Golden Boys by Ty Dilello

Author:Ty Dilello
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Hockey, Manitoba
Publisher: Great Plains Publications
Published: 2018-01-10T20:34:24+00:00

23

Joe Hall

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Joe Hall was the misunderstood bully of the hockey world during his time playing professional hockey. An absolute mercenary on the ice, teammates and also opponents swear that he was the nicest guy in the world once you got him off the ice, refuting the “Bad Joe” moniker he’d once been given by a journalist looking to sell some newspapers.

Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame

“He wasn’t mean,” said friend and teammate Joe Malone, “despite what a lot of people said about him. He certainly liked to deal out a heavy check and he was always ready to take it as well as dish it out. That in itself was remarkable when you consider that Joe weighed in at a hundred fifty pounds. As far as I’m concerned, he should have been known as ‘Plain’ Joe Hall and not ‘Bad’ Joe Hall. That always was a bum rap.”

A little-known fact about Hall is how he had a role in the invention of the modern hockey skate. While living in Brandon his neighbour was a man by the name of George Tackaberry and Joe would often complain to him about his hockey boots not being able to last for an entire season without collapsing. Being a good neighbour, Tackaberry worked on making a new, more durable pair of hockey boots for Joe. He combined the natural strength of kangaroo leather with a reinforced toe and the result was a home-run. Joe loved the skates and so did everyone on his hockey team and Tackaberry soon became flooded with orders. The business took off from there and became the top brand of hockey skates on the market for years.

Eventually when Tackaberry passed away in 1937, the patent for the skates was sold to CCM—the same CCM business that is still making hockey skates to this day.

So when you’re lacing up a pair of skates for now on you can think of the name Joe Hall.

Joe Hall was born on May 3, 1881 in Milwich, England. When he was two years old his family emigrated to Canada, settling first in Winnipeg and then later in Brandon. Joe went to school and had his hockey beginnings on the river rinks of Winnipeg. It wasn’t until his family moved to Brandon that Hall’s hockey playing abilities were noticed.

Clint Bennest, one of Hall’s oldest pals recalled that, “Joe’s hockey career started in the season of 1898-99. It was in the fall of 1898 before the rink opened that the boys of the Brandon hockey teams went out to Lake Percy to practice. While there they noticed a new boy on the ice who was some skater. They asked him to come and practice with them. The boy was Joe Hall, who had shortly before come to Brandon to make cigars.”

Joe quickly joined on and played intermediate hockey for the Brandon Wheat Cities to kick-start his hockey career and in 1901-02 his team won the intermediate championship and earned their promotion into the senior ranks the following year.

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