First, Harry Wipper provided inspiration. Then he provided a place to play.
Wipper, the former Nanaimo Timbermen lacrosse champion and City of Nanaimo parks and recreation director, died March 22 at age 81.
He was a double-inductee to the Nanaimo Sports Hall of Fame in 2008, recognized in the builder category and also honoured as a member of the 1956 Mann Cup-winning Timbermen team. He is enshrined in the Peterborough and Ontario sports halls of fame, as well as the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
Born in St. Catharines, Ont., Wipper won a Minto Cup national junior championship with his hometown team in 1947 and made his senior lacrosse debut in 1949, also with St. Catharines.
In his first season in Peterborough in 1951, he led the league with 67 goals. He was a perennial all-star in Peterborough, winning four straight Mann Cups between 1951-54 while also coaching minor players at the time.
Don Ashbee was a teammate of Wipper’s during that Peterborough dynasty.
“He was a gallant player…” said Ashbee. “Harry was a gem and respected as a player.”
Wipper could play both offence and defence, and he was not afraid to cut to the net, even against the rival Mimico Mountaineers.
“He loved to wangle through the whole crowd and he’d get whacked out there trying to get through the Mimico defence, and they were all rough and tough,” Ashbee said. “If you got whacked in the head as you were running past a guy, well, you kept running if you still had the ball.”
Then came the incredible 1956 season. Ashbee, who had started playing for Nanaimo a year earlier, helped the Timbermen recruit Eastern Canada talent and Wipper signed on as a player-coach.
“We knew that he was going to have some knowledge of the game, but we didn’t realize how dominating a player he was,” said Donn Sherry, another of Nanaimo’s star players of that era.
The Timbermen had an embarrassment of riches on offence in 1956, including five of the top six scorers in the league, so Wipper played a lot of defence. He was big, tough, and always in position, said Sherry.
“I imagine that it was quite rough being the forward playing against him. He wasn’t physical in the way of fighting, that sort of thing, he was just very strong in his checking. You knew that his guy wasn’t going to get too close to the goal.”
Come the post-season, Wipper led the T-men in goals and points and was named playoff MVP as Nanaimo won the league championship. That qualified the team to play for the Mann Cup in Toronto against Wipper’s old team, Peterborough.
Jim Robson handled the radio broadcast of the series from the old Malaspina Hotel, inventing play-by-play based on box scores. Timbermen fans who listened to Robson’s call of Game 2 that day heard all about how well Wipper was playing, but in reality he had torn ligaments in his knee early in the game and had hardly played. From behind the bench, on crutches, Wipper went on to coach the Timbermen to the championship, the only Mann Cup in Nanaimo lacrosse history.
“He was able to speak clearly about the pleasure that he had in winning with us, even though he had done it several times before with other teams,” said Sherry.
Wipper played only a handful of games with Nanaimo over the next two seasons. According to Wamp's Bible of Lacrosse, Wipper's final statistics in senior lacrosse added up to 193 games played, 292 goals, 175 assists, 467 points and 306 penalty minutes. He played another 109 playoff games, scoring 149 goals with 80 assists, 228 points and 157 penalty minutes.
With the end of his lacrosse career came the start of a new career, as he became the city’s manager of civic properties and recreation in 1958.
“He had both sides of life in the respect that he was a sports person and could do that part of it, but when he sat down in front of his desk he was a business guy…” Ashbee said. “He was an astute business person and he was good for Nanaimo.”
Over a 31-year career with the municipality, Wipper worked on such projects as Bowen Park and Kin Pool, Elaine Hamilton Park, Robins Park and May Richards Bennett Pioneer Park. There is a park named in his honour in the north end.
He is survived by four children and seven grandchildren.
Friends and family are invited to a memorial service and tea on Saturday (April 7) at 2 p.m. at St. Paul’s Anglican Church downtown.
sports@nanaimobulletin.com