EDITOR’S NOTE: On Saturday, April 27, the Orillia Sports Hall of Fame will welcome its newest inductees. The class of 2019 includes athlete Stuart Burnie and builders William (Bill) McGill and Donald Stoutt as builders. Today, we feature Don Stoutt.
To become an elite athlete, it takes relentless practice and hard work. Natural athleticism is an asset - but it’s never enough on its own.
The same can be said for those passionate, dedicated people who work behind the scenes to build the team, to find the athletes, to create a winning culture, to get the community on board, to mine the well-heeled for financial support.
Nobody will ever shout their names in an arena or ask them for an autograph, but they are no less important than the well-loved athletes who fans adore and idolize.
Don Stoutt is the epitome of that person - the guy who never stopped working and organizing and supporting and financing the Orillia Terriers of the 1970s.
An affable realtor, he was a natural of sorts. It was a surprise to no one when he helped establish the Sr. A hockey team and then did everything in his power to push the team to the top of the mountain. That hockey dream was realized, on home ice, when the Terriers won the Allan Cup, emblematic of Canadian hockey supremacy, in 1973.
Many people will remember the names of the stars who dazzled: Gary Marsh, Claire Alexander, Ron Clarke, Tom Polanic, Gary Milroy, Mike Draper, Jim Keon, Doug Kelcher - their names are still remembered by those who filled the stands at the cathedral known as the Orillia Community Centre.
But they would never have been here if not for the work of people like Don Stoutt.
The truth is Orillia was David, a little town trying to compete in a league of Goliaths. Stoutt helped level the playing field through hard work and ingenuity.
To raise money, the club operated a booster club at the rink on Penetang Street and the suds flowed along with the cash.
However, that was an era when NHL rinks began entertaining their fans in other ways.
Stoutt decided the team “had to provide some entertainment during intermissions as they did in the NHL.”
He asked Billy Fowler, a local musician, to play during the intermissions. That meant Stoutt and others would have to carry Fowler’s organ down a flight of stairs and transport it to the rink on game nights.
Because the old rink wasn’t insulated, fans were tempted to stay away. So, Stoutt made a deal with Bailey Construction, just outside of town on Big Chief Hill, to borrow a bunch of industrial heaters.
“Every Friday night we’d pick them up and bring them to the community centre so we could attract more fans,” said Stoutt with a laugh. “We had to have them back by Saturday mornings because they were rented out to paying customers.”
To remain competitive, more money was needed, so it was decided to host Bavarian Beer Festivals during summer long weekends.
People loved them. But they would not have happened without Stoutt and his legion of supporters.
They talked Steve Wiles into using his flatbed truck to pick up picnic tables from the HRC and set them up in the community centre. Long after the Umpapa Band was finished and the floor was rinsed of beer, the crew would load up the tables and return them to the HRC.
The year the Terriers won the Allan Cup, a new arena, built on Gill Street and now known as the Brian Orser Arena, opened.
The city’s then director of recreation, Don Shave, approached Stoutt to create a hockey school that would use the ice when Doug Leigh’s Mariposa School of Skating was not using it.
Stoutt joined forces with Ron Clarke, who had retired from hockey to become a school teacher, to start the Kinsmen Club of Orillia Hockey School.
That school became a staple of winters in Orillia and attracted the who’s who of hockey as instructors over the years.
“It helped fill down-time at the arena and was a fund-raiser for the Kinsmen Club of Orillia,” said Stoutt, noting it helped many aspiring players get “valuable ice time in the summer before training camps” in the fall.
To this day, Stoutt downplays his role in any success enjoyed by the Terriers and the hockey school.
He deflects credit to “all the players and executives who donated so much of their time and expertise and all the hard working fans who donated so much time and effort to … allow Orillia to compete with the big dogs.”
Stoutt is part of the fifth class of inductees into the Orillia Sports Hall of Fame. He joins, in the builders’ category, Ken ‘Jiggs’ McDonald, Toben Sutherland and Lawrence Mervyn McKenzie.
There are a limited number of tickets still available for this year’s Orillia Sports Hall of Fame Gala at Casino Rama April 27. To purchase tickets or for more information, visit the website.
