20 - Southpoint Sun
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
First senior league playoff title won by Radio Shack By C. Scott Holland Back in the spring of 1979,the newly formed Leamington Senior Men’s Hockey League held their very first playoffs. It was a round-robin affair where all six teams would play the five other opponents once and the team with the best record would win. In case of a tie, a plus-minus formula would be used to determine the winner. That season, the Hostess Chippers won the regular season with a 12-7-1 record thanks to the stellar scoring of Greg Coulter, who potted 31 goals and added 31 assists in 19 games. They entered the playoffs as the favourite and finished at the bottom of the heap. But the second-place Radio
Shack Realistics fared well and ended up meeting the Southland Insurance Wings in the final week COULTER with the title on the line. It was fitting that the finals match was the very last contest of the three games played on the final night. The Realistics surged to a convincing 4-0 lead and then hung on to secure a 5-3 victory to claim the first title. The Radio Shack offense started early as Bill Baird notched a goal at 1:20 of the first period when he fired a nifty
backhander from the slot to beat the Wings’ Wayne Gillett. However Gillett was stellar ROPCHAN through the next two periods, as he halted 15 of the 16 shots he faced in the first and another seven in the second. The score stood at 1-0 until the third but Southland was stymied by the goaltending of Realistics’ Ken Gillanders. The Radio Shack breakthrough came at 2:23 of the third when Dan Morgan converted a rebound and later he would fire his second of the
game with a shot that eluded everyone and slipped between Gillett’s pads and into the CHILD net. Paul Child, who finished second in the regular season with 59 points, then ripped the handiwork of Jim Bowman and Richard Ropchan, to make it 4-0 for the Realistics. Child’s tally stood as the eventual game-winning goal. With 4:25 left on the clock, Southland began a rally that dented the Radio Shack crew’s confidence. Ken Cobby set up Jim Banyai, who rifled the
opening Wings’ goal. Next, Cobby whisked a screen shot into the Radio Shack cage. Under sudden pressure, Jim Bowman stole a pass and made it a 5-2 contest before Cobby planted his second of the night. Gillett was lifted for an extra attacker in the final minute, but the Wings could draw no closer and Radio Shack claimed a 5-3 victory and the playoff title. The winning Realistics team consisted of Ken Gillanders (goal), George Sherman, Wayne Shewfelt, Keith Brown, Kent Williams, George Longland, Paul Child, Randy Armstrong, Wayne McKeen, Richard Ropchan, Dan Morgan, Jim Bowman, Rick Sudds, and Bill Baird.
1926 Hupmobile with Ontario plates
An email arrived from Brian Foote on March 9: “Hi Bill. Could you identify the car in the attached photo? Our mutual friends Allan and Mary Lou Tassie in Toronto sent it to me. The driver is Mary Lou’s father, Al Hawkins, and he and her mother were married in 1926.” I took a guess at 1926 or ’27 for the car, based on the height of the roofline and the size of the outside sun visor. Allan then sent me a closeup of the front which shows the 1926 Ontario license plate. The photo was taken at Big Cedar Point on Lake Simcoe and the Hawkins lived in Toronto in 1926. Robert Hupp be-
THE OLD CAR DETECTIVE
spokes can absorb the water and swell up, making them like new again. Hupmobiles are being restored and pre-
served world-wide by members of the Hupmobile Car Club with headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut. I sent a copy
of the attached photo to Daniel Coffman in Mansfield, Ohio. He is the club archivist and he replied: “Hi Bill: Looks like a 1926
6 cylinder Series A to me.” Always looking for stories. Email billtsherk@sympatico.ca.
Bill Sherk gan building cars in Detroit in 1908. They were well-built and priced right and he was turning out 12,000 cars a year by 1913. Most were four-cylinder models. The four was replaced with a six in 1926 and that number can be seen in the photo of our feature car below the name of the car on the radiator. By that time, a straight eight was also available and it required a longer hood and front fenders where spare tires
could be mounted. The car in the photo had the spare tire mounted outside at the back. Wooden spoke wheels were very common in the 1920s. Varnish made them attractive but as time went by, the varnish wore off and the exposed wood began drying out, causing the spokes to shrink and the wheels to wobble. The remedy was simple. Park your car in a shallow stream for a couple of hours where your
1926 Hupmobile Six sedan.
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