Gordon Petersen’s illustration of Jim Shirley appeared in the Kamloops Sentinel. Shirley was a goaltender with the
1956-1957 Kamloops Chiefs of the Okanagan Senior Hockey League. Shirley’s grandson, Collin, is a forward with the 2013-2014 Kamloops Blazers.
Collin Shirley is not the first of his kind to suit up in the Tournament Capital.
His grandfather, Jim, was an ace goaltender with the Kamloops Chiefs when Memorial Arena was a state-of-the-art facility.
“I was actually in the penalty box and the guy was saying, ‘Oh, is your grandpa Jim Shirley?’” said Collin, a 17-year-old forward with the Kamloops Blazers.
“He said he used to play here a little while ago. It was cool, remembering that stuff.”
Jim, a product of Rosetown, Sask., was not yet 70 when he died of a heart attack in 1996, the same year Collin was born. They never met.
KTW set out to nail down which years Jim played in Kamloops and the online trail quickly ran cold.
Collin’s mom, Carol, was not at first sure when her father-in-law pulled on the pads in the River City. She made a few phone calls that later paid off.
Gerry Bond is the off-ice official with a faint memory of the Chiefs’ netminder.
“The name Shirley is unique in itself and my memory is a little vague because I was just a kid back then,” Bond said.
“I thought I remembered him as a goaltender in the ’50s when the Chiefs used to play out of Memorial and all the kids had to go and sit in the north end.
“Other than that, I can’t remember too much.”
Bond advised getting in touch with a few longtime members of the local hockey community — Bill Donaldson passed KTW on to Everett Miller, who mentioned Nick Pyevach might have been acquainted with Jim.
“I was with the Flin Flon Bombers and I came here in the fall of ‘53 and Hal Gordon was our goaltender with the Chiefs,” the 82-year-old Pyevach said.
“Not too long after I got released from the Chiefs. I think Jim arrived after that. I wasn’t good enough to play against him [Jim], but I remember him very well.
“He was a goaltender and a pretty good one.”
The Shirleys soon produced Kamloops Sentinel newspaper clippings and the Kamloops Museum and Archives helped out by providing a chapter of a book — Wind and Ice: One Hundred Years (Almost) of Kamloops’ Hockey by Glen Cowley — which made it clear when Jim tended goal at Memorial.
It turns out he was not your average backstop.
Jim was named the Okanagan Senior Hockey League’s most valuable player after the 1956-1957 campaign, in which he led the league in goals-against-average and shutouts.
In this Sentinel photo, Jim Shirley is pictured holding the Bob Johnston Trophy, awarded to the OSHL’s most valuable player. He led the league in goals-against-average
and shutouts.
He was a first-team all-star. The Chiefs were knocked out of the playoffs in Round 2 by the eventual champion Vernon Canadians.
Jim, at the tail end of his career, left Kamloops in 1958 to play in Pennsylvania with the Johnstown Jets of the Eastern Hockey League.
A decade earlier, Jim appeared in a team photo with the 1948-1949 Detroit Red Wings. That season’s edition of the team lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Stanley Cup final.
It appears Jim never played with Detroit that season, with starting goaltender Harry Lumley logging all 71 games between the Red Wings’ pipes, according to hockeydb.com.
While Collin’s grandfather might not have shared the ice in the NHL with Gordie Howe, the former Chiefs’ netminder and Mr. Hockey played baseball together in Saskatchewan.
Jim played semi-pro ball for six seasons on the Prairies and he entered the Saskatoon Sports Hall of Fame (SSHF) as a builder in 1986. Howe entered the SSHF that year in the athlete category.
The one year Jim spent in Kamloops is a footnote in a 12-year amateur and professional hockey career, but it takes on special meaning for his grandson now that he is a Blazer.
“He passed, but it’s obviously pretty special to be here now playing in the same place he did,” Collin said.
“I think it’s special for my dad, too, and my nana always talked about him playing here.
“They lived here and they really liked it.”
The 1948-1949 Detroit Red Wings. Bottom right, seated next to Ted Lindsay, is Jim Shirley.
On the radio
CBC Kamloops featured the Shirley connection.
Click here to listen to the story as told by reporter Marty Hastings.
