New Glasgow once eyed Big Four league

For those of us growing up in Pictou County in the early 1950s, there was some pretty darn good senior hockey to watch.
Thanks to the old APC Hockey League. Thanks to the New Glasgow Rangers, Stellarton Royals, Pictou Maripacs, Antigonish Bulldogs, Truro Bearcats and, for brief periods, Trenton Scotias and St. Francis Xavier X-Men.
They played at a level of senior hockey that led the winners along the Allan Cup trail, but there was always some stiff competition for the league winners right here in Nova Scotia.
Also vying for honours were clubs that came out of the South Shore Hockey League and the Valley Senior Hockey League. Teams such as the Lunenburg Falcons, Bridgewater Hawks, Windsor Maple Leafs and Kentville Wildcats were among potential opponents.
Yes, there was a lot to keep fans interested and, in those pre-television days, you had to get out to the local arenas to get your hockey fix.
Good times, indeed.
But there was an even higher calibre of the sport being played in the Maritimes and, if you were a keen follower, the Maritime Big Four League also caught your attention. It included teams called the Halifax Atlantics, Charlottetown Islanders, Sydney Millionaires and Glace Bay Miners.
The Big Four expanded for a time into the Big Six when the Saint John Beavers and Moncton Hawks also became involved.
It was also senior hockey, but rated above the game being played in the APC, South Shore and Valley circuits. They called it major senior and, after a club won the league championship, it would go up against a similar league in Quebec to challenge for a trophy that was called the Alexander Cup.
Pictou County fans were able to follow that league quite well. This was before New Glasgow had its own radio station and most people in the area listened to CFCY in Charlottetown, a station that carried the Islanders games. It was an easy way to keep abreast of league activities.
Not only that, for a time the league used to schedule each club to play six games a week – and there was no Sunday hockey then. That meant, week after week, each team played six games in six nights.
It was hard at times to get clubs around the Maritimes in what was tougher winters than we have now, so a few Charlottetown home games were played at New Glasgow Stadium, opportunities for Pictonians to watch games in person.
In fact, the game played on the night when the Stadium opened in 1951 was between the Islanders and Sydney. There was standing-room-only in the new building that night.
Fans showed clearly that they appreciated – and wanted to see – this higher brand of the game.
Many people today may have forgotten it, but for a short time there was actual interest on the part of local hockey officials to get New Glasgow into the major senior loop. Businessmen such as Joe Almon and Roy Bennett, active in the hockey community for years, were among those considering the possibility.
As kids just getting into our early teens at the time, it was an exciting development, thinking we would be able to watch the stars of that league on a regular basis.
But it never happened.
Yes, New Glasgow delegations did sit down and discuss the idea with league officials, but it just never became a reality.
Fortunately, the APC league, which had been operating since long before we were born, continued for a few more years – until New Glasgow was part of a Nova Scotia Senior Hockey League that began in the late 1950s and continued well into the 1960s.
Looking back now, APC hockey was pretty good stuff. While Truro and Antigonish were involved just about every season, the county teams changed from year to year. A few times New Glasgow wasn’t in, but Pictou and Stellarton would be there to answer the bell. Trenton was only a brief addition, coming aboard when players from its championship Scotias teams became too old for junior hockey and they wanted to remain together.
All the county teams had fine performers in their lineups.
New Glasgow featured fellows like Leo Fahey, Nelson Wilson, Kent Storey, Al Legere, Naish Batten, Alex Robertson and Tiger Mackie.
Stellarton had Jack MacKenzie, Danny Dorrington, Greg Floyd, Shorty Aikens, Porgy MacDougall, Ken McOnie and, when the Rangers were inactive, Wilson and Fahey.
Pictou, of course, featured talents like Tic Williams, Mark Babineau, Mel Gadd, Allie Morrison, Frankie Prozenor, Chick Charlton, Laurie Burbidge and Joe Brown.
Trenton, in its brief appearance in the league, was the starting point at the senior level for such former junior stars as Ralph Cameron and Jim MacNeil. When the Scotias didn’t survive, those players moved to other teams.
Yes, the old APC circuit lasted a long time, probably because, unlike leagues in later periods, the teams didn’t hand out salaries they couldn’t afford. Imports were seldom needed, the local players providing lots of good entertainment for the folks in the stands.
But you still have to wonder what it might have been like had New Glasgow jumped into the fray against the big clubs like the Atlantics, Islanders and Millionaires.
As it turned out, that calibre of hockey didn’t last either, another league that couldn’t survive the big salaries, with smaller communities like Glace Bay and Charlottetown unable to stay aboard with bigger cities like Halifax and Moncton.
New Glasgow, too, might not have been able to remain in that company for long. In fact, the financial losses might have gotten so big that the Rangers couldn’t have entered the Nova Scotia and Maritime leagues that existed in the 1960s.
Nonetheless, it’s hard not to look back at what might have been in those years before the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens started skating into our living rooms on Saturday nights.

Hugh Townsend, a New Glasgow native and Nova Scotia sports journalist for over 55 years, can be reached by email at ght1967@gmail.com