Remembering George Robertson (Part Two)

Winnipeg's George Robertson broke into the Montreal Canadiens on a line with Maurice Richard and Elmer Lach in 1948-49. Unfortunately, his Casanova exploits off the ice cost him a longer NHL career.

This is part two of a three-part series on George Robertson, a former Montreal Canadiens forward with a very interesting tale. Enjoy!

After Robertson’s heroics in the Memorial Cup final, he was starting to gain traction in the media as one of the top up-and-coming hockey prospects in Canada. The New York Rangers who held his NHL rights must have figured they had a diamond in the rough and it was being reported soon after that Robertson had an offer to join the Moose Jaw Canucks junior club, but he eventually turned them down when a team from the east came knocking on his door, literally.

“I guess some junior teams saw me play in the (Memorial Cup) final and a rep from the Stratford Kroehlers of the OHA (the same league that St. Mike’s played in) came to my house in West Kildonan and asked me to go down there. My mom and dad were there of course, and he offered me $500 to sign and also a job at Kroehler Furniture, so I signed and was off to Ontario. My dad was a bookkeeper and accountant at McLeod’s Limited Farm Implement and Supplies on Higgins & Main and I worked there making binder canvasses in the summer when I was playing hockey as a kid. And then after the Monarchs I went to Stratford, Ontario and I worked at the Kroehler furniture factory, the company that sponsored the junior team. During the season on the days I wasn’t playing hockey I went down there to the factory and they’d give me so much a week whether I went there or not.”

Just like with the Monarchs, Robertson kept up his scoring ways in Southern Ontario and scored 47 points in 30 games for Stratford over the 1946-47 season. George was speedy and knew how to score so the Rangers brass kept pretty close tabs on his progress. “After my season ended in Stratford, New York called me to say come play for the New York Rovers of the EAHL (Eastern Amateur Hockey League) so I went. It was the end of their season and I played one game in New York and the same day we played a night game in Baltimore. And then two or three nights later I played in Boston against the Olympics. I remember Larry Kwong being on our team and the people in Boston really layed it on us because he was Chinese, and people were racist back then.”

George’s good buddy Jack Gordon was playing with the Rovers, so I wasn’t surprised when he remarked to me that he had a great time in New York to end that season. He even played in the playoffs for the Rovers and put up a few more goals during their run to the league final where they eventually lost to the Boston Olympics. All in all, a pretty damn good professional hockey debut for George that only led NHL general managers further in believing that Robertson was a top prospect on the verge of the big leagues.

New York Rangers manager Frank Boucher was a big fan of Robertson’s game and made it known to him that if he kept up his play that he would be a Blueshirt in no time. In hockey however, everything can change in a moments notice. As was the case on August 19^th, 1947 when the New York Rangers traded their prized prospect Robertson, along with Hal Laycoe and Joe Bell to the Montreal Canadiens for Buddy O’Connor and Frank Eddolls. It was a blockbuster trade at the time because O’Connor was one of the Habs top forwards and later went on to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, but Montreal was looking to inject some fresh blood into their lineup and this was a move done to achieve that. The big piece that the Canadiens were getting in return for O’Connor was no doubt George Robertson. He was the equivalent of a high first round draft pick if we are comparing with today’s game and the Canadiens front office was very high on his potential. To scouts and hockey minds of those days, George had all the tools needed to establish himself as a premier scorer in the National Hockey League one day and the Canadiens decided to pull the trigger on losing O’Connor at the prospect of Robertson, as well as Hal Laycoe and Joe Bell to become future contributors to their club in the near future.

The Montreal Canadiens decided not to rush Robertson and let him mature a little as they assigned him, along with his good buddy Tom Johnson, to the Montreal Royals senior club for the 1947-48 campaign. Playing with the Royals, George was mentored by veteran NHL defensemen Jimmy Orlando about the ins and outs of pro hockey. “Jimmy Orlando was a great guy,” Robertson recalls. “I liked him a lot. He was in charge of a bar downtown and me and Tom Johnson spent a lot of time with him that year.”