“The French kids had their own school. We’d play against them, and against the public schools. English against French, school against school, town against town. The odd time at the end of the year we’d have a tournament. But until the championship game at the end of the season, we played outdoors.
“Our competition was against Rouyn-Noranda, Timmins, Kapuskasing… the north country was just being developed mining-wise, and kids would skate on ponds, lakes, rivers and rinks. Sports meant a lot there, as it did right across Canada.”
Roughly 375 miles north of Toronto, Kirkland Lake was established in 1919 as the Township of Teck, two years after the birth of the NHL and about eight years after the discovery of gold in the area. It is tucked in the bounties of nature, nearby Esker Lake Provincial Park featuring a boreal forest that is home to many species of wildlife, a wide variety of birdlife supported by the wetlands of dozens of lakes.
The town, its population 7,750 in Canada’s most recent 2021 survey, has a gilded history. Penniless prospector Harry Oakes amassed an estimated $300-million fortune in gold, eventually earning himself a British peerage; William Wright, who might have been first with a strike, poured some of his money into Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper.
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