Few, if anyone, are as famous, or perhaps infamous, in terms of their association with the Yorkton Terriers Junior Hockey Club than former team owner and coach Gerry James.
But James was something of a Canadian sports icon having starred in the Canadian Football League, and toiled with the National Hockey League's Toronto Maple Leafs. He was playing in the CFL at 17, was the first winner of the CFL's Schenley Most Outstanding Canadian Award, appeared in a Grey Cup and Stanley Cup within six-months of each other, and has been inducted in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
The story of this two-sport athlete and notorious Junior hockey coach has now been chronicled in a biography by Ron Smith entitled Kid Dynamite.
Smith and James were at the Sept. 25, Terrier game selling the book.
When asked about having his life chronicled in a book, James said it was somewhat overwhelming. He added the process was not that easy for him having someone "probe my life. It was kind of invasive."
James added the book was completely Smith's idea.
"Ron was the one that pursued it, and pursued it Eventually I caved in," he said with a smile.
Smith said the idea for the book was one which evolved over time after getting to know James and hearing about his athletic career.
"We met on the golf course," said Smith, adding that at that point he "didn't know much about James to be honest."
But over the next 10 to 12 years, the friendship grew and Smith said as they played golf he began to learn about James' accomplishments.
As he heard the stories of playing in the NHL and CFL Smith, the author of seven previous books, began to recognize there was a story worth telling.
The actual book still took time to get off the ground, said Smith, adding James was initially resistant to his overtures. He said it probably took a couple of years after "I told him I intended on putting a book together," that James really began to cooperate.
For the most part Smith said he simply took time to listen to James, slowly drawing stories of his past out of him on the golf course, or over dinner, rarely pushing the humble James too hard to reveal his thoughts and feelings.
Smith said he'd take notes as James talked, then go home and "put that down on paper."
"That's how it all started."
Initially Smith had thought the story might be confined to a 100-page treatment, but it quickly grew to a 384 page book.
The longer book was simply needed to tell James' story.
"I think the material is really important," offered Smith, adding it is a story of a Canadian success story, and those are not told often enough.
"Canadians do a lot of things very, very well, but we don't celebrate our heroes, our icons."
Smith said James is a definite hero, with records such as scoring the most rushing touchdowns in the CFL, a record held for 43-years, winning four Grey Cups in football, a Memorial Cup in Junior Hockey and playing with the Maple Leafs for four seasons, and a Stanley Cup final.
"He had 18 CFL records at one time," added Smith, noting "all those things add up."
Smith said while the records made him see there was a story, he wanted to go deeper as a writer.
"I wanted to understand his competitiveness," he said, adding that is something all great athletes share. " It's something athletes have in common. It's not just the dislike of losing. It's just totally unacceptable."
In James' case he was at least in part pushed by the ghost of his father, himself a past CFL star who is also in the Hall of Fame.
Smith said in preparing the book he wanted to answer, "What sort of role did that play?"
Smith said James' father actually did not take that active a role in his son's life, not even attending his games when younger, but he still played a role in pushing Gerry to greatness.
"I vaguely remember these outings but I don't know the man. As I grew older," he continues, "while my dad was away during the war, I read all of his scrapbooks and learned all about the Blue Bombers back in the days when my dad, Fritzie Hanson and Bert Oja were the stars. This is when I knew I wanted to play football for the Bombers.
"And when I finally was old enough to tell people that I wanted to follow in my father's footsteps, they told me I'd be lucky if I were ever half the ball player he was, but what they said didn't discourage me, quite the opposite. Between my father's absence - I missed him a lot - and my developing dream of playing football and hockey, the desire to do both, to the exclusion of pretty much everything else, was seeded so deep down inside of me that I ached. I was determined to make it happen."
-- an excerpt from Kid Dynamite
In terms of the book, Smith said getting James to talk about his Father was not easy.
"That was one of the hardest things to get out of him," he said.
James agreed that he found talking about his Father (Eddie James) the most difficult aspect of the book. He said his Father and he had at best, a strained relationship, and the one with his brother was not much better.
"We couldn't stand each other," he said, adding it was so tense that his brother sent him" a registered letter just before he died," and he never opened it, something he said has bothered him ever since.
As for his Father, James said he recalls being told if he was even half as good as his Father he would be successful.
"That spurred me on to try to be as good as I can be," he said.
While becoming an icon in the professional ranks of football, and hockey, locally James is best known for his coaching in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League for three different teams, including the Terriers.
"It's fairly significant," said Smith of Yorkton's place in the James' story, adding " he talked about Yorkton, Melville and Estevan with great affection."
"As a player, if your hair didn't stand on end, you weren't alive. The rink filled with devoted and boisterous fans, was a madhouse."
"You wouldn't expect that," Gerry said, "but it had character. Every year, it was lovingly painted. Most of the seating, for over two thousand fans, was at both ends, high up, where everyone had a good view of the action, coming and going. At either side there were about ten rows of traditional seats.
"All in all," Gerry and Marg concluded, "it was a great place to play and watch hockey."
-- an excerpt from Kid Dynamite
In the case of Yorkton Smith added, "He has great respect for the people that live here."
During his time in the SJHL James' developed a reputation for being hard-nosed, usually at odds with opposing teams, fans and even local press.
"That was for a reason," he said, "to build up crowd interest."
James said that is something missing from the game, the ability for coaches to be more flamboyant and controversial to raise interest.
"They've changed the rules so much you can't even throw a clip board now," he lamented. "In the old days you got away with that stuff and it was entertaining."
Today coaches can't even "say a bad thing about the team you're going to play," added James, noting that was how to create interest around upcoming games.
"At an away game in Weyburn, a man in the stands emptied a cup of hot chocolate all over Gerry, who prided himself on his sartorial elegance.
At that time there was no protection between the benches and the fans. That worked both ways. Gerry leapt from behind the bench into the stands and gave the culprit a good thrashing. Shortly thereafter the police arrived. In addition to his reputation for being a bit of a hothead, they had all the evidence they needed to lay an assault charge against him. When he appeared in court a few months later, in mid-spring, the judge asked Gerry if he was in the habit of beating up on seventy-year-old men?
Gerry responded with his own question. "If you are seventy does that give you the license to throw hot chocolate over other people, just because your hockey team is losing? Whatever happened to sportsmanship?"
"Just answer my question," the judge said.
Gerry was struck dumb.
"No," he said.
"Okay," the judge said looking down from where he sat on his judicial perch, "I appear to have made my point. From this time forward there will be no more beating up old men, no matter what the circumstances. Am I clear? Behave yourself!"
-- an excerpt from Kid Dynamite
Smith said he also focused on making the book a good read, something many sports books fail at by the approach to writing taken.
"I have not dumbed it down," he said. "People who watch sports are bright." He added no one would dumb down a biography on some like pianist Glenn Gould, so why do it on one on a sports icon.
