Jack Roxburgh
John Maxwell Roxburgh was a Canadian ice hockey administrator and politician. He organized minor ice hockey in his hometown of Simcoe, Ontario, co-founded the Ontario Juvenile Hockey Association in 1934, and the Ontario Minor Hockey Association in 1940. He served as president of the Ontario Hockey Association from 1950 to 1952, improved its finances to become profitable, and appointed Bill Hanley as a full-time manager to operate the association as a business. Roxburgh served as president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association from 1960 to 1962, arranged exhibition games between Canada and the Soviet Union amid an increased rivalry between the respective national teams, and pushed for the separation of politics and sport when the Cold War threatened to cancel the 1962 Ice Hockey World Championships. He was opposed to changes in the Olympic Oath and the international definition of amateurism, and later recommended the formation of a student-athlete team coached by Father David Bauer to become the Canada men's national ice hockey team.
Roxburgh graduated from Ontario Agricultural College and farmed before he venturing into municipal and federal politics. He served as a Liberal Party of Canada member of the House of Commons of Canada for the Norfolk electoral district from 1962 to 1968. He was elected three times, defended the Canadian tobacco industry, pushed for university students registering as voters, and lobbied for increased grants to promote physical fitness in Canada. During the Great Canadian Flag Debate of 1964, Roxburgh introduced legislation to declare ice hockey as the national game of Canada after he disproved the myth that lacrosse held the distinction. He was a life member of multiple hockey organizations and received the Order of Merit from the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association. He died from injuries sustained in a boating accident, and was posthumously inducted into the Norfolk County Sports Hall of Recognition.
Early life
John Maxwell Roxburgh was born on February 14, 1901, in Phoenix. His family was temporarily living in the Arizona Territory, until his parents relocated the family to Cache Bay, Ontario while Roxburgh was a youth. He attended secondary school in Sturgeon Falls, Ontario. He graduated from Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph in 1926, with a degree in horticulture, and played on ice hockey and rugby teams in college.Roxburgh worked at a cannery in Wellington County, Ontario, for a year, then relocated to Norfolk County, Ontario, in 1928. He worked for a year at the Government of Ontario turkey farm, near Turkey Point, Ontario. In 1929, he purchased a farm in Woodhouse Township, and began breeding a flock of 1700 turkeys which won prizes at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair and the 1933 Chicago World's Fair.
During the 1930s, he served as president of the Ontario Turkey Breeders Association for three years, operated a life insurance business, and served as a Woodhouse Township Council member and deputy reeve. By 1941, he began cultivating orchards of cherries, apples, peaches and strawberries, and served as secretary of the Norfolk Federation of Agriculture.
Ontario hockey career
Roxburgh assisted in organizing a Sunday school league in 1934, in Simcoe, Ontario. Later that year, Roxburgh and Roger Matchett organized the Ontario Juvenile Hockey Association in southwestern Ontario, and Roxburgh volunteered to manage and coach of the Simcoe juveniles team. He served as secretary-treasurer of the OJHA from 1934 to 1936, and then as its president from 1936 to 1938. His team evolved into the Tiger Cub Juveniles, then was later known as Roxy's Reformer Cubs. The team's players were chosen from the Sunday school league, and reached the Ontario Hockey Association junior ice hockey semifinals during the 1937–38 season.Roxburgh's OJHA operated with four teams, and he sought to increase the numbers of teams and competition level. He arranged games with the Ontario Midget and Bantam Hockey Association based in St. Catharines, Ontario. Roxburgh was involved in negotiations for the two organizations to merge, founding the Ontario Minor Hockey Association on November 30, 1940. The new league began its first season with eight teams, and Roxburgh convinced the new OMHA to sign an affiliation agreement with the OHA in 1940.
Roxburgh later became a convenor and an executive within the OHA, then served as OHA president from 1950 to 1952. Historian and writer Scott Young credited Roxburgh for being an astute businessman and improving the OHA's finances by increasing profits from the playoffs in junior ice hockey. In 1951, Roxburgh appointed Bill Hanley to become the full-time manager of the OHA to assist in running the association as a business.
In 1951, the OHA was faced with a mutiny in the senior ice hockey ranks in Kingston, Ontario. After an inquiry, Roxburgh and fellow OHA executives George Dudley, Frank Buckland and W. A. Hewitt, handed out a lifetime suspension to George Patterson who coached Kingston's senior B-level team, for conspiring to deliberately lose a playoff series to avoid moving into a higher-level of playoffs, rather than staying in a lower level and potentially make more profits at home playoff games than on the road.
Roxburgh was succeeded as OHA president by S. E. McTavish, and later represented the OHA at the national level as its past president.
CAHA vice-president
Roxburgh was elected second vice-president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association on May 30, 1957, and served in the role for two years until 1959. He chaired the minor ice hockey committee which organized Minor Hockey Week in Canada in 1958 and 1959, and oversaw scheduling at the 1959 Memorial Cup.He was elected first vice-president of the CAHA in 1959. He remained chairman of the minor hockey committee, and reported at the 1959 annual general meeting that minor hockey registrations had increased by 2700 players from the previous season. He remained in charge of scheduling for the 1960 Memorial Cup playoffs, and directed the referees to be tougher on physical play and stick-swinging in the 1960 finals, due to aggressive and dangerous play.
CAHA president
First term
Roxburgh was elected CAHA president on May 28, 1960, at the annual general meeting in Sydney, Nova Scotia, and succeeded Gordon Juckes, who had stepped down as president to be appointed a full-time secretary and employee of the CAHA. Roxburgh was subsequently elected a director of the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States later in 1960. As CAHA president, Roxburgh arranged exhibition games between Canada and the Soviet Union, and represented the CAHA at the International Ice Hockey Federation.Roxburgh and fellow CAHA executives were tasked with choosing which club would represent the Canada men's national ice hockey team at the Ice Hockey World Championships and in ice hockey at the Olympic Games. The CAHA felt that the Winnipeg Maroons were Canada's strongest team to win the 1961 Ice Hockey World Championships, but the Maroons could not play a three-week exhibition tour in Switzerland due to work commitments. Roxburgh later announced the Trail Smoke Eaters were chosen to represent Canada, and would participate in a profitable exhibition tour. He also admitted that Soviet teams were faster and stronger than before, and that Canada needed to improve to win against them in the World Championships.
Roxburgh travelled with Trail on the exhibition tour of Europe, and felt they were a balanced team that could play physical hockey. After games with in Sweden, Herman Carlsson of the Swedish Ice Hockey Association said that Canadian players were intent on injuring Sweden's best players in advance of the 1961 World Championships. Roxburgh responded by calling the Swedish players weak, and offered to arrange to a trip to Canada where Sweden could learn how to play hockey. The tour continued into the Soviet Union, and after Trail lost to HC Dynamo Moscow by a 3–2 score, Roxburgh said, "the Russians have come a long way and are able to give and take body checks just as we do". He told reporters in Czechoslovakia that either Canada or the Soviet Union national ice hockey team would win the gold medal at the 1961 World Championship. His prediction proved correct when Canada won the gold medal over the Czechoslovakia men's national ice hockey team. Roxburgh chose to share profits from the television rights of the exhibition series with members of the Trail Smoke Eaters, after it was mistakenly reported that the team would get a share of the profits instead of just the CAHA retaining the profits. After the tour completed, Roxburgh stated he was opposed to more exhibition games in Sweden in the upcoming winter season due to issues regarding physical play, and didn't want to risk more problems.
At the 1961 CAHA annual general meeting in Port Arthur, Ontario, Roxburgh stated that the recent Memorial Cup and Allan Cups were the more financially successful in recent times. Delegates to the meeting pushed for more say about rules of play on the joint committee with the National Hockey League and other professional leagues. Roxburgh challenged delegates to choose a consistent refereeing system to be used in national playoffs. Until then, the playoff format had been an executive choice, lacking consistency across the nation. Delegates voted to have one referee and two linesmen at all games, as opposed to two referees without linesmen.
Second term
Roxburgh was reelected CAHA president on May 26, 1961. In August 1961, the OHA's junior division was reduced to only five teams when the Toronto area teams formed the Metro Junior A League. OHA president Lloyd Pollock applied to the CAHA to permit the Montreal Junior Canadiens from the Quebec Amateur Hockey Association to play in the OHA as its sixth team. Roxburgh denied the request, stating that CAHA rules do not allow en masse transfers between provincial associations. The Canadiens transfer to the OHA's junior division was later approved when the CAHA branch presidents voted in its favour.In September 1961, Earl Dawson of the Manitoba Amateur Hockey Association sought approval for the Manitoba Junior Hockey League to use international ice hockey rules, Roxburgh approved of the change and was quoted as saying that "certain formalities had to be taken care of". Also in September 1961, the Hockey Hall of Fame opened in Toronto. Roxburgh felt that there was no place for two halls of fame in Canada, referring to the Original Hockey Hall of Fame which had yet to be built in Kingston, Ontario, and stated it was a "tragedy nothing was done" while James T. Sutherland was alive. The CAHA formally withdrew its support of Kingston in January 1962, in favour of Toronto.