Sudbury: A Green And Gold City?

When shopping online for hockey jerseys through various auction sites, there's always a "caveat emptor" feeling that one should have. The number of fake jerseys that are seen online outnumber the authentics exponentially, and today's jersey to the left felt like one of those jerseys. Of course, that photo comes from a legitimate auction house in Classic Auctions, but my first thought when I saw this photo was that this was some beer league jersey using the Sudbury Wolves' logo. As I found out, this is the 1986-87 jersey worn by Paul DiPietro during his time with the OHL club!

The history of the green Sudbury Wolves begins before the OHL team was in the Ontario city as Sudbury won the Gordon Cup in 1915 while wearing white and green sweaters. The prevailing thought is that those sweaters were worn as some of the players on that championship team were on a local club with the same colour scheme according to Scott Miller, author of Leading the Pack: 50 Years of Sudbury Wolves History. With the victory of the top championship trophy in Ontario, Sudbury teams, specifically Wolves teams, began wearing green for high-level games and tournaments.

What isn't mentioned above is that the Wolves earned berths in Allan Cups, Dominion Junior Hockey Championships, winter carnival exhibitions, and world championships. That last one might be more surprising to people, but the Wolves represented Canada on the international stage in 1938 at the World Ice Hockey Championship in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Fourteen teams participated in this World Championship with rounds reducing the number of teams participating at each stage. Canada/Sudbury would win their preliminary pool over Czechoslovakia, Sweden, and Austria before beating Germany and Hungary to set up the final pool.

Canada beat Germany (again) and Great Britain defeated Czechoslovakia to set up the gold medal final, and Canada/Sudbury used three first-period goals to pace themselves to a 3-1 over the British to claim Canada's tenth World Hockey Championship gold medal. The fun part of this story, though, is that the Sudbury team went on a European tour where they played teams from a number of countries. Starting January 1938, they toured Germany, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Austria, Belgium, England, and Scotland where they compiled a 19-2-5 record! The two games they lost were to the British team after the World Championship on March 8 and 10 when their trip was ending!

That wouldn't be the only time that the Sudbury Wolves skated under the "Canada" name as the Wolves competed at the 1949 World Hockey Championship in Stockholm, Sweden as Canada's entry into the event. They'd come home after finishing in second-place, but the boys in in green certainly showed the world that Canada was there to play, beating Denmark 47-0 and Austria 7-0 in the preliminary round. The round-robin saw Canada lose to Czechoslovkia and tie Sweden before hammering the US and Austria. They'd tie Switzerland in the final game, but it wasn't enough to catch Czechoslovakia who ended the round-robin portion with a 4-1-0 record.

It should be noted that there was some concern heading into the 1949 championship as the Wolves took some losses in Great Britain where they played exhibition games, but the Wolves found their game and won a few contests as the World Championship neared!

Of course, if you think that criticism of Canadian teams who go to the World Championship is a new thing, here's a newspaper article from 1949 that says this has been happening in Canada for decades!

Jokes aside, seeing the Wolves with one World Championship gold medal while appearing at two World Championships to its name is pretty cool! That legacy, though, was something that Bud Burke wanted to create when the OHL offered membership in their league. Ralph Connor, named as Team President, helped an interested Sudbury party to purchase the Niagara Falls Flyers from Leighton "Hap" Emms and move the team to Sudbury. On May 6, 1972, the OHA approved the sale from Emms to the group fronted by Bud Burke as the OHA's Sudbury Wolves would begin play in 1972-73 wearing the green and yellow to which hockey fans in Sudbury had become accustomed! Fans would see some amazing players don the green and gold including Randy Carlyle, Ron Duguay, Mike Foligno, Don Beaupre, Pat Verbeek, and Jeff Brown, but success would elude the Wolves as they never brought home a Memorial Cup nor a J. Ross Robertson Cup.

Of course, the green-and-yellow colour scheme made these early Wolves a favorite of Uni Watch founder Paul Lukas, but the green jerseys would be retired in the 1988-89 season for the current blue-white-and-gray look that the OHL's Sudbury Wolves wear. It was Ken Burgess, who owned the OHL team in 1988, who once asked, "Who ever heard of a green wolf?" before changing the Wolves' colours to a similar scheme as his Burgess Power Train and Manufacturing company, now known as Burgess-Norton Manufacturing. Since the change, there have been some smaller modifications made to the jerseys, but the blue colour scheme has stayed intact.

It's pretty cool to know that Sudbury, Ontario has a long history with a colour scheme other than the one they currently wear, and it almost feels like the current OHL Wolves should honour that history with an alternate jersey that pays homage to its own history as well as the hockey history of the city. Of course, the green-and-gold colour scheme makes complete sense with the 1939 Sudbury Wolves winning the World Championship gold medal while wearing green, but who am I to demand any team honour the history of its city? That would almost make too much sense.

They wore green and they brought home gold - it sure sounds like Sudbury had the right colours through their history!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!