1939 MEMORIAL CUP
Edmonton Athletic Club Roamers vs. Oshawa Generals
at Toronto (Maple Leaf Gardens)
It will forever be known as The Billy Taylor Show.
The 1939 Memorial Cup featured the Edmonton Athletic Club Roamers against the Oshawa Generals.
Everyone but Taylor was simply a bit player in this production.
A year previous, Taylor had figured in 11 of Oshawa's 12 goals as the Generals lost the Memorial Cup's best-of-five final in five games to the St. Boniface Seals.
Would it be a different story this time around?
The Generals began the season with Doc Rowden -- Donald Walker Rowden -- behind the bench. But he was replaced late in the season by Tracy (The Fox) Shaw. Their manager was the legendary Matt Leyden after whom one of the Ontario Hockey League's divisions would be named.
Other than Taylor, the Generals' attack featured the likes of William Earl (Nick) Knott, who would go on to play with the NHL's New York Americans; brothers Norm and Jud McAtee (Norm would play for the Boston Bruins, Jud for the Detroit Red Wings); and, defenceman Jim Drummond (New York Rangers).
In the eastern playdowns, Oshawa swept the North Bay Trappers, but needed overtime to win both games -- 7-5 and 5-4. As well, Oshawa swept best-of-five series from the St. Michael's Majors and Harold (Baldy) Cotton's Toronto Native Sons.
The Perth Blue Wings took a best-of-three series from the Charlottetown Royals, winning the opener 6-2, losing the second game 7-4 and then winning 7-6 in overtime. But Perth would be swept in a best-of-three with the Verdun Maple Leafs, 3-1 and 5-2.
In the east final, with all games played in the Montreal Forum, Oshawa prevailed but not before losing the first game 2-1. The scores in the next two: 6-1 and 4-2 with Taylor totaling a goal and five assists.
Edmonton was coached by Lowell (Lefty) Grove and the roster included Bobby Carse, Ken (Beans) Reardon, George Agar and Elmer Kreller. The latter became known as The Shadow during the championship final's last two games.
Out west, Edmonton was blowing away the Trail Tigers, 16-3 and 14-1, and the Moose Jaw Canucks -- 4-1, 6-0 and 9-2.
At the same time, the Brandon Elks, behind goaltender James (Sugar Jim) Henry, defeated the Fort William Columbus Club, 8-2 and 8-3.
In the western final, Edmonton defeated Brandon -- which was coached by Jimmy Creighton who would later be the mayor of the Wheat City and whose son, Fred, would coach in the NHL. The Roamers won the first two games -- 6-0 and 6-0 -- before losing Game 3, 5-0. But Edmonton won the fourth game 9-3 to advance to the Memorial Cup final.
Agar missed the final two games of that series after being suspended for hitting Brandon centre Chuck Taylor over the head with his stick during Game 2.
Edmonton went into the final having won 10 of 11 playoff games and having outscored its opposition, 81-15. In 42 games, Edmonton had scored 310 goals while allowing 80 -- and the Roamers played in two leagues, junior and intermediate. They went 12-2-0 in the junior league's regular season and 11-3-0 in the intermediate circuit.
And then they ran into the skater known as Billy the Kid.
The Roamers arrived in Toronto for the best-of-five series with an injury-riddled roster. So banged up were they that they brought 19 players to Toronto even though they could dress only 12 per game.
Defenceman Harry Pardee (ankle) and centre Kreller (hip) were the most serious injuries.
The Memorial Cup opened on April 10 with Taylor, fighting off a slight charleyhorse, scoring five times in a 9-4 victory before more than 7,000 fans.
Edmonton led 2-0, on goals by Carse and Agar, when Taylor and Gerry Kinsella scored in the final two minutes of the first period to tie it.
Johnny Chad gave Edmonton a 3-2 lead early in the second period, only to have Taylor score back-to-back goals. Carse scored again, at 12:35, but Jud McAtee put Oshawa out front before the period ended.
The Generals put it away in the third on two goals by Taylor and singles from each of the McAtee boys.
The crowd got to Edmonton goaltender Cliff Kilburn near the end. He had to be restrained by teammates as, stick waving in the air, he headed towards the crowd.
Afterwards, the Roamers said they were having problems adjusting to the atmospheric conditions.
"I could hardly breathe after I had been on the ice a minute or so,” Agar said. "Whew, it was hot.”
Eddie Shore, the great NHL defenceman who farmed north of Edmonton, claimed that the heavy, moist Toronto air was tough to deal with, particularly for players from the west where the higher altitude leads to a dry climate.
Prior to Game 2, The Canadian Press reported: "Roamers will discard their underwear and change goalies in an effort to even the series, club officials said. The westerners, used to a dry climate, wilted in the heavy, moist Toronto air. Bill Dreyer will replace Kilburn in goal.”
Meanwhile, Shaw was sounding optimistic.
"We knocked off a lot of good clubs in the east this year,” he said, "and despite the Roamers' imposing scoring record I never had any doubt about beating them.”
The second game, played on April 12, also belonged to Taylor.
This time, Billy the Kid scored four goals and set up five others as the Generals won 12-4 before 7,612 fans.
The Canadian Press called the game "one of the greatest scoring orgies ever witnessed in championship hockey.”
The teams were tied 2-2 after one period but Oshawa ran away and hid with three goals in the second and seven more in the third.
Knott, Drummond and Jud McAtee added two goals each, with Orv Smith and Kinsella scoring one each. Carse, Paul Steffes, Bruce MacKay and Dave Farmer scored for Edmonton.
“No sir, they weren't any tougher than in the first game,” Taylor said. "Better tell them to send back to Edmonton for another goalkeeper.”
Elmer Dulmage, writing for The Canadian Press, had this to say: "In all its 21-year history, or since the 1919 night when a young fellow named Dunc Munro plunged into the hockey picture, the classic Memorial Cup series probably has never had such a dazzling figure as Billy Taylor presents in the current bout.
"Billy the Kid, 19 years old and marked for delivery to Toronto Maple Leafs, has the Edmonton Roamers and the paying clientele by the ears. The Roamers can't stop him and the fans can't get over him.
"He's so amazingly good that Eddie Shore, Bill Cowley, Art Ross, Conn Smythe, Dick Irvin, Lester Patrick and the likes of these Stanley Cup characters refuse to believe what they see. Billy has the National league nobility rubbing its eyes.”
Taylor's performance was second, Dulmage reported, "only to that of Murray Murdoch. In the 1923 series between University of Manitoba and Kitchener Greenshirts, Murdoch scored 10 goals as the Manitobans won a total-goals round 14-6.”
Patrick, the general manager of the New York Rangers, called Taylor "the greatest junior I have seen in 20 years.”
"The way Taylor passes is incredible,” Patrick added. "I will venture to say there aren't more than half a dozen centres in the National league who lay down passes as well as he does. And he does everything else well. He should have a great career.”
Taylor's nine-year-old brother, Buddy, served as the Generals mascot. He would put on his uniform and skates and hit the ice between periods.
In an interview after Game 2, Buddy suggested that he would eventually be a better player than his older brother.
"Why? What have you got that Bill hasn't?” reporters asked.
Buddy replied: "Brains.”
Edmonton jumped back into the series with a 4-1 victory in Game 3, before 11,698 fans on April 15.
Steffes, with two, Chad and Pardee scored for Edmonton, which led 2-1 after one period. The teams played a scoreless second period. Drummond scored an unassisted goal for Oshawa.
"Outstanding in the victory was Elmer Kreller, a chunky speedster who handcuffed Billy Taylor, the Oshawa ace who had to be stopped if Roamers were to win,” reported The Canadian Press. "The way Kreller did it -- even if he fails to repeat the performance in the fourth game -- will live long in Memorial Cup history.
"I was never so happy in all my life,” offered Kreller, who was from Lumsden, Sask. “And I don't think I ever worked so hard before. It was the toughest job I've ever had.
"All I thought of was Taylor. I didn't even think of the puck. I didn't care whether I scored. But I was determined to keep Taylor from scoring. At times he was going to bite off my head but I didn't care.”
The Canadian Press reported: "It was funny at times. Taylor, in disgust, sometimes would stay back at his own goal and Kreller would stay right with him as the play surged around the Edmonton goal.”
Taylor said: "I told him in the first period I was going out for a drink and asked him to come along and hold the glass.”
He then added: "We'll take them the next game. We'll get that first goal and they'll never catch us.”
Oshawa ended it on April 17, winning 4-2 before 11,326 fans after trailing 2-1 going into the third period.
In Oshawa, some 15,000 fans sang, danced and built bonfires in the streets in the biggest celebration the city had seen since the armistice some 21 years previous.
The McAtee boys, from Stratford, Ont., led the way for the Generals in the final game. Jud scored at 7:54 of the third period to tie the game. Then Norm scored twice, at 16:43 and 17:30, to put it on ice.
Drummond had Oshawa's other goal. Agar and Chad scored for Edmonton.
Taylor was shadowed again by Kreller and was held to one assist, that coming on Drummond's goal. Taylor finished with nine goals and six assists in the four games.
When it was over, Taylor praised Kreller, calling him a "honey of a checker, a darn nice guy and a clean player -- you can't take anything away from him.”
"Who said we were a one-man hockey team?“ asked Oshawa goaltender Dinny McManus.
Billy Taylor would go on to play for Toronto, Detroit, Boston and the Rangers, totalling 87 goals and 180 assists in 323 games over seven seasons.
His NHL career, which began in the fall of 1939, ended on March 9, 1948, when NHL president Clarence Campbell suspended him for life.
Campbell's explanation was terse -- Taylor and Don Gallinger were hit with "life suspensions for conduct detrimental to hockey and for associating with a known gambler.” That gambler was apparently James Tamer, a paroled bank robber.
Taylor was 29 years of age when it all came crashing down.
He was an outcast until the summer of 1970 when the NHL's board of governors reinstated he and Gallinger.
Taylor then dabbled some in coaching and did some scouting for the Pittsburgh Penguins.
But he never played the game again.
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