Flashback

Roy McMurtry (LLB ’58, [Hon] LLD ’91), who died last March at the age of 91, was a towering figure in Canadian law, politics and sports. He served as Ontario’s attorney general, chief justice of Ontario and as York University’s 12th chancellor from 2008 to 2014. Throughout his life, McMurtry’s passion for athletics was as evident as his commitment to law and public service. His enthusiasm for sports continued throughout his legal career and into his tenure at York. In this posthumous reminiscence, we share an excerpt from McMurtry’s memoir that highlights his experiences with the Osgoode Hall hockey team during his time as a law student there in the 1950s:

“The Osgoode Hall hockey team was led by Joe Kane, a future judge, who later became our playing coach. We had some excellent junior A and senior intercollegiate players in addition to Kane – Jack Weldrake, Jerry Fitzhenry and Bob Dale. I played defence with Kane, who liked to bestow nicknames on most of our teammates. My favourite was “the Vulcan” for our goalkeeper John Goodwin. John had so many pucks shot at him every game, Joe explained, that he was being steadily vulcanized (rubberized).

My best anecdote about my Osgoode hockey career relates not to any hard-fought victory, but to sitting in a dentist chair in Kingston on a Saturday afternoon immediately after a game with Queen’s University. Late in the game, I managed to stumble headfirst into the opposing goalkeeper’s skate, resulting in some badly damaged teeth … The emergency dental treatment turned into an informal cocktail party. The Queen’s hockey coach was Keith “Moon” Flanigan, a local lawyer, who later became a judge. He arranged for a dentist friend to see me in his office right after the game. Flanigan, [Osgoode coach Allan “Buck”] Leal, and our keen supporter Professor Donald Spence sat themselves around the chair, sharing a bottle of whiskey. The dentist appeared to enjoy having spectators for his skills while helping himself to an occasional sip as he worked on my teeth.”

Excerpt from Memoirs and Reflections by Roy McMurtry, published for the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History by the University of Toronto Press in 2013.