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Alex McFadyen’s hockey odyssey
BY PHILIP SAUNDERS / CBC SASKATCHEWAN
Alex McFadyen's hockey scrapbook, the
thick tome at right, is the product of 59 years of collecting.
(Philip Saunders/CBC)
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It’s the ultimate ticket to hockey history. Shaunavon’s Alex McFadyen possesses something that has taken him places most hockey fans only dream about.
McFadyen owns the world’s biggest hockey scrapbook, officially titled by the folks at Guinness just this year.
It weighs as much as the average man, numbers more than 700 pages, and includes more than 12,000 photos, and he never misses an opportunity to share it with people, even if he has to travel to do it.
This weekend, for a change, it will be the icons of Canadian hockey coming to see him.
“It’s like I’m living my second childhood,” McFadyen says.
He was 10 years old when he started his collection in 1945, and his book now extends back to the mid 1930s, after some Original Six players he met while touring with the book donated some mementos.
The hobby has nurtured McFadyen’s life-long love of the game.
From King Clancy, Foster Hewitt, and Rocket Richard to Gordie Howe, Wayne Gretzky and Hayley Wickenheiser, all have paid homage to McFadyen’s chronicle of the great Canadian pastime.
Knowledge of the book spread across the country in the last three decades. He’s been invited to hockey dinners, been interviewed countless times and has let the book connect him with many of the game’s professional pioneers.
The book opens with a collection of black and white 8x10 photos that were packaged in 1940s honey tins, and continues with pictures that came with Quaker Oats.
Focusing on the original teams, it follows the evolution of the game from the introduction of the first hockey masks to the helmet to the arrival of electronic goal judging.
The book is now synonymous with McFadyen, but the idea to develop it wasn’t his alone. In 1977, McFadyen was ready to trash the collection, then contained in boxes in his parents’ Regina home. But mom and dad wouldn’t do it. When he finally brought the boxes home and started going through them, his memories soon flooded back.
“That was the turning point for me,” he says, “It was like going back to when I was a kid again.”
And that’s when Ramona, his wife, suggested starting the book.
In an expanding hockey universe that now includes teams from Anaheim to Vancouver and Montreal to Tampa, browsing through MacFadyen’s book reminds you of the simple roots of the game, before multi-million-dollar contracts were the norm.
Among the most striking artifacts in the book is a copy of what each member of the Toronto Maple Leafs was paid after winning the 1945 Stanley Cup. With a total payout of $29,000, stars got $1,700 each. By 1940s standards, that certainly wasn’t small potatoes, but by today’s standards, the comparison is staggering.
“I heard (Mark) Messier charges $75 for an autograph,” says McFadyen. “These days it’s all about the money, I guess. I suppose you can’t blame them, but these old guys played for peanuts, and today they’re just so happy to meet fans like myself … they’ve all been so good to me.”
The book is brimming with great hockey moments, all connected to McFadyen’s own love of the game.
There is a clipping of the time Rocket Richard smashed the glass at Maple Leaf Gardens. There’s Bobby Orr’s famous Stanley Cup goal. There’s McFadyen in several historic scenarios: meeting Gordie Howe and Wayne Gretzky at the same time, meeting fabled broadcaster Foster Hewitt in 1979, and standing on the bench at Maple Leaf Gardens. There’s the time Hayley Wickenheiser’s dad brought her by to see the book.
These days, McFadyen has been tracking down players and getting his picture snapped with them.
“They usually can’t believe it, “ says McFadyen, “or they wonder if they’re in it – which they are.”
After this weekend in Shaunavon, it’s a safe bet a few more entries will be made.
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