The St. Catharines Falcons were a

junior ice hockey Junior ice hockey is amateur-level ice hockey for 16 to 20 year-old players. National Junior teams compete annually for the IIHF World Junior Championship. The United States men's national junior ice hockey team are the defending champions from ...

team in the

Ontario Hockey Association The Ontario Hockey Association (OHA) is the governing body for the majority of junior and senior level ice hockey teams in the province of Ontario. Founded in 1890, the OHA is sanctioned by the Ontario Hockey Federation along with the Northern ...

from 1943 to 1947. The team was based in

St. Catharines, Ontario St. Catharines is the most populous city in Canada's Niagara Region, the eighth largest urban area in the province of Ontario. As of 2021, St. Catharines has an area of and 136,803 residents. It lies in Southern Ontario, south of Toronto ac ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

History

The Garden City was introduced to OHA Junior "A" Hockey in the fall of 1943 when the St. Catharines Falcons made their debut in the league.

Rudy Pilous Rudolph Pilous (August 11, 1914 – December 5, 1994) was a Canadian ice hockey player and coach, born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Pilous won the Stanley Cup coaching the Chicago Black Hawks in 1960–61, and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame ...

, a former St. Catharines Sr. "A" hockey player and his friend Jay MacDonald were inspired to bring a team to St. Catharines after watching a

Memorial Cup The Memorial Cup () is the national championship of the Canadian Hockey League (CHL), a consortium of three Junior ice hockey, major junior ice hockey leagues operating in Canada and parts of the United States. It is a four-team round-robin tou ...

game in Toronto's

Maple Leaf Gardens Maple Leaf Gardens is a historic building located at the northwest corner of Carlton Street and Church and Wellesley, Church Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The building was originally constructed in 1931 as an indoor arena to host ice hoc ...

in the spring of 1943 between the Winnipeg Royals and

Oshawa Generals The Oshawa Generals are a junior ice hockey team in the Ontario Hockey League. They are based in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. The team is named for General Motors, an early sponsor (commercial), sponsor which has its Canadian headquarters in Oshawa. ...

. Pilous would be coach & general manager of the team, and MacDonald would be secretary & treasurer. Pilous raised the capital from talking six local businessmen (Pete Grammar, Ted and Os Graves, Tom Heit, Jack Leach, and Cal Wilson) into investing $500 each. He then took a trip back to his home town of Winnipeg, to hire players for the 1943-44 season. The Falcons played their first game on November 13, 1943. The St. Catharines Falcons name came from a naming contest for the new junior team. The winner of the contest was a nine-year-old boy named Jimmy Stirrett from St.Catharines Ontario. The team was so unsuccessful, that after two years, the St. Catharines Senior "A" Saints folded. In 1946-47 the club didn't make the playoffs and was in financial trouble. It looked like the end of Junior hockey in the city. In January 1947, George Stauffer, President of Thompson Products Ltd., stepped into the picture and bought the Falcons for $2,500. He saved Junior hockey in St. Catharines, and renamed the team the

Teepees A tipi or tepee ( ) is a conical lodge tent that is distinguished from other conical tents by the smoke flaps at the top of the structure, and historically made of animal hides or pelts or, in more recent generations, of canvas stretched on ...

. Today there is an unrelated local Jr. B hockey team in the

Golden Horseshoe Junior B Hockey League The Golden Horseshoe Junior Hockey League (GHL) was a junior ice hockey league in Ontario, Canada, sanctioned by the Ontario Hockey Association from 1974 until 2007. In 2007, the league became a division of the newly formed Greater Ontario Junio ...

using the same name as the St. Catharines Falcons.

Players

Several Winnipeg-area players including Harvey Jessiman (goalie), Bing Juckes, Tom Pollock, Laurie Peterson and Doug McMurdy formed the nucleus of the first club, combined along with local players. Doug McMurdy was awarded the

Red Tilson Trophy The Red Tilson Trophy is awarded annually by the Ontario Hockey League to the most outstanding player (MVP) as voted by OHL writers and broadcasters. It was donated by ''The Globe and Mail,'' and first awarded in the 1944–45 OHA season by the On ...

in 1944-45 as the Most Outstanding Player in the OHA. NHL alumni are Armand Delmonte, Val Delory,

Bing Juckes Winston Bryan "Bing" Juckes (born June 14, 1926 – December 31, 1990) was a Canadian ice hockey player. He played 16 games in the National Hockey League with the New York Rangers The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based i ...

, and

Nick Mickoski Nicholas Mickoski (December 7, 1927 – March 13, 2002) was a Canadian ice hockey forward. He played in the National Hockey League with four teams between 1948 and 1960. The rest of his career, which lasted from 1945 to 1965, was spent in variou ...

Yearly results

The Falcons never made it to the league finals for the

J. Ross Robertson Cup The J. Ross Robertson Cup is a Canadian ice hockey trophy. It is awarded annually in junior ice hockey to the champion of the Ontario Hockey League playoffs. It was donated by John Ross Robertson to the Ontario Hockey Association in 1910, an ...

, but did very well in the regular season, making the playoffs their first three years.

Arena

The St. Catharines Falcons played in the Garden City Arena in downtown St. Catharines, Ontario from 1943-1947. The team shared the arena with the Sr. A. team, the St. Catharines Saints from 1943-1945.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:St. Catharines Falcons (1943-1947) 1943 establishments in Ontario 1947 disestablishments in Ontario Defunct ice hockey teams in Ontario Defunct Ontario Hockey League teams Ice hockey clubs established in 1943 Ice hockey clubs disestablished in 1947 Sport in St. Catharines