City boasted a sports-only tabloid in the ’60s

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/08/2014 (4390 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When one-time sports broadcaster Maury Bay was closing his Beatnik bookstore on Sherbrook Street last month, he came across the first three editions of a long-forgotten Winnipeg sports publication.

Titled Metro Sports News and priced at 15 cents, the tabloid-sized paper was published March 23 and 30 and April 6, 1962. The Provincial Library has no record of the paper and this columnist has been unable to discover if No. 4 exists. Does any reader have one collecting dust in the basement?

Philip Nutter was the publisher and John Robertson, who was covering news for the Winnipeg Free Press at the time, served as editor. The position may have been a way for Robertson to keep his typewriter in sports, where he shone. He wrote the headline story in the first paper about the new CFL Western Division Canadian player draft perhaps hurting the Blue Bombers.

A large photo of curler Norm Houck illustrated a story by Ralph Bagley about the knockout style of curling appealing to the Manitoba rink that finished third in the Canadian championship. Houck speculated that his team could play a 12-end hitting game against the Brier champion Richardsons from Saskatchewan or Reg Stone from B.C. in under two hours.

When asked about his memories of the paper, Bagley had none. The retired Free Press curling reporter said he would have been working for Stovel-Advocate Publishing at the time.

Another front-page article heralded a visit of the St. Louis Cardinals in August to play the Winnipeg Goldeyes, the team’s Class C farm team. Former Goldeyes with the 1962 Cards included Ray Sadecki, Julio Gotay, Jim Schaffer, Harry Fanok and Dick Hughes.

Elsewhere, the U of M had handed out its athletic awards with John Shanski named athlete of the year. Shanski played goal for the Bisons hockey team and halfback for the Dominion junior champion Winnipeg Rods football club. The U of M did not have a football squad at the time. Glen Torgerson was men’s basketball MVP. Pat Pisnook took the women’s award and her sister Carol was the outstanding rookie.   

Issue 2 featured front-page stories on GM Jake Milford likely quitting the Brandon Wheat Kings of the MJHL and the Winnipeg Maroons chasing the Allan Cup one last time. Neither happened, as two seasons later Milford was still on the job and the Maroons won the Canadian senior title.

The names of basketball reporter Harry Hooper — who wrote about player-coach Fred Ingaldson leading IPAC Buffaloes into the western senior men’s basketball final — and 10-pin bowling columnist Jack Striker had to be pseudonyms for Robertson.

In the third issue, an unsigned front-page editorial asked “Is the CBC Discriminating Against Amateur Sports?”

A fundraising campaign was underway to help Claudia MacPherson travel to England to swim the English Channel. In August, rough weather forced the 16-year-old St. James Collegiate student to abandon her attempt to become the youngest swimmer to conquer the Channel. Former Bomber coach Al Sherman, then the coach of the New York Giants of the NFL, was returning to the city as the featured guest speaker at the St. Boniface Optimist Sportsmen’s Dinner. Bobby Hull, a 23-year-old scoring star for the Chicago Black Hawks, was to be on the same rostrum. The writer suggested that Hull would probably play another dozen years for the Hawks.

Memories of Sport appears every second week in the Canstar Community News weeklies. Kent Morgan can be contacted at 204-489-6641 or email: sportsmemories@canstarnews.com