Remembering George Robertson (Part Three)

Winnipeg's George Robertson was a very talented professional hockey player who perhaps didn't live up to his potential. The 1946 Memorial Cup hero only played in 31 career NHL games with Montreal.

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

Robertson started the 1949-50 season with the AHL’s Cincinnati Mohawks where King Clancy was the coach. He spent part of the year in Cincinnati, scoring 8 points in 26 games before being shipped out to the PCHL’s Victoria Cougars, where he scored 12 points in 24 games. “I got along with King Clancy not bad when I played for him, but when he ended up with Harold Ballard years later and just became a lackey to him, shit I had no respect for him after that. But Cincinnati only operated for a season or two and I had the big photograph of the team and some other stuff that I gave to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto a while back because they had nothing on that team.”

“In Cincinnati I had a shoulder separation and then they sent me out to Victoria and I got another one after five games there. I was in bad shape the whole year in Victoria it seemed like. I was there with Eddie Dorohoy and Tom Rockey. Eddie Wares was the coach. That was kind of the beginning of my shoulder separation problems that have kind of been ongoing since. As a matter of fact, I had one in bed not too long ago. Fourteen times it’s happened that my shoulder slips out. They’re very painful and they know me very well at Seven Oaks Hospital because I’ve been there so much.”

George is a tough ol’ bugger. I’ve dislocated both my shoulders and I can honestly say that it’s arguably the most physical pain I’ve endured in my life so far. To have it happen fourteen times and the fact that it still happens when he’s 91 years old is unbelievable!

Victoria sold Robertson the following season to the notorious Eddie Shore and his Springfield Indians. Nowadays, hockey fans know of no-trade clauses. Back in George’s day such a thing didn’t exist, but there were clauses for certain players that under no circumstances could they ever be traded to Eddie Shore because he was well known as being very cantankerous and treating his players with little respect. I think George’s experience with Shore is similar to a lot of players in those days that had to play for Springfield.

“I wouldn’t sign the contract initially because Shore wouldn’t give me the money I wanted and so I left. He said, ‘well that’s it then.’ I went back to Stratford, Ontario because that’s where I played junior and I stayed at the same place from when I was there. And the day after I got there my mom called me from home in West Kildonan and told me that Shore had called and said he’d give me the money I wanted and to go back to training camp So the next day I showed up back in Springfield, and then the season started and the first two games, I did pretty well. They had an award in Springfield for star of the game and I won it two games in a row. The third game I didn’t win the award and Shore fined me for ‘indifferent play.’ I went to find my skates and get the hell out of there. Hall of Famer Earl Siebert was the coach and he told me, ‘Eddie said you can’t have your skates.’ I said, ‘they’re my Montreal Canadiens skates!’ In the locker room there was a big wagon where you put your equipment in after the games to load onto the train, and I said, ‘that’s going through the fucking door if you don’t give me my skates.’ Siebert relented and let me in, I got my skates and was gone. I called my old Monarchs teammate Tom Rockey, who was playing in Sydney, Nova Scotia and they were looking for a player and it was the best move I ever made. Eddie Shore was the most hated guy in hockey and my story kind of shows why I guess.”