Red Circle Hockey Club

This entire article was written by Morris Dalla Costa (Sun Media, a Free Press sports columnist) on January 10, 2008.

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Malcolm Beach calls himself a maverick.

You can add opinionated, resourceful, hard-working, tough, inventive and a ground-breaker.

He may not be the kind of guy the establishment loves but his years of volunteering have proved a benefit to thousands of kids who have played minor hockey for him. The Red Circle league is his legacy.

Beach, 78, will be honored at the Rogers Sports Celebrity Dinner and Auction as London's sportsperson of the year. The dinner is Jan. 21 at the Convention Centre.

Beach started the league because he believed there was a better way to not only develop talent but also allow young players to enjoy their hockey experience.

In the end, it led Beach to form Red Circle, a league that offers a different approach to minor hockey from how it selects players to the schedule they play. The league's approach caused it to split from the Ontario Minor Hockey Association or as Beach explains, the association chose to split from the league. Red Circle is still not sanctioned by the Ontario Hockey Federation.

Beach actually started with a team in the OMHA in the London Minor Hockey Association but the time spent with it fostered his less-than-flattering view of minor hockey.

"My family had grown to six boys. It was time to set up a program and run it like a benevolent dictator putting in place the values I felt necessary for the average kid to have fun, to develop skills, that everyone involved would put the good of the game and the program above all personal agendas. No politics."

So in 1964, he booked two hours of ice in Belmont. He was looking for 44 players. He formed the Little Hockey League. Three years later, he had 300 players in the league and won four of five divisions in London's Centennial Tournament. Red Circle was born.

Initially, Red Circle was recognized by the OMHA. But Beach believed in travelling a different path and didn't believe the control exerted by the OMHA was good for the players.

Eventually, Red Circle was outlawed but Beach and Jim Leonard, who was president for a number of years, continued to grow the league, establishing contact with dissatisfied teams in Ontario. The teams held their own tournaments, which grew considerably as the years went on.

His experience in minor hockey has left him with strong opinions.

"I'm an opinionated bugger," Beach said.

When he was selected as sportsperson of the year, he knew it might provide a forum for his views. So he's been researching minor hockey. It hasn't changed his opinion much on the state of it today.

"I thought before I open my big mouth and say things that are 35 years old, I'd better find out. I've looked into the whole thing. It's disgusting," he said.

He has produced pages of notes on the state of hockey from his research, his observations and what he believes would be an alternative geared toward less travel, mass participation, equal ice time and less cost.

Among his observations:

• "Hockey is dying. It's too expensive. I can do the same thing I did 35 years ago and put it on for $150, not the $500 that it costs now."
  
  
• "In 10 years time, these arenas will be old-age recreation centres. The city is totally lax in putting on recreation for the majority of kids. We're controlled by the input of trying to win junior hockey championships."
  
  
• "(My experience) was a learning experience. It taught me human behaviour. If you don't know your neighbour who's lived next to you for 20 years, get him in an arena and you'll know him right away."
  
  
• "The North American car market share has eroded considerably in the world. The NHL Canadian hockey player content has eroded considerably. When Hockey Canada keeps telling us we are so damn good, how come there is an erosion in our ability to produce players."
  

Beach hasn't been involved in minor hockey for a number of years. He is retired from his screen printing-embroidery business, which he began at age 43 after years in sales. Beach is the father of eight, six of them boys. He never played hockey but moved from England at a young age when his Canadian father moved back.

"You name the sport, I tinkered at it. I'm a great admirer of team sports," Beach said.

Beach considers his three years establishing the Little Hockey League as "the peak."

"Over the years, I've met some wonderful people," he said. "You start off in Square 1. I got 44 kids, got them off the streets and in three years, I had 300 kids and we won (championships). Everyone was happy as hell the first year. Everyone is happier than hell the second year because everyone is improving and moving along. But in the third year, they all know more than you do because now the ambition of the parents comes into play."

Beach never worried much about what the establishment thought.

"The problem with sports in this country -- and hockey magnifies it 20 times -- they don't say, 'What can I put into the game?' They say, 'What can I take out of the game?'

"It's good to put back."

Morris Dalla Costa is a Free Press sports columnist.