_ THE WINDSOR FORDS—one of the out-
standing basketball teams in the his-
tory of Canada. This quintet repre-
sented the Dominion in the final
game of the 1936 Olympics.

Frederick A. E. (Buff) Horton

Famous CANADIAN PLAYER,
CoAcH AND OFFICIAL

BASKETBALL IN CANADA

ANADIANS are justly proud that basketball has
played such an important part in the athletic

life of their country. Two men who played on Dr.
Naismith’s original team played significant roles
in the early development of the game in Canada.
In 1896 Lyman W. Archibald became physical
director at Hamilton Y.M.C.A., and with his coming
Hamilton became the first “real hot-bed” of Can-
adian Basketball. Exhibition games were the high
spots in those days, and as early as Dec. 25th, 1896,
the international flavor was added when a team
from Buffalo Central Y visited Hamilton to take
on the local team composed of Chadwick, Yorick,
Cuzner, Jeffs, Laidlaw and Christie, and “when the
shooting was over” Hamilton was on the long end
of a 16—13 score. A return match was played in
Buffalo on Jan. Ist, 1897, the homesters won 16—6,
and on February 2nd, a third and deciding game
was played in Hamilton with the locals winning

20—6.

This was just a start for Hamilton, for by 1900

the game had made great headway. They were the
first team ever to defeat the Original Buffalo Ger-
mans on their own court. This Hamilton squad
boasted of Art James, Frank Branston, Harvey,
McKeown, and Chadwick. In 1921 and ’22, Hamil-
ton annexed their first recognized Canadian Cham-
pionship. This team was led by the great pair,
Baldy Laidman and Sammy Nieman.

“The other original,” T. Duncan Patton, returned
to his home in Toronto and rapidly imparted his
knowledge of the game to local Y.M.C.A. members,
and in a short time basketball was being played
widely in and around Toronto. In 1900 Central Y
floored a powerful club featuring Harding (Capt.),
Henderson, Parnham, Edwards, Smith, and Wood-
land, with the great J. H. Crocker as Coach and

14

Physical Director. The Central magic held for a
number of seasons until West End and Broadview
Y.M.C.A.’s followed with strong contenders. In
1925 West End Y staged the National Y.M.C.A.
Basketball Tournament with a classy crowd from
Detroit carrying off top honors.

Soon after the turn of the century, churches.
schools and clubs (as well as the Y.M.C.A.’s)
began playing the game, but only local or provin-
cial champions were declared in both the men’s
and women’s series. As the game grew in popu-
larity and became well patronized in centers like
Ottawa, Hamilton, London,
Windsor, Winnepeg, Vancouver and Edmonton the

Montreal, Toronto,

provincial associations got together in the Fall of
1922 to form the Canadian Amateur Basketball
Association with C. E. Race, the Registrar at the
University of Alberta, as its first president.

Under the continued guidance of the C.A.B.A.,
and good leadership provided by Sam Rogers,
Toronto; Dr. Gillespie, M.D., Vancouver; Walter
Hardwich, M.A., Vancouver; and Doug. Robertson
of Montreal, the caliber of Basketball has improved
steadily until the best Canadian teams can hold
their own with any in the world. This last fact is
borne out by the results of the final game played
in the 1936 Olympics when the powerful repre-
sentative team from the United States defeated the
Canadian titleholders by the slim margin of 17—9.

Today basketball is popular in Canada, and it is
one of the forces which educators feel is build-
ing better men and better women. The vast majority
of our institutions are represented by teams that
may justly be considered on a par in skill, mastery
and technic with those of other countries. The
records made by Canadian teams of other years act
as an incentive to the teams of today.