a "Gentlemen's Agreement." And I stayed home and I didn't have an amateur card so I couldn't play. But I played for Cranes Printing and played for the government team and some exhibition games.

           I must have been out for about two years and Cecil Duncan was head of the Canadian Amateur Association and he was here in Ottawa, so I got my amateur card back after two years. Then I played for The Senators in the Senior group again. Every game that 1 was going to play, I was dressed and everything and I didn't know whether I was going to play or not because the N.H.L. were raising a hell of a fuss about me getting my amateur card back and being allowed to play. But I played that season, anyhow. Then Cecil Duncan was replaced by a man out West — I don't know his name — from some college out there and he became head of the C.A.A. chain. I got a letter from him telling me that my amateur card had been revoked and I couldn't play any more. Then Boston came here to some kind of exhibition game in The Auditorium and I went over to Bruin's manager Art Ross and told him the circumstances. He said, "Very well. I'll fix it up. I'll contact them and you'll get your amateur card back." So he did and I got my amateur card back.

Played against them and we were beat 3-1. Came back here to Ottawa and they beat us here in Ottawa also. At that time they had Legs Fraser in the nets. Anyway, there was a group of them and they came up to Ottawa after that and played for The Senators here.

         Then after that I played for Spencerville. Alex Woods was the goalie here in the City League. They were looking for a couple of men so he and I used to go down — the referees all came from Ottawa here so the referees would take us down and we played at Spencerville. We got fifteen dollars a game and in the playoffs we got twenty-five dollars a game. I think we were in three or four playoff games. After that, the last year I played for Renfrew. I'd be thirty-four that year. We got six hundred dollars for the season for playing for Renfrew. After that I decided to hang them up.

Eddie: We lived on Eccles Street. 1 lived right next door to Stewie Evans that played with the Detroit Red Wings. He used to hit a tennis ball against our house all day long. It would drive my mother nuts. Right beside St. Agatha's School. Right around the corner at 492 Bay was Jimmy McCaffrey that run the football team and the hockey team. Charlie Hulse lived across the street from us. In the next block up was where Lome Green was born. He was born Lawrence Greenberg, his father was a shoemaker. He'd be, let's see, I'd say about No. l16 or 118, a big brown house on Florence Street. Then right at the corner was the Ankas. Nora Anka. There was a big family of thirteen or something; they were originally from Perkins Mills on the Quebec side. Nora would be Paul Anka's aunt. Paul Anka's father owned the general store on Laurier Avenue. He and his two brothers, Johnny and Maurice, opened that up right next to the United Cigar Store. That was the one that was taken over later by Ottawa Rough Rider Bobby Simpson. The guy on Front Page Challenge, I don't think he was born there, but he lived one time on Florence — Fred Davis. And the Kniewassers at the corner of Florence and Kent.

But during the games he was always at the games. In the Quebec Senior League he always had a seat right there on the bench. But he wasn't the Ottawa Senators' official doctor. His name was Dr. Whitley. I remember Whitley too. But the one that I knew in the latter years was Kniewasser and he used to do the stitching. And Wes Richards who was a coach at one time, he was a dentist out in Ottawa South. And McNab the principal of Percy Street School lived around there, and Armstrong and Richardson. I'm talking about McLeod Street now. And Eddie Finnigan lived around there. And the Kilreas.

         The Kilreas were both playing in the National Hockey League and they'd get sweaters from the other teams and they'd exchange, you know. So we'd actually wear the National Hockey League sweaters. All the kids iced the rink. It wasn't a very big rink, that was on Florence.

         I remember Eddie Finnigan when he played in the Quebec League. I used to have to wake him up all the time and get him out of bed.

Jim: The Auditorium was built in '24 or '23. They had other rinks you know. They had the Dey's Arena, but this was the artificial ice and heated. Not in the Rush End though.

         I was lucky though. I had two uncles who were hockey fans and they used to take me and we sat in the Rush End — stood in the Rush End. When you got tired you sat down if there was enough room. It was a quarter to get in. First in, first served. There was no limitation to how many got in. If you knew where the ushers were you went over the fence. That was less than a quarter. When you got over the fence you could sit in the dollar or dollar and a quarter seats. We used to be out on the roof girders. Sitting on the girders. It was a cold sit 'cos they were steel. But we were daring young lads. Daring young lads and warmblooded.

Eddie: Everybody came by the streetcar that stopped at Bank and Argyle. You walked up one block and you were at The Auditorium. Or you could come down Elgin and walk down from Elgin. There was no streetcar on Elgin.

And then they could stand a thousand easy there around the back of the rink. It was like when you got to the last row of the actual seats in the rink there was a very high fence and you could stand behind that. And I used to go and steal the Coke cases from the guys that had the concessions the time I was there. We used to sell them for two dollars to the guys from Hull that would bring the girlfriend over and she was too small to see over the rink. We used to sell them the Coke cases at two bucks a piece. Oh! Really a rental! They didn't want to take them home. And that was in the Depression when nobody had a job. And we'd go out of there with ten or fifteen dollars.

          I think there was more people came over on the streetcars from Hull to see the games at The Auditorium than came from Ottawa. So these mobs got off the streetcar and it a wonderful spirit, eh? There was that wonderful smell, too, of rink and skates and liniment and brine. They used to put the brine in the pipes to freeze them. If you had a bad cold, you just went down to where the icemaker was and opened the door. No more cold, it would clear your head like that.

Jim: The thing I remember most is Íåñ Kilrea used to win the races. He used to race Morenz around the rink, and Morenz was touted as being the fastest skater in the business, and Íåñ beat him all the time. I remember Clancy running down the ice on his skates carrying the puck.

Eddie: He was not a fancy skater. Well, he never started to skate till late in life. Do you know another thing about Clancy? He could only go round the back of the net one way. He couldn't take the puck and cross his legs that way, the left to the right. But he could cross his legs from the right to the left. So when he got the puck he always had to go around that way. He couldn't go around the other way. That's how he used to do it. Course it was a totally different game, eh? They had no red line and you'd carry the puck out. You couldn't shoot it out like they do today — not to center ice — and you also had to carry it in. You couldn't shoot it in. That's why they were such good stick-handlers. Nobody can stick-handle today.

Jim: The War really depleted the hockey ranks. I mean there wasn't great hockey then, there couldn't be. That's why guys like Richard scored those fifty goals. But your great scorers you have, like today, you've got Gretzky with all the points and you had Hull, eh, and then before him you had Richard — like total goals and assists. You know who the top man was with the most goals and assists up till 1947? Bill Caplin. And do you know who he beat out by one goal — who was top scorer with the most goals and assists? Syd Howe from Ottawa. Hockey was better in those days. I liked it better. The present people would say, "Oh, no. You don't know what the hell you're talking about." But they never saw it, so they can't make comparisons . . . And they had no real training like they have today. No real physical training. In those days they never had to take their medical, they just went out and played. And some of them held full-time jobs too.

          For working around the rink. A Rink Rat. Taping sticks. I started when I was fifteen. It wasn't really a job. I was the one, it was my job in that respect. The kids would beat the shit out of you to get the job. Everybody wanted it. It was a sort of a prestige thing to work with the highest hockey club in the city. And go to Montreal on the train with them and to Quebec City. And Cornwall, we used to go to Cornwall by bus. That's when Senators was not professional not N.H.L., 1938, '39 ... 

Eddie: Old Herman Proulx's little cubby hole was here where he sharpened the skates and displayed the sticks that he had made, but his factory — you went around the corner, and you went up a wooden ladder, and you went up through a hole and then he had the huge big plant where he made the sticks with big lathes and cutters. That was afterwards CFRA.

           They never broadcast in those days. They never even sold programs. In the old city league they used to have big wooden things on each side of the rink with shamrocks and all the players and their numbers written on it.

          And they say Foster Hewitt was the first guy to broadcast a game, but I'm sorry to tell you that it was one of my namesakes that broadcast a game before him. His name was Frank Albert. That was before Foster came in. What year? 1923. Oh 1 listened to the games in the late twenties, but it was a crystal set with the earphones.

Jim: Dr. Gilbert was broadcasting it, I would guess. He was the first one with a radio station in Ottawa. That was CKCO. It wouldn't have been Tommy Shields? Tom used to do football. 

Eddie: He used to write loo. He was sports editor for The Citizen. Coached the old Senators in the Quebec League. The press box was right behind the players place. The players used to sit here and the penalty box was here and then the press box was a separate section right up here. And this is where they'd come out from the dressing rooms and come onto the ice ... 

Jim: Nobody gets hurt today. In those days if Sprague Cleghorn decided to take somebody apart they came apart. 

— but a lot of guys in that league later played in the N.H.L. — and I remember this guy Lemay — he was going into the corner and this big guy — oh! a tough son of a bitch of an Irishman — came in with his —

Jim: That was Mr. Brennan from Quebec Aces — he was with Mike McMahon.

Eddie: And I remember Lemay going into the corner, and I don't know what Lemay did — one little thing — and Brennan went — it was just like a snake's tongue coming — he went wwwhhaaacck, wwwhhaacck, like that with his stick. Eight stitches here and six stitches here. There was no helmet. He just went wwwhaack wwhaack to the head like that, and all we saw was blood. 

Jim: There was another time too, Eddie, he got Lemay going into the — in those days there was no glass around the rink it was all that mesh stuff— and Albert Lemay had a pretty prominent proboscis shall we say — and Brennan caught him going in there and Brennan just made sure he went all the way and Lemay's nose went right through the mesh. He pretty near killed him. 

Eddie: His nose was sticking through the mesh like this. Oh yeah, there was lots of crazy things happened. And in Quebec City they used to spit through the mesh at you. A lot of lumberjacks would come down from the bush eh? Sunday afternoons? We played there Sunday afternoons and all the big lumberjacks would come

— all half-cut with the big boots and the plaid shirts and they'd get around the back there and an Ottawa player going in — cccr-rrunnccch! Bring it right up from here, right in their face you know. You know what the players did? They'd turn around and give it back to them.

Jim: Louis St. Denis used to have his neck just covered in spots there from guys throwing ballbearings and stuff at him. 

Eddie: They'd hit him with ballbearings and stones and apples and that. Louis took two pounds of stuff out of the back of his net after a game one time that they had thrown at him. The goal-tender with Ottawa, Louis St. Denis. He lives in Arnprior today.

And the players always made sure they had their stick at the end of the game because, once the game was over, ail these big lumberjacks would jump on the ice and all the guys went off with their stick like this. Lances forward. Just waiting for somebody to come near them. There was some wild hockey in those days. But I think there was some awful brawls. Jean Pucey — he played with The Canadiens team — they barred him for life. Jim: And then Pucey went to The Rangers. 

Eddie: They fired him for life because he really hurt somebody. 

Jim: And there was nobody could bury a stick in you any easier than Punch Broadbent. I think Frank Finnigan could say that. 

Eddie: And elbows too. That's why he was called "Old Elbows." He was the original Gordie Howe, you know. Howe was great with the elbows. Punch was first. I knew Punch pretty well 'cos when I was a kid he was our insurance agent. He sold insurance and he used to come around to the house all the time. In those days you paid them ten cents and they came every week and you had these twenty year policies, ten, fifteen cents, and a quarter on the kids. And Punch used to come around. I knew Cy Denneny in later years. He played hockey for the Ottawa Senators and then he coached Boston. I think he coached Boston the first year they won The Stanley Cup in '27 '28, I think.

Jim: He was with Frank. Nighbor, of course. That was quite a line. 

Eddie: What I remember most about Frank Finnigan was he could stick-handle. And he had the smarts. He knew what to do with the puck ... We can name lots of other Ottawa Senators from the N.H.L. and Quebec Senior days. There was Danny Cox, there was Carl Ross — 

Jim: Earl and Des Roache —

Eddie: Leo Burgo, Ed Milks. And there was Tony Weland. Up until the year that they went out of the league. These guys we mentioned all played with the N.H.L. Ottawa Senators. Why did they go out of the N.H.L.? Money. It was quite obvious. It was a civil service town.

Jim: Everybody in a civil service town budgets their money. You get a factory town, they get paid Friday and they go spend it. They go for three days and they say, "We've only got another day to go till it's pay day." Friday night they get paid again. And Frank Ahearn, of course, things were getting pretty tight as far as money and that was the reason he sold Clancy. He sold Clancy for $35,000 and that kept the operation going eh? 

          Oh, I bummed school many times to make hockey sticks with old Herman Proulx, and I remember one night — I'll never forget it — the Old City League they used to do in those days, we used to make these little souvenir hockey sticks about that long. I used to buy the ribbon at Woolworths and we'd put the ribbons on — red, orange, and black was Cornwall and Hull was black and white. And I used to be the agent, eh? You sold them for a quarter and I got five cents, but I used to have the kids sell them for me and I gave them two cents. I didn't do nothing, but I made three cents you see. I just handed them out and they used to check back in to me, eh? Well, one night just before the game started, we were rushing to make as many of these things as we could, eh. And old Herman, the guy that worked with him was his step-son, Elmer Goulet was his name, and doesn't Elmer cut his finger off making these little souvenir hockey sticks. Right here, cut his finger right off. Instead of taking him out the Catherine Street door which was about from here to that door from where their shop was, they bring him down to the front door to take him out which is about 180 feet — the length of the rink. And they're trying to get him out and seven thousand people are trying to get in. In the lobby the place was jammed. To this day, I could never understand why in the name of God did they try to take poor Elmer with his hand and the blood and they put a towel around it, why they'd bring him out the front door. They could have had him out in two minutes, you know, in the back. I met him a couple of years ago, he still has no finger, I can tell you. He was telling me that he still has all that equipment that his step-father, Herman Proulx, made those hockey sticks with. And Elmer was telling me that when the people in the family — when old man Proulx was dead — sold the house, his mother-in-law or grandmother or somebody told him about all the hockey sticks that they had up in the attic. And the people that owned the house wouldn't give them to him. And these hockey sticks — old Herman used to make all the sticks for the Senators and all the N.H.L. teams — were all autographed sticks by all the teams, Stanley Cup champions, all of them. They should have been in the Hall of Fame.

And Eddie said, "Look if you wait a half an hour the sun will be around and it'll shine in and you won't need the light." So Clancy went down to a hardware store and he bought a lantern, an old coal oil lantern, and just before the game, he lit the lantern and just before the game started he walked across the ice and presented it to Shore. He handed him the thing.

         They broke training all the time. I mean they smoked, they drank. We used to leave here, that old Quebec league, and we'd go down to Union Station and the train was at twelve o'clock, and we used to get to Bowles Lunch — there used to be Bowles Lunch down at the old station then — and then they'd get beer. Dr. Cootes owned Capital Breweries down at the corner of Preston and Wellington. I don't know if he was a real medical doctor. He could have been a medical doctor, but he owned the whole brewery. He bought it from E.P. Taylor or E.P. Taylor bought it from him one or the other. And we always had a case of beer after the game. We used to keep it out in the snow at the back of the rink. And when we went to Quebec City we used to stop off at a siding in Montreal and lay over overnight. The two Lemays and a few others all got up and went to mass — cross over the tracks to church and back. Six in the morning. And then we'd get to Quebec City and play the game and then the first thing they did was go for beer. There used to be a little place right opposite the station called The Hole in the Wall. And they'd buy six, seven quarts you know and bring them on the train. And of course in those days they were all the old wicker seats and they had all this beer, everybody had two or three quarts, and they walked in and there were twelve nuns sitting — and they'd been cursing and swearing you know? Twelve nuns.

         The Senators were wild, too. 1 remember Clancy telling me a story. I used to run into Clancy in the Quebec League when the King was refereeing and we used to catch him on the train. He'd get the train in Toronto and that we would catch to go to Montreal and Quebec City, see. Clancy would always be there and he knew everybody. He used to tell us all kinds of stories. What the hell was it? The train broke down in Hawkesbury or somewhere in the dead of winter and they got out and they must have walked about three miles through the snow and went to this restaurant, Chinese restaurant in Hawkesbury. Two o'clock in the morning, and they pounded on the door. They wanted to eat. Buck Boucher, Clancy, maybe Frank and the other guys that were there. And the guy said, "Me closee. Me closee." They said, "We'll break the door down." And they went in and they made him cook bacon and eggs and things till they got the train going. Clancy told me that.

          I remember in Montreal they used to take a pail of water . . . you know, in the hotels in those days there was always a transom and they'd put the goddam pail up there and just tip it. They'd phone somebody and say, "Come down to my room, I've got something to show you." And when he'd open the door, down came the water. Things like that. Louis St. Denis, I remember he used to be down in the Windsor Hotel or the Queen's Hotel, and there was a big sumptuous dining-room there and they had the orchestra and the violins, you know. St. Denis be there and he'd have a suit coat on and he'd have this red cravet with white polka dots. Course we knew what he had on underneath. He used to wear a sweatshirt from the Rideau Aquatic Club. Then they'd grab him and take the goddam coat off him and he's sitting there with all these people in evening gowns with Rideau Aquatic Club in front of the thing. Crazy you know.

          The best one there was about Alex Connell. Well, Alex Connell he was apparently quite a mimic, impersonator and everything you know. He was down there one time and he got up on the stage and took the violin away from the guy and played some beautiful operas all by himself. And what he'd done, he'd put the guy that played the violin behind the curtains and Alex was just mimicking — he wasn't playing at all. And the people applauded and applauded. And this guy's behind the curtain playing the violin and Connell's out there and he's like this. That was in Montreal too. At the Queens or the Windsor Hotel.. .

          Jim McCaffrey, the team owner, used to discover just before game time that Eddie was missing. And he'd yell at me, "Eddie, for Chrissakes, get over there and waken Eddie up!" So I'd have to run over to Arlington Street, a few blocks away from The Auditorium, and waken Eddie up and get him over to the game, still with the sleep in his eyes.

          One time I was in the dressing room between periods with the players and Eddie was away over in a corner with a newspaper over his face. And McCaffrey yelled at me, "For Chrissakes, see what Eddie's doing in the corner there," And I went over and lifted up the newspaper and my God! He was asleep under it! Asleep between periods!

          Eddie one time badly needed a new pair of skates and Jim McCaffrey wouldn't, or couldn't, buy them for him. So Eddie got an old pair of black boots, walking boots, and put them on with his uniform and went out onto the ice for practice with the working boots on — to shame McCaffrey into getting him new skates. It worked!

          One time when the Ottawa Senators were staying at one of the big hotels with a swimming pool — a big thing back in those days — Frank "King" Clancy bet Charlie Conacher fifty dollars that he could high-dive off the tower in his tuxedo. Conacher took the bet and Clancy duly did a clown dive off the board. After Conacher had paid over the fifty dollars, Clancy took off the tuxedo , dripping, shriveled, and handed it to Conacher. "Here, Charlie," he said. "It's not mine. It's yours!"

          Connie Brown from Ottawa, he used to play a bit for Detroit, and he went to St. Malachi's school and in those days you had to pay a two-dollar fee to take your entrance examinations (Grade Eight), so the principal of St. Malachi's School — Father Somebody or other — and this was in the Depression, remember — phoned Connie Brown's father and said to him, "Mr. Brown, don't spend your two dollars on Connie. He'll never make it."

          One time in some game or other, I can't remember, Connie Brown ended up in a terrible donnybrook on the ice facing Red Kelly. With a twinkle in his eye Brown said to Kelly, "Say, Red, I can't box, you know."

          "Neither can I," said Kelly. "Let's wrestle!"

The Riopelles, being a big family, we had our own hockey team at one time. Some of my brothers played with me in the City League here in Ottawa. There was Montagnards, eh, and of course they had a team in Eastview at that time they called St. Charles, and Lasalle, that's a few of the teams and Hull, of course, they had a team in that league that was very good. They played for the Allan Cup here one year. They were playing against Cornwall.

         The Ottawa Senators of the N.H.L. were gone by then but still The Senators belonged to the Quebec League.

         So then after St. Malachi's I went to St. Pat's College and I played for Alex Connell. Great man. He was the goalie for The Senators when they won the last Stanley Cup in 1927, and when he died he gave me his Diamond "O" Ottawa Senator ring. Yes his Stanley Cup ring. And I kept that for many years until I gave it to his grandson. I played for him in Junior hockey for about four years, I guess, and he was just an exceptional man. He formed a lot of great characters. He had great ethics and great morals and he had a real way of life. He had it all together. Great integrity. He was a great man.

         I played with Johnny Quilty at St. Pat's. In my opinion he was the greatest all-around athlete that I've ever seen or witnessed. He was an exceptional football player — a quarterback, a great passer, a great kicker. Had he chosen football I'm sure he would have been a star in the Big Four. No question about it. He had the size. . Very mature at a young age. Strong, eh? Great boxer. He was never defeated in the assault of arms — that's for high schools in Ontario. He was never defeated. And then of course in '41 he went to the training camp for the Montreal Canadiens — that would be '40, '41 I guess — and of course he won the Calder Trophy as the best rookie of the year in the N.H.L.

          When I finished Junior I joined the service automatically, eh, and I went into air crew and of course I had the privilege of playing for a great coach, he proved that, he's won Stanley Cups, Memorial Cups, and Allan Cups — all three. Joe Primeau. Great center ice man. And he was a great storyteller. He was coaching the Toronto Airforce Team. In 1943 we went to the semi-final playoffs for The Allan Cup but the Ottawa Commandoes beat us out that year. They had Kenny Reardon and Joe Cooper and Bingo Kampman. Dick Irvin coached (I played for him later for several years in Montreal). Irvin always said Bingo Kampman was the strongest man he ever seen in hockey. Tremendous shot. Low shot, very hard shot. Terrific. He was a great hockey player.

           The Ottawa Commandoes had the famous line from New York — Mac Colville, Alex Shibicky, and Neil Colville. They were good, a real top line. So good you couldn't get round them.

          Here in Ottawa while I was taking my course in flying at Uplands they used to fly me over Arnprior. Allen Shields was coaching at Arnprior. It was an amateur type of league, the different service teams, you know. It wasn't of the caliber of hockey the year I played before in Toronto where they were really all pros coming out or going back into the service.

          When I came back from overseas in '45 — the summer of '45 one of the first groups back — I could have gone to Toronto because Joe Primeau wanted me to go there and of course Mr. Gorman who was managing The Canadiens wanted me to go to Montreal. So I chose to go to Montreal. I went there and I went to training camp. I was the last cut — I'd been off skates pretty well nearly two years. So then I played with the Royals. We missed The Allan Cup the first year — which we should have won — but in '46-'47 we won the Cup. Then some of us turned pro the next year. Doug Harvey, a fellow by the name of Bob Campeau, myself, Floyd Curry. Doug Harvey was one of the greatest defenceman I ever saw.

           I was with the Canadiens for three years, but in 1950 I was having a lot of trouble with my back, so under Dr. Penfield I spent most of the summer there. They wanted to operate but the club wouldn't go for it because nobody had had a disk removed. So I went back to training camp the next year but I decided — well, I had a business started here in Ottawa so I came back and I played for the Senators, you see, till '55.

the fellows were telling me he brought back to sobriety seventy-five to a hundred men through A.A. did great work in it. He was a great, great fellow. But he really got into the booze and he didn't continue playing. It was a sad thing. He had a great mind. Just a super guy, what an athlete. I would certainly rate him with Lionel Conacher as all-around athlete of the century. He was an exceptional boxer. He also was on the Grey Cup team. The night before they played the Grey Cup — he was playing for the Navy team — the night before he was called out to sea and he missed the final game. But he was a star with them all here. See, he was exceptional playing football, eh, and he was a good boxer and a great ball player .. .

What I liked about him was he was a very very quiet man, eh?

         A fellow like Dick Irvin, now he as a new breed. Oh man! Would he ever get upset if things weren't right! And if you weren't playing up to your capability, eh, he'd get really upset. Oh, yeah! And at some of the meetings we'd have in Chicago before key games and stuff— Boy! — He'd have the individual guys come in and he'd say, "You'd better get moving because Buffalo is not too far away." Right down to the minors. Joe was completely the opposite. Very very quiet and, in between periods, if you made a mistake or did something stupid, he'd go and sit beside you and talk very very quietly. Like a father to his son. Oh, he had a different approach altogether and look at the success he had. Course, Dick Irvin had great success, too . ..

         The Quebec Senior League was a full league but it was The Allan Cup type of thing, not the National Hockey League, but they were really good players and were well-known and people went to see that. They were exciting skaters and carried the puck down. They were dramatic players. Colorful players, that's it.

         Ottawa has produced some great players. Look at Steve Yzerman, isn't he some kind of a hockey player? I think right now that Yzerman is one of the purest scorers I've ever seen. He has so many ways of scoring goals. He's a very good hockey player. And Denis Potvin, there's never been a better defenceman than him. A great defenceman. I'd compare him with Doug Harvey and Doug was the greatest. Oh, boy! Denis Potvin, I think he's an underrated superstar like Red Kelly was an underrated superstar. It's a strange thing, you know. Now can you imagine if Denny had been playing with The Canadiens. It's like American baseball players, they don't want to play in Canada 'cos they don't get the coverage they do in the States .. .

          The Senators died out in 1934, all gone, the N.H.L. And then Ottawa went on to be — it fielded all kinds of teams like the Commandoes and the R.C.A.F. and the Senior Senators. There was the Quebec Senior Hockey League and other Junior leagues and there was this fair amount of hockey that went on at different levels. Well, you see during the war they had the Commandoes and the Ottawa R.C.A.F. with the Kraut Line — Schmidt, Bauer, and Dumart. They were the tops and at that time the National Hockey League didn't have anything compared to them. So fans in Ottawa were watching better hockey actually in the Quebec Senior League than they'd be watching in the N.H.L. during that period. The Commandoes won The Allan Cup in 1943, following the R.C.A.F. victory in 1942. They were really a hot, hot team that could have beaten any of the teams in the N.H.L. which was depleted of players because of the services. There was a period in there where you were really seeing in Ottawa N.H.L. caliber of hockey, eh. Well, then, after the war, of course, all the players went back to their teams; that's why the Quebec League became diluted a bit. Suddenly all these great players were pulled from the Senior and Junior leagues to play in the N.H.L.

           Perfect unity, you know. Beautiful. That's what I would like to ... what went through my mind when the new Ottawa Senators were trying to form, eh, that I would hire that Russian who coached the Russians to beat Canada in last winter's Olympic Games. Why wouldn't they bring him over here? Not as a coach, because language would be too much of a problem, but to tell them his principles, his way of playing hockey. Now you'd have to develop a different hockey player. You don't get guys that are seven feet tall and two or three hundred pounds that would drive guys into the boards. But you get guys with talent. You have to have real talent to play that game. It's more difficult to skate with the puck than skating without it. A winger can go up and down all night and do nothing. He'd hardly break a sweat. But when you're skating with the puck and passing it now you see action, but you have to have talent for that kind of a game. Oh, yeah! I love the way the Russians play!

The management of the "new" Ottawa Senators would seem to agree with Howard Riopelle, given the fact that they made Alexei Yashin, a young Russian player, their first choice in the N.H.L. entry draft in June 1992.

          Today there are books being written about when you finish your hockey career. Gordie Howe and his wife have written one about all the trauma and pain of finishing, and they have given the hockey players of today courses in how to adapt themselves to "retirement" so young. In my day you were just thrown out. No, I quit. I wasn't thrown out. I always said I'd quit before they shipped me to the minors. And I did.

         Out of the Air Force I got my gratuities and I decided to buy a hotel. Then I looked at the Portage Hotel. And they were going to put — Russ Boucher was the Member of Parliament for Ottawa and he told me about that — they were going to put a big hydro dam up there. He wasn't a member for Quebec, but he knew what was going on there. And the Portage Hotel was going to boom. So, they were getting ready to build the Chenaux Dam when somebody stepped in and bought it or they decided to keep it themselves — I can't say which.

          Now Russ Boucher gave his seat up to George Drew in Ottawa West End — he was mpp for the West End, so George Drew could run as the Premier of Ontario (he was defeated.) Anyway, Russ said to me, "They're building a big hospital in Smiths Falls and there'll be a lot of work up there and Merrickville's not too far from there and they're also building a correctional home or prison at Buritt's Rapids." He said, "Go up and try and buy the Merrickville Hotel." So I took the train and went up to Merrick-ville and saw the owner and he wanted to sell it, so I bought it. I told him I'd be back in a few days.

          Now the license had to be transferred. The problem was, the beer quota at each hotel was rationed before I went to Merrickville. Anyway, I knew some people who had some pull — still. I'm not going to say who. So this party said, "Frank, don't worry. You'll have them up there with lots of beer. You mightn't have the grants you want, but you'll have lots of beer." And I did. And I had a place where I stored some for a bank. There was a secret passageway beneath the Merrickville Hotel and that's where I hid the extra beer.

          I got a really good offer for the Merrickville Hotel and I decided that maybe if I was out of the hotel business that maybe I'd "straighten round," you know? Got a good price for it. We doubled our money and we took quite a fair amount out of it. We went back to Ottawa thinking I'd probably get a job in Ottawa but there wasn't much that I could see there where I could make a living. So then we decided that we'd move back up the Pontiac. The Clarendon Inn in Shawville was for sale and we bought it.

          We lost our liquor licence in Merrickville one time. I had a lot of good friends — maybe old fans — in high places. In Merrickville they had a big festival day every year. Harry McLean would come out in his nightgown and ride around on the donkey and passed out money. Well anyway, there was a big crowd and the bar got packed and everything, and they'd be in the tavern, and, of course, there's not too much room in there, so they'd take their beer and go out and drink it in the backyard — against the law. So anyway, the O.P.P. saw this out in the yard and they raised the devil about it. And I said, "There's nothing I can do about it. There's no room in here and I guess they just took it — we didn't sell it out in the back yard — they just took it out there to drink it. There's no room in here for them. 1 had nothing to do with it. I didn't tell them to go out in the yard and drink it."

          So anyway, the O.P.P. phoned or wired or something to the Liquor Control Board in Toronto and the Liquor Control Board called me and told me to turn in my licence. So anyway, I took the licence up to Toronto with me and went up on the train. Took the train and went up. So I got a hold of Connie Smythe at Toronto Maple Leaf Gardens and Mr. Bickle who was the biggest broker in Toronto then and he was vice-president, I guess, or president of the Leafs then. So anyway, Smythe and Bickle called Judge Robb up and I went up to the Liquor Control Board with my licence to Judge Robb. Judge Robb was very nice with me. He was an old lacrosse player and played around St. Catharines and that area years ago. So he said, "What's the trouble Frank?" I said, "There wasn't any trouble. It was a big picnic or fair or whatever you want to call it, and our tavern's not that big and there wasn't too much room in the tavern so when they'd get a beer they'd take it out and drink it out in the yard." And I said, " There wasn't anything I could do about it."

          We had bought the hotel in Shawville — and it was a gold mine — but I was still drinking, making all the promises to quit, and then having another one. Well, anyway, this time I was down in Ottawa, making the rounds of my old haunts there, "touring" as they call it in the Valley, and I'd been to The Alexander, and The Belle Clair, and The Albion, and The Windsor. And I'd met different people at the hotel and had a drink with them. At one of the hotels I'd met my old drinking pal Dick Lamothe — he and I used to chum around together and he liked to drink, too. Birds of a feather, you know, flock together, as your mother used to always say. Anyway somewhere along the line that day we must have parted and I went down to The Windsor. But they wouldn't give me a room there. So I sat down in the big lounge chair and fell asleep. And then they'd wake me up because they didn't want a drunk sawing it off in their nice lobby. So I made my way to the Lord Elgin — I must have abandoned my car — sometimes I had sense enough to do that — or 1 just plain forgot where it was, but the Lord Elgin wouldn't give me a room either.

           I was desperate for sleep, drugged in truth — and I went outside and somehow or other crawled up into the back of a loaded dump truck. I don't ever remember getting up into it. But 1 fell asleep on top of the load of stone they were carrying. And when I woke up it was morning and I was going bumpity-bumpity down some city street. I guess the driver was going to work at eight o'clock in the morning and I suddenly was sober enough to realize that he was going off to dump his load! And 1 was going to be dumped with it! I knew I had to get off — or else. So I went to the back of the truck as they came to a stop street and I got down at the back and 1 went with the truck. I didn't jump off. I went with it. If I'd have jumped off while it was going I would have probably fractured my skull — or killed myself. No, I was smart enough to know I had to "go with the truck." I let myself down over the box, and hung on, and just went with the truck.

            I sobered up after that. I remember saying to myself. "Well, this is it. I've hit bottom. Maisie always told me I'd never quit until I hit bottom."

           To this day I don't remember my journey back to Shawville. I don't know whether I hitch-hiked or walked. I went upstairs and lay down in a room at the hotel until next morning.

           I came down next morning, and when I'd come down in the mornings usually before that I'd always go to the fridge and pour myself a shot of gin and 7-UP or something like, gin and orange juice, and then I'd have a couple of those, and I'd be back on my feet. But that morning I never went near the fridge. Frankie, John, Ross, they were all wondering, "What's wrong with him today?" So the next day the same thing, and the next. And the next. They were all beginning to say to themselves, "What the devil's up with him these days?" So from that day forward I'd get up every morning — never take a drink. Never take a drink all that day, all that night. So I never took another drink after that and I've never taken another drink since . . .

There can be no question that the hockey played in Ottawa during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s — even the 1960s and 1970s when the Ottawa 67s of the O.H.A Junior "A" League featured such Ottawa born future N.H.L. stars as Denis Potvin and Bobby Smith, and when the Ottawa Nationals of the W.H.A. boasted stars like Dave Keon — was high caliber and highly entertaining. But the fans still longed for the "show" of N.H.L. hockey, where they might see such Ottawa Valley home-grown talent as Larry Robinson, Guy LaFleur, Steve Yzerman, Doug Wilson, Denis Savard, and Sylvain Turgeon playing for the Ottawa Senators.