Postcard Memories is a weekly series of historic postcard views and photos submitted by Marcel Rousseau.
Some were previously published by the Orillia Museum of Art and History and in the book Postcard Memories Orillia.
No sport has meant more to Orillia in the way of achievements than Canada’s national game of lacrosse. At one time Orillia was considered the leading lacrosse centre in Canada.
In 1934, 1935 and 1936 the Orillia Terriers captured the Mann Cup, emblematic of the all-Canadian senior championship.
In 1936, in the first Mann Cup to be played at Maple Leaf Gardens, the battling Terriers beat both Cornwall and Montreal to win the eastern Canada title. In the finals at the Gardens, under the coaching of Ken McNabb, the Terriers downed the smooth-passing Vancouver North Shore Indians in three out of four games to win the Mann Cup for the third year in a row.
They almost repeated in 1937, but lost in a hard-fought series played at Vancouver B.C. to a western team which had imported four former Orillia players.
A few of the Orillians on the 1936 Terriers team, who also played in 1934 and 1935, were the Curran brothers, owners of the Orillia Newsletter for many years. Bill Curran played lacrosse for three years with the Hamilton Tigers before joining the Terriers in 1932 and Ernie Curran, who was 21 years old, played for his hometown team since 1931.
Ken Pethick was considered the smoothest stick handler on the team and Andy Tudhope, the backup goaltender and the oldest on the team at 41, had been active since 1910 when Orillia won the juvenile championship of Ontario.
