Murray Dowey

Inductee Murray Dowey led the Royal Canadian Air Force flyers hockey team to the gold medal at the 1948 Winter Olympics, setting a standard for goaltending excellence yet to be matched.

Dowey racked up a phenomenal goals-against average of only 0.62 in the eight games the RCAF Flyers played on their way to the Gold in St Moritz, Switzerland. It’s a record for Olympic hockey goaltending which still stands.

Yet, Dowey wasn’t originally slated to be a member of the Olympic team. He was working at his Toronto Transit Commission job on a January morning in 1948 when he received a call from the manager of the RCAF Flyers, inviting him to be their starting goalie in the upcoming Olympics.

Dowey had to scramble to make his way to Europe, leaving the day he received the call to board the Queen Elizabeth for a trip across the ocean with other members of the team. Holding the rank of Aircraftsman 2, Dowey took leave from his TTC jobs to play in the Olympics.

Born in east end Toronto, Dowey played with the Birchcliff Midget teams in the Toronto Hockey League. He was recruited by the Toronto Maple Leafs, who wanted him to play for their junior team, the Toronto Marlboroughs, but he couldn’t come to terms with then Marlie owner Harold Ballard.

Dowey said playing in the Olympics on outdoor rinks was a huge adjustment after normally skating indoors at rinks such as Varsity Arena and Maple Leaf Gardens. “At one of the games both teams had to shovel snow off the ice and the fans were throwing snowballs” he recalled of the Olympic experience.

Dowey has lived in the Scarlett Road and Eglinton area of Etobicoke since 1976.

Ian “Scotty” Morrison

Ian “Scotty” Morrison has been involved with the game of hockey in numerous capacities. He was a player, a referee, a National Hockey League executive, and a Chair of the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

Born in Montreal, Morrison played hockey with the likes of Jean Beliveau and Boom Boom Geffrion as a member of the Montreal Canadiens organization.

After finishing in junior hockey, he began his career as a referee with the Quebec Amateur Hockey Association and then the Quebec Senior League. At the age of 24 he became the youngest man to work as a National Hockey League referee.

After two seasons, he left the league to pursue business interests but returned to the NHL in 1965 as Referee-in-Chief. In 1981 he was made an officer of the league and appointed Vice President, Officiating.

In 1986 he was given the position of Vice President for Project Development, Site for the Hall which opened in downtown Toronto in 1993. At that time he was named Chair and Chief Executive Officer of the Hall. He retired from that position in 1998.

Morrison lived in Etobicoke from 1965 until his recent move to Haliburton after retiring. Along with his work with the Hockey Hall of Fame, Morrison helped establish the Etobicoke Sports Hall of Fame. In 1999, Morrison was inducted into the hockey Hall of Fame in the Builder category.

Mel Hawkrigg

A native of Etobicoke who attended both Islington Public School and Etobicoke High School, Melvin Hawkrigg has led a distinguished athletic and business career.

Born in 1931, Hawkrigg participated in numerous sports including hockey and baseball while growing up in Islington. As a high school student, Hawkrigg took part in track, fastball, basketball and Junior B and A hockey.

While attending McMaster University in Hamilton between 1949 and 1952, he was a member of the football, basketball, hockey and track teams while also earning a degree in history and political economy. After university, Hawkrigg played one season of professional football with the Canadian Football League’s Hamilton Tiger Cats.

He married in 1954 and began to raise a family in Hamilton, and later Waterdown, while his business career flourished. He joined the Fuller Brush Company in 1959 and rose to president in 1969. He was then executive vice-president with Canada Trust until 1981 and went on to become chairman of London life in 1982.

Hawkrigg is now chairman of Orlick Industries, a Hamilton auto parts manufacturer. He is also chancellor of McMaster University, a position he was first named to in 1998. His second term as chancellor is slated to end in 2004.

Hawkrigg was a recipient of the Lester B. Pearson award in 1999 from the Canadian University Athletic Union. The award goes to a distinguished Canadian who exemplifies the ideals and purposes of university athletics and amateur sport.

Hawkrigg was also named a member of McMaster’s All Century Football Team in the spring of 2001.

Danny Lewicki

A nine-year veteran of the National Hockey League, Lewicki is a winner of the Stanley Cup, Allan Cup, and Memorial Cup. He pulled off hockey’s “Triple Crown” while still a junior-aged player between the years of 1948 and 1951. Lewicki is the only player in hockey history to achieve such a feat.

In 1948, he was on the Memorial Cup-winning Port Arthur Bruins and led his team in scoring throughout the playdowns, and even notched the winning goal in overtime of the championship game against the Barrie Flyers in Maple Leaf Gardens.

As a member of the senior league Toronto Marlboroughs, Lewicki was the leading scorer for the playdowns as the team won the Allan Cup in 1950. The next year, 1951, Lewicki was a member of the Stanley Cup Champion Toronto Maple Leafs.

Born in Fort William, Ontario in 1931, Lewicki played most of his minor and junior hockey near his hometown before joining the senior Toronto Marlboroughs.

In the NHL, he played four seasons with the Leafs, four with the New York Rangers and one with the Chicago Blackhawks. In the 1954 season, he scored 29 goals with the Rangers and was named to the NHL All-Star team as a left-winger. He was also second in the voting for the Lady Byng Trophy that season. During his 457 NHL game career, Lewicki recorded 115 goals and 153 assists.

Lewicki lived in Etobicoke for 10 years and was very involved with sports in the community at that time. He was the first coach of the Etobicoke Indians Junior B team in the 1960s which included such players as Ken Dryden.

Lewicki continued his coaching career with the Hamilton Junior A Red Wings of the Ontario Hockey Association. He then went on to a business career while becoming involved with a number of charities including the “Emmy” gold tournament for research into myelin disease.

Joe Primeau

“Gentleman” Joe Primeau had a distinguished career as both a hockey player and coach. From 1932 to 1936, Primeau centred the famous “Kid Line” of the Toronto Maple Leafs with wingers Charlie Conacher and Harvey “Busher” Jackson.

He finished second in National Hockey League scoring in the 1932 season by three points to his linemate Jackson, and second in the 1934 season by six points to his linemate Conacher.

The production of the Kid Line helped lead the Toronto Maple Leafs to their first Stanley Cup in 1932. Primeau won the Lady Byng Trophy in 1932 and was named to the 1934 NHL All Star team.

Born in Lindsay, Ontario, Primeau began his NHL Career in 1927. Along with his success on the ice, Primeau was also an outstanding coach. He is the only man to have coached Memorial Cup, Allan Cup and Stanley Cup teams.

Primeau won the Memorial Cup while coach of the Toronto St. Michael’s Juniors, the senior men’s Allan Cup while with the Toronto Marlboroughs and the Stanley Cup as coach of the Leafs in 1951.

Primeau began his coaching career while still an NHL player by taking the bench for the West Toronto Juniors in 1932.

He was a longtime resident of the Ripplewood Road area of Etobicoke, living in the community from 1957 until his death at age 83 in 1989. Primeau is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame and the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame.

Earl Walls

A long-time realtor and resident of The Kingsway area, Earl Walls was Canada’s Heavyweight Boxing Champion in the early 1950s. Born in Puce, Ontario, near Windsor, his boxing career was brief but extremely successful.

He began boxing at age 19 and quickly won the Ontario Amateur Heavyweight Championship. He then started his pro career with a knockout victory in a fight in New York City.

After losing his next three bouts, he set up training in Alberta and by June of 1952 had won the Canadian Heavyweight title. In his pro career, Walls knocked out 27 opponents — 14 of them in the first round.

By 1955, he was on his way to perhaps becoming the second Canadian ever (behind Tommy Burns) to take the World Heavyweight Championship. He was ranked fifth in the world, and a title shot against the champ Rocky Marciano seemed to be inevitable.

However, in June of that year, at the age of 27, Walls stunned the boxing world by announcing his retirement.

Married and with a young family, Walls no longer wanted to participate in the fight game. “Boxing is a business. Strictly a career with me. I don’t go for violence. And I don’t like the wrong impression people get of fighters – that we’re all gorillas, social bums. We’re really just an ordinary bunch of guys” Walls wrote in a 1955 article explaining his decision to retire.

Walls went on to enormous success in the real estate business while raising his family in Etobicoke. He was involved with a number of charities, including Variety Village’s Sunshine Games.

Walls, who was known as the “Hooded Terror” when he fought professionally, is a member of the Canadian Boxing Hall of Fame and the Afro-American Sports Hall of Fame in Detroit. He died in December of 1996 of a heart attack.