Lake Shore Blue Devils

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The Lake Shore Blue Devils were a senior amateur hockey team in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, backed by Lake Shore Mines, the gold mine owned by Harry Oakes. Oakes wanted a team that could win the Allan Cup, the national senior amateur championship of Canada, and the players worked at the mine. Playing in the Gold Belt League of the Northern Ontario Hockey Association (NOHA), the Blue Devils won the league in 1936-37 and 1937-38 but lost the NOHA final both springs, to the Frood Mine Tigers and the Falconbridge Falcons. In 1938-39 they went 7-0 in group play and won the NOHA title, then lost to the Toronto Goodyears in the Eastern Canada playoffs. In Allan Cup play the club was entered as the Kirkland Lake Blue Devils.

For 1939-40, mine manager E.W. Todd put together a new management group, with C.C. "Doc" Ames as manager and Lex Cook as player-coach. Ray Milton was captain and Bill Durnan was in goal, and the lineup included Johnny McCreedy and Dick Kowcinak, who had won the 1939 World Championship with the Trail Smoke Eaters. The Blue Devils swept the Sudbury Miners and the Dome Porkies to repeat as NOHA champions, got past the Toronto Goodyears and the Sydney Millionaires, and beat the Montreal Royals in three straight games in the eastern final. In the Allan Cup final in Toronto in April 1940, they swept the Calgary Stampeders 8-5, 9-1 and 7-1. The team came home by train. A band and hundreds of supporters met the players at Swastika, and they rode a fire truck through Kirkland Lake to a civic reception at the Town Hall.

The team disbanded the following year. Some players turned professional and others enlisted in the Second World War. Durnan joined the Montreal Canadiens in 1943, won the Vezina Trophy six times and the Stanley Cup in 1944 and 1946, and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1964. McCreedy won the Stanley Cup with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1942 and 1945. Bobby Walton, Stu Smith and Butch Stahan also played for the Canadiens, and Hal Cooper played for the New York Rangers. In 1963 the 1940 team reunited in Kirkland Lake for a testimonial dinner and an exhibition game against the Porcupine Old-Timers.