Terrier Town: Summer of ’49

Don Gallinger

301 Waterloo Tiger playing coach Don Gallinger was banned for life by NHL president Clarence Campbell. Don Gallinger D ON GALLINGER PLAYED AND MANAGED ERNIE GOMAN’S Waterloo Tigers in 1949 before coming to Galt in a trade for Wes Lillie the following summer. He was a good player, dangerous both as a hitter and as an outfielder. Larry Pennell regarded him as one of the best players in the league, rating him just under guys like Galt’s Tex Kaiser but certainly ahead of most other players. I remembered him as a star hockey player, for my father had taken Jimmy and me to see the Bruins play the Leafs at Maple leaf Gardens several winters earlier. Gallinger always had a dream of playing major-league ball, though there were many who believed he didn’t have the talent necessary to make it to the majors. Indeed, hockey was his sport. The Port Colborne native, the youngest of six children, was the first player to jump from Junior B to the NHL when he made the Boston Bruins in 1942. He was seventeen. He stayed with the Bruins until 1948 when he left the game, involuntarily, after a betting scandal that involved placing bets on NHL games. In his seven seasons he scored sixty-five goals and had 88 assists in 222 games, and finished third in voting behind Toronto’s Gaye Stewart and Montreal’s Glen Harmon for Rookie of the Year honours. Although Gus Murray was generally regarded as the most colourful character in the Intercounty in 1949, several people thought Gallinger outdid even Gus. Goman, his boss in Waterloo, was taken aback when Gallinger told him he wanted full control in the operation of the Tigers. That was the main reason he came to Galt in 1950. Murray liked Gallinger, and as a symbol of their faith in each other, the two never signed a contract. Gallinger said Murray’s word was good enough for him, and Murray reciprocated. Indeed, that Gallinger’s word could be taken at face value was something Murray always admired about the former NHLer. Gallinger had a troubled existence after being banned for life from the NHL. NHL president Clarence Campbell suspended him on March 9, 1948, after accusing him of associating with gamblers and betting on games. Campbell wouldn’t release any evidence because most of it was obtained through illegal wiretaps and telephone recordings, neither of which were admissible in court. But Scott Young of the Globe and Mail wrote about the case in detail in a series of 1963 articles. Gallinger admitted betting from $250 to $1,000 on games and providing information on injuries, but maintained he had never fixed a game and that, indeed, he had lost between $1,000 and $1,500 on the eight or nine games in question. Gallinger made a complete confession to Campbell twenty months after the incident, hoping to be reinstated. “I went there looking for sympathy,” he said of their five-hour meeting. His livelihood was on the line. But Campbell wouldn’t end his suspension until August 28, 1970, twentytwo years after the fact. By then Gallinger had no chance of resuming his career. He continued to feel Campbell, and later others, relentlessly persecuted him. In effect, he was blackballed from organized hockey. Even his participation in Intercounty baseball was in question in 1948 when Goman, on the advice of Bobby Bauer, a former Bruin teammate of Gallingers, took a chance on him. In 1953 Gallinger was seen going into the dressing room of the Kitchener hockey seniors before a game. Kitchener had won the game, but Sarnia protested Gallinger’s presence. He was outlawed from the game, so it was not surprising that the protest was upheld and the win given to Sarnia. Life after hockey was difficult. Gallinger was bitter. Things would have been so different if he had finished out what promised to be a notable career in the NHL. Gallinger tried to stay in touch with the game, but when he began a summer hockey school he was forced to close due to his suspension. He applied for reinstatement in 1955, some seven years after his suspension, but Campbell turned him down. So he went from one job 302 Terrier Town—Summer of ’49 to another before landing what would be essentially his life’s work, selling made-to-measure...