Hockey's Oldest Business – Since 1847: Chapter 7 – The Seagrams, Part 2

From a sporting standpoint, the Seagram family of Waterloo was known primarily for thoroughbred horse racing, but they were actually involved in many other activities, and it can be argued that their most lasting impression was on the world of hockey.

Roustan Sports Ltd. will gladly make that argument, and not just because it was Edward Frowde Seagram who is said to have introduced the sport to his hometown. It was also his efforts that resulted in the creation of Roustan Sports’ longest-lasting and most resilient predecessor company – Hespeler St. Marys Wood Specialties Ltd.

Ed Seagram was the eldest of Joseph Emm Seagram’s four sons, and from an early age he was groomed to follow in the footsteps of his illustrious father, the pioneer distiller and horse breeder who made Waterloo famous with his whisky and his stakes-winning stable of thoroughbreds.

Born on September 28, 1873, in Waterloo, Ed was a natural athlete as a child and young man. He attended Lakefield Preparatory School, Trinity College School in Port Hope, and McGill University in Montreal, and it was at Trinity College where he was introduced to the then-new sport of ice hockey. An article published in 1892 cited him and his younger brother, Joseph Jr., with both being current members of the Trinity team. (1)

“He was away at college and brought hockey home with him,” Harry Boehmer, who would become a hockey teammate of the two oldest Seagram boys, said of Ed many years later. He also remembered that when Seagram’s group of friends began playing hockey in Waterloo and neighboring Berlin – now Kitchener – they bought “hand-made sticks from an Ayr craftsman.” (2) This craftsman was undoubtedly William Hilborn Sr., establishing an early connection between Ed Seagram and the Hilborn Company, which he would eventually buy.

Hockey’s Oldest Business – Since 1847: Chapter 6 – The Seagrams, Part 1 Waterloo, Ontario, is a much different place now than it was when Joseph Seagram arrived in the 1860s, looking to make his fortune.

Both Seagram boys also played hockey while at school in Montreal before finishing their educations and returning home to Waterloo. They joined the local Waterloo Hockey Club that had formed in their absence, and by 1895, Ed was the team’s captain and driving force. In the winter of 1897, with the Ontario Hockey Association having organized a new intermediate series for communities with smaller populations, a combined Berlin-Waterloo team won the first intermediate championship by defeating Kingston 3-0 in the final game.

“Ed Seagram played the game of his life,” a Toronto newspaper reporter wrote, noting that he had assisted on his team’s second goal and scored the third. (3) Berlin-Waterloo then unsuccessfully challenged a Montreal club for the Canadian intermediate title, losing 6-1.

Ed and Joe Jr.’s younger brothers, Norman and Thomas, also eventually played for the Waterloo Hockey Club. After retiring from competition, Ed occupied his time by continuing to learn the distillery business and also following his father into the political arena. He became an alderman on the Waterloo town council and in 1906, with Joe Sr. still serving as Member of Parliament for the Waterloo North riding, Ed was elected to the first of his two terms as mayor of Waterloo. Never one to sit still for very long, he left the mayor’s office and returned to active hockey management by overseeing the operation of Waterloo’s entry in the short-lived Ontario Professional Hockey League.

Waterloo’s team in the OPHL is often referred to now as the Colts, but there is no evidence that they were known as anything but the Professionals, or Pros, during the two years that they existed. The team isn’t remembered for much, but it did have one future Hockey Hall of Fame member on its roster in each season – Joe Malone in 1910, and George McNamara in 1911. The Pros had a chance to compete for the Stanley Cup in their second year, but they lost to Galt in a sudden-death playoff game that gave Galt the right to challenge the powerful Ottawa Hockey Club (later known as the Senators). Galt failed in its challenge, and the 1911 season was the last for the Pros and their league, after which Ed Seagram took Waterloo back into the OHA amateur ranks.

Ed, the distillery’s manager from 1900, became a vice-president in 1911. His brothers also assumed more responsibility with the company, which was renamed Joseph E. Seagram and Sons Ltd. as a reflection of their increased involvement. Joe Sr. died in August 1919, and the presidency officially passed to Ed the following year. One of his first acts as president was to buy the Charles Mueller Company and bring the cooperage back under the Seagram umbrella. But he did something unusual – he incorporated it as a separate company called Canada Barrels and Kegs Ltd., installing himself as its president and his brothers Thomas and Norman as directors. (4) Whatever Ed’s intentions were at the time, this move made it easy to separate the cooperage later and maintain family ownership of it after he made the decision to get out of the business of distilling whisky.

As it happened, he had taken over the distillery at a challenging time. The First World War had curtailed production somewhat, as had a province-wide prohibition on alcohol sales that went into effect in 1916. Prohibition also became the law of the land in the United States in January 1920, with the intent of curtailing the production and distribution of alcoholic beverages. This actually led to a boom in alcohol purchases, with Canadian distilleries ramping up production to meet the increased demand and other entrepreneurs figuring out how to get it across the Canada-US border to thirsty American customers who were willing to take the risk of purchasing it. Exporting booze out of the province and out of the country wasn’t illegal; as far as the authorities were concerned, what happened to it after it left the distillery was deemed to be the business of whoever bought it.

But Ed Seagram was never comfortable operating in that environment, which led to crime and corruption as bootleggers on both sides of the border fought viciously for control of the black market. Geoff Seagram, Ed’s grandson, said he was told that Ed was often contacted and even visited by people whose intentions were somewhat less than noble.

“He got threatening letters from a lot of people. Al Capone wanted him to join up with him,” Geoff said in an interview, adding that Ed eventually sought protection from those who might do him or his family harm. “He used to travel with Pinkerton detectives, two guys with guns, because of the threatening letters he had.”

Ed finally had enough. As the majority owner of the company, he took it public in 1926 after first rejecting a purchase offer from an upstart Montreal distiller named Samuel Bronfman, who had no qualms whatsoever about playing whatever games were necessary to produce and sell alcohol wherever and however he could. Edward Pollard Seagram, Ed’s youngest and last surviving son, said in an interview that his father didn’t like or trust Bronfman and treated him accordingly.

“When he came into the office,” he said of Bronfman, “he went out just about as fast as he came in . . . because he was a bootlegger.”

Bronfman would not be denied. He worked out a deal with The Distillers Company of Edinburgh, Scotland, which billed itself as the world’s largest distiller of whisky. In 1928, after Joseph E. Seagram and Sons Ltd. had gone public, Distillers came forward with a merger offer that Ed and other shareholders agreed to. This merger resulted in a new corporation called Distillers Corporation-Seagrams Ltd. What Ed may not have known was that the deal worked out beforehand gave majority control of the new company to a group led by Bronfman and his brothers.

Ed kept the presidency of Joseph E. Seagram and Sons Ltd., which nominally remained a separate company under the new corporation’s umbrella, and he and his brother Tom were given seats on the board of directors, but Sam Bronfman was now in charge. He and his own family kept control of Seagrams until 2000, when it was dissolved, although many of its brands – including the original Seagram’s 83 – are still produced today. The historic Waterloo distillery closed in 1991 and was demolished in 1993.

All things considered, Ed probably didn’t care all that much that Bronfman had won control. He had plenty to keep him busy as the 1920s ended and the 1930s began, like Canada Barrels and Kegs. If Bronfman was content to take on the risks associated with producing the liquor, Ed was content to provide the vessels that would carry that liquor to its purchasers. He was also the president or vice-president of – among other entities – the Globe Furniture Company in Waterloo, the Waterloo Trust and Savings Company, the Merchants Casualty Company and the Dominion Life Assurance Company, and was a partner in Seagram, Harris and Bricker, a brokerage firm. He also managed the Seagram stable of thoroughbred horses that his father had owned.

With everything he had going on, it’s a wonder he came up with the idea of getting into the manufacturing of hockey sticks – but, having never lost his love for the game, that’s exactly what he did, beginning with the purchase of E.B. Salyerds and Sons of Preston in 1929.

Waterloo Wood Products Ltd. was set up as a holding company in November 1930 and became a subsidiary of Canada Barrels and Kegs.

The next purchase was the Hilborn Company of Ayr in 1931, followed by Hespeler Wood Specialty and St. Marys Wood Specialty, both in 1933.

Three of the four factories were shuttered, and all production was moved to Hespeler.

The final step in the process was the renaming of the holding company, as Waterloo Wood Products became Hespeler St. Marys Wood Specialties Ltd.

Hockey’s Oldest Business – Since 1847: Chapter 4 – Hespeler Just as the story of Roustan Sports Ltd. cannot be told without exploring the history of one of its predecessor companies, Hespeler St. Marys Wood Specialties, the story of Hespeler St. Marys Wood Specialties likewise cannot be told without some important background information about Hespeler, where hockey sticks were proudly Canadian-made under various banners for a full century.

It’s not known how extensive Ed’s involvement in the company was after he finalized all the purchases and oversaw the closures and the moves. Neither Ed’s son or his grandson knew exactly why he had gone into hockey stick making.

“The only thing I can think of,” Geoff said, “is that my grandfather and most of us Seagrams were very athletic and competitive, and it doesn’t surprise me that he would like to manufacture athletic equipment. Perhaps he had some ideas regarding the manufacturing of hockey sticks, which would give the players some competitive advantage and hence make his sticks the ones to buy.”

It’s also possible he was reliving his old hockey glory through his son, Campbell ‘Cammie’ Seagram. Cammie was a star athlete in several sports, particularly hockey, and in 1928 he led the Kitchener Greenshirts to the Ontario senior championship and a berth in the Eastern Canadian final for the Allan Cup. He was so good that he could very easily have played in the NHL – if only he had been allowed.

“He was just an amazing athlete,” Edward Pollard Seagram said of his late brother, who also won individual and team championships in golf, badminton, cricket, curling and football. Despite his prowess, their father forced Cammie to reject offers he received from pro hockey teams. “Dad would not let him play, would not let him go professional. I think he felt that he should be in business, part of the Seagram family businesses.”

Added Geoff: “He was offered a position with the Montreal Maroons, and my grandfather said to him, ‘No son of mine is going to be a dumb athlete. Go get a job.’ So he became a stockbroker.”

Karen VandenBrink is the manager of the City of Waterloo Museum and has taken a deep interest in the Seagram family and its legacy. She believes that going into sports equipment manufacturing filled a gap for them in the years after Joe Seagram passed away.

“It was that time period when they started to get out of horse racing. The sons weren’t as invested in the horse racing as their dad was,” she said in an interview. “And then they said, OK, let’s diversify the family corporate portfolio, and how do we build it? How do we do it? They were all big sports fans. There was an enjoyment of that competition that they all grew up with.”

Ed proved to be a different owner because, unlike his predecessors in hockey stick manufacturing, he was not known to be an inventor or a creator. Whatever input he had into stick design and production, if any, was not made public.

In any event, his establishment of Hespeler St. Marys Wood Specialties stands on its own simply because he made it happen, and also because his tenure as the company’s head was regrettably brief. He was 63 years old when he died suddenly of complications from a stomach ulcer in February 1937.

His eldest son, J.E. Frowde Seagram – Geoff’s father – succeeded him in many of his business matters. But it was Ed’s youngest brother Thomas who stepped up to run Canada Barrels and Kegs and its subsidiary.

Tom Seagram was born on October 25, 1887, in Waterloo. He was a defenseman with the Waterloo Hockey Club before the First World War and, after joining the army in 1915, also played for a team formed by the 118th North Waterloo Battalion until it was shipped to Europe. Tom, who rose to the rank of captain in the battalion, had already taken an active role in the family businesses upon reaching adulthood and finishing his education; he listed his occupation as “distiller” when he got married in 1913 and again when he enlisted.

Like his brother, Tom held several executive positions with family associated firms after the sale of the distillery. After assuming the presidency of Canada Barrels and Kegs in 1937, he remained the head of that company until a few years before his death in October 1965, by which time he was the chairman of the board. It’s not known how closely Tom oversaw his subsidiary in Hespeler, but it’s safe to say that he probably wasn’t a hands-on owner. The Seagrams may not have known the ins and outs of designing and producing hockey sticks, but what they did know how to do was hire competent employees and entrust them with the day-to-day responsibilities.

One such employee was Leo Henhoeffer, who was already the managing director at Canada Barrels and Kegs and assumed the same title with Hespeler St. Marys Wood Specialties.

Jack Salm, who worked in various capacities for the Seagrams for 50 years, was the plant manager.

Charles ‘Young Buster’ Seaton was another valued employee, having started at the St. Marys factory in 1933 at age 16, working alongside his father Russell, who was known as ‘Old Buster.’ Transferring to Hespeler with the other St. Marys workers, Young Buster spent more than 40 years with the company and remembered that when he started, he was paid 13 cents an hour for a 10-hour day.

“You could buy a hockey stick then for 25 cents,” he said in 1974. “The very best would cost $1.25.” (5)

It was under Seagram stewardship that the Hespeler name became associated with the sticks, and that name and its various brands – Supreme, Mic Mac, Green Flash, Blue Flash, Extra Special and Super Pro, among others – became famous as a result.

In a 1939 newspaper advertisement, a sporting goods store in Ottawa claimed that it sold only Hespeler sticks, “knowing that they offer top value in each price class. Hespeler Hockey Sticks are made in Canada by the ‘World’s Oldest Hockey Stick Factory’ and are recognized leaders wherever the game of Hockey is played.” (6)

In 1955, a store in Minneapolis noted that Hespeler was “The Official Stick for Minneapolis High Schools,” which would have been quite the distinction in a city and a state where Northland sticks, produced in St. Paul, had long been established. (7)

Boston Bruins legend Eddie Shore used Hespeler sticks, and he came directly to the factory to place personal orders. Jack Marriott, another longtime employee who succeeded Salm as the plant manager, remembered in 1966 that Shore specifically wanted a stick “with a handle one-quarter inch deeper and one-eighth inch wider than standard. If he checked an opponent, the player knew he was checked.” (8)

Hespeler St. Marys, along with other manufacturers, began experimenting with manufacturing techniques, including wrapping stick blades with fiberglass, a move that would eventually result in the shafts also being similarly wrapped. Their durability was well-known and appreciated.

“Hespeler made the best sticks,” the late Bobby Hull recalled in speaking with author Bruce Dowbiggin for his 2002 book The Stick: A History, A Celebration, An Elegy. “Blue Flash, Green Flash, Hespeler Mic Mac – they’re the best sticks I used back then. I used one all season.” (9)

Other legends like Frank Mahovlich and Wayne Gretzky have also talked about having played with Hespeler sticks as a kid. So did Stanley Cup-winning coach Randy Carlyle, who remembered a special gift he received one year at Christmas.

“It was a Hespeler Green Flash hockey stick, and my dad got it for me,” Carlyle told a reporter in a 1999 interview. “Back then, the Flash was one of the first sticks with a curve, and I loved it.” (10)

As it happened, players like Bobby Hull were the impetus for Hespeler to start producing curved sticks in the 1960s. The company had survived the Second World War by diversifying, adding things like axe, pick and sledgehammer handles to its repertoire alongside hockey sticks and St. Marys-branded baseball bats. When the sporting goods market rebounded, Hespeler St. Marys Wood Specialties dumped the industrial products and focused again on sticks and bats.

By that time, the rock elm used in the earliest commercially produced hockey sticks had become scarce, so white ash became the preferred wood. It was just one way the industry had to adapt, and sticks with curved blades was another after they were popularized at the NHL level by players like Hull and his Chicago Black Hawks teammate Stan Mikita. (11)

Marriott estimated that Hespeler St. Marys Wood Specialties was producing between 700,000 and 850,000 sticks per year in 1966, and curved sticks represented about one percent of the total output.

“We will not push this stick,” Marriott said, noting the company would have preferred to not make a curved stick at all, “but we will produce it since demand by customers and players has forced us to.” (12)

Demand, of course, never went away.

By 1969, Marriott was reporting that production of curved sticks had risen to around 400,000 per year, which was now almost half of the factory’s output. As it turned out, the popularity of the slapshot – also inspired by players like Hull – was good for business, because sticks started breaking more often than before.

But that may also have been a result of stick composition changing yet again. According to Marriott, the blades on the company’s 25 different stick models were all made from hickory that was being imported from Kentucky and Mississippi, and some of the stick handles were being made from a 21-ply laminated wood that came from Finland. Annual production was now in excess of 1 million sticks, some of which were being shipped as far away as Europe and South Africa. (13)

The one constant through the decades was Seagram family stewardship.

Tom Seagram Jr. held progressively senior management roles with Canada Barrels and Kegs and other family interests before and after his father’s death, but unfortunately, he also developed multiple serious health issues that forced him to retire early and eventually led to his own early death. The presidency of Canada Barrels and Kegs was assumed by Frowde Seagram, Ed’s eldest son, whose main role to that point had been working at the distillery, nominally as its president but mainly doing promotional work as the only Seagram still employed by Distillers Corporation-Seagrams. But the succession after him was in question, as the next generation of Seagrams showed little or no desire – or, in the case of Tom Jr., the ability – to carry on the family businesses.

Compounding the issue, Hespeler hockey sticks also began to take on a reputation as a low-end brand, left behind in the marketplace by thriving competitors like CCM, Sherwood, Victoriaville, Northland and others. Wally Metcalf, a local sporting goods distributor based in nearby Preston, later alleged without evidence that Tom Seagram had neglected the company during his time in charge.

“He was losing money on the plant for years,” Metcalf said in a 1974 interview, “but he didn’t care because he could use it as a tax write-off anyway.”

Frowde Seagram was born on August 11, 1903, in Waterloo. A noted athlete like his brother Cammie, Frowde’s first business venture was with Canada Barrels and Kegs in 1924 after he graduated from McGill University. He became the company treasurer in 1928 and a vice-president in 1937 after his father’s death. Frowde held many other roles through the years before taking over the barrel works and the hockey stick factory, but he was facing difficulties as he moved through his 60s. He was chairman of Globe Furniture until its bankruptcy in 1968, and then he underwent treatment for cancer. In early 1972, nearing his 70th birthday and with no family successor waiting in the wings, Frowde decided it was time to start winding down the rest of the Seagrams’ industrial interests. He let it be known that Hespeler St. Marys Wood Specialties was available for sale.

One of the company’s clients, Jack Cooper of Cooper Canada, was interested in growing his company and arranged a meeting.

A deal was soon made, and the Seagrams closed the door on more than 40 years of manufacturing hockey sticks. Two years later, Frowde also engineered the sale of Canada Barrels and Kegs, known by then as Canbar Products, but he stayed on for a time as Canbar’s chairman. He died in November 1979.

City of Waterloo Museum manager Karen VandenBrink laments that the family’s legacy, especially in their hometown, is overshadowed by events that were out of their control.

“When the Bronfmans did take over the company, they did keep the Seagram name, and they did keep Frowde Seagram as part of their board,” she said. “So much of it is always told through the lens of what the Bronfmans did for the industry. But the family here was far more than just a whisky distillery here in Uptown Waterloo.”

Roustan Sports Ltd. agrees, and it honors the Seagram family that decided nearly 100 years ago that making hockey sticks was a good idea, and then fostered that good idea through four eventful decades. During that time, their employees designed and crafted millions upon millions of sticks and, probably, sparked just as many dreams in the hearts and minds of kids who proudly carried those Vikings, Supremes, Mic Macs, Green Flashes, Blue Flashes, Super Pros and Extra Specials.

Jonathon Jackson is a hockey historian based in Guelph, Ontario.

Follow along as we post new chapters of Hockey’s Oldest Business – Since 1847 on TheHockeyNews.com.

Read the previous chapter: Chapter 6 – The Seagrams, Part 1

(1) “Cobourg Beats the School,” The Globe, February 5, 1892.

(2) Len Taylor, “New Auditorium Stirs Memories Of Hockey Feuds in the Gay ’90s,” Kitchener-Waterloo Record, May 19, 1951.

(3) “Berlin’s Victory,” The Globe, February 18, 1897.

(4) “Old Company Under New Name,” Kitchener Daily Record, January 8, 1921.

(5) Bob Pennington, “$10 can get you a personalized hockey stick,” Toronto Star, November 25, 1974.

(6) The Sport Shop advertisement, Ottawa Journal, July 15, 1939.

(7) Gardner Hardware Co. advertisement, Minneapolis Star, December 13, 1955.

(8) John Herbert, “Curve or Not to Curve Is Sticky Problem,” Kitchener-Waterloo Record, June 11, 1966.

(9) Bruce Dowbiggin, The Stick: A History, A Celebration, An Elegy, 2002.

(10) Ryan Pyette, “Chris-Moose memories,” Winnipeg Sun, December 23, 1999.

(11) The team now known as the Chicago Blackhawks were called the Black Hawks – two words – until 1986.

(12) John Herbert, “Curve or Not to Curve Is Sticky Problem.”

(13) Gerald Wright, “Hespeler Hockey Sticks Go Around World,” Kitchener-Waterloo Record, December 6, 1969.

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