Toilers Park honours basketball team

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This article was published 27/01/2015 (3993 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The City of Winnipeg recently refurbished Toilers Park in Fort Garry.

Toilers Park pays homage to the Winnipeg Toilers basketball team, which won the provincial championship 13 times in the 1920s and ’30s. They were the first team from Manitoba to win the Dominion championship three times — in 1926, 1927, and 1932.

After winning yet another provincial championship in 1933, the Toilers entered international tournaments to prepare for the national competition, according to information supplied by the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame & Museum.

In March, 1933, the team travelled to Tulsa, Okla., for the first two games of a series. After two losses, the team set out for Winnipeg on March 31. The plane took off in heavy winds and rain but engine trouble caused it to crash soon after takeoff. Six people died in the crash including the team’s star forwards Joe Dodds and Mike Shea, along with the pilot, co-pilot, the trip sponsor, and the plane’s owner.  

The tragedy ended the Toilers as a team but the friendships that had developed did not end.

The team spent much time at ‘Toilers Camp,’ which was team member Waddy Ferguson’s cottage on the river in Fort Garry. In 1965, that same location became Toiler Memorial Park. In 2004, the team was inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame.

Helen Lepp Friesen is a community correspondent for Fort Garry. You can contact her at  helenfriesen@hotmail.com