Dave Bellamy was a 16-year-old Prince George Mohawks winger on Wednesday, March 19, 1958, the day the Prince George Coliseum hosted its first league hockey game.
Built for the princely sum of $455,000, the rink replaced the old Prince George Civic Arena which collapsed under a heavy snow load in two years earlier.
The Mohawks were a new team started by player/coach Ernie Rucks, formed in the fall of 1957 to replace the Lumbermen, who had folded the previous season because they had no place to play except for an outdoor rink that didn’t allow enough spectators to pay the bills.
Before they adopted their name, the Mohawks were the Timbars and wore that name on their sweaters in a few exhibition games in the spring of 1957. Leading up to that Coliseum christening, the Mohawks had played all their North Central Interior Hockey League games on the road except for a couple outdoor games at the Civic Centre that February.
“I was a decent hockey player back then,” said Bellamy. “I could skate, and I was also fairly aware. I could hold my own in the game. I didn’t have the height but I was stocky. I killed penalties, speed helped there too. It was a good league, I’ll tell ya that.
“I was so ecstatic to be there nothing would have mattered. I guess I was a kid but I grew up pretty damn quickly.”
Playing with and against men in a men’s league, Bellamy learned early in his Mohawks career how to take a hit, but he left the rough stuff to the team’s enforcers, and one of them was named Joe Yates.
“He had fists like a sledgehammer,” said Bellamy. “We were playing in Vanderhoof one game and they had a big defenceman, Hodgson I think was his name, and he was hounding me pretty good. Between periods Joe said, ‘Davy, you grab that puck and just keep coming around from the left side right behind the net and over my way.’ This fellow was a train engineer and he said, “I’ll teach this guy what it’s like to meet another engineer.’
“There was a door tied shut there and Joe knocked him right through the door and into the foyer of the rink. I never got bothered by him ever again in my life.”
A crowd of about 900 packed into the brand-new Coliseum for that first game against the Vanderhoof Bears, and it ended in a 6-6 tie.
The Citizen published Monday-Friday back in those days and was there to cover the game. Although it’s in black and white, the red-haired Bellamy is featured in a pre-game photo sitting at the end of the bench in the Mohawks’ dressing room.
In that photo he's wearing his dad's skates - the same pair he'd been using with stuffing in the toes since he was nine. Bellamy covered the toes with felt he had tucked under the tongue for added protection because the skates lacked a hard shell toe area and he didn't want to get them scuffed.
Later that season in a game in Vanderhoof, Rucks told Bellamy to remove the felt, saying it looked "bush league," and Bellamy tried to argue his case.
"I said I can’t they are my Dad’s. He had a real bad stutter and said:
"Take them fffff king things out or you don’t play. He said, 'I'll deal with your dad.' Dad was OK with it.
"But we got a little bit of money for our playing share and I bought a new pair of Tacks. What a difference."
The Mohawks also had two 15-year-olds, defenceman Larry Allen and goalie John Hunter.
“That was my NHL,” said the now 83-year-old Bellamy.
The NCIHL (later to become the Cariboo Hockey League) was a four-team league and the Mohawks dominated in their first year, posting a 10-1-1 record. But there were no playoffs that year. An unseasonably warm March melted the outdoor rinks in Williams Lake, Vanderhoof and Quesnel, and Mohawks manager Tom Hennesssey proposed the league host all its playoff games at the Coliseum.
The Williams Lake Stampeders and Quesnel Kangaroos thought it was a good idea but the Bears, fearing they wouldn’t draw enough of their fan base, voted the idea down, and as regular-season champions the Mohawks were awarded the trophy.
Bellamy went on to play eight seasons with the Mohawks until the spring of 1965, when he started his own company, Dave Bellamy Trucking, which eventually became Coyote Transport.
He continued to play with the Mohawks Oldtimers until he was in his mid-40s, when a new chapter in his hockey career opened when he helped form the Rusty Nuts Oldtimers team with Don and Lorne Delisle and Frank Speed.
In 1986, they started a 45-and-older team for a tournament in Saskatoon and that began a tradition that has continued. They’ve travelled across the country to Ottawa and Quebec City representing Prince George in oldtimers tournaments and in 1997 the Nuts went to Canberra, Australia for the World Masters Games and won the hockey title. In April, they’ll send a team to Chilliwack for a 70-and-older tournament.
“Frankie Speed came up with the name, he saw it somewhere in the newspaper and the team had folded, so he knew it was open,” said Bellamy. “I was a rookie there again, because we were trying to start a 45-and-over and I was 45.
“The timing was just right. I still played Monday and Thursday with the Mohawk Oldtimers until one night they caught me five or six times when I was going to take a shot on goal and I realized, time for me to look for something else, and I was 67 or 68 years old.”
Bellamy began hanging out with players closer to his own age and played with the Rusty Nuts until he was 79.
The Rusty Nuts are now a group of 42 players aged 62-77 who meet for morning games at Kin 3 rink Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. In 38 seasons they’ve never had an 80-year-old still playing but that could happen soon. Defencemen Charlie Freeman and Glen Bauman are both going strong at 77, and 79-year-old goalie Keith Young this month has come out of retirement.
They come for the fun of playing the game and as much as it’s good for the body to get out stretch and build up the cardio, skating as much as three times a week for an hour and an half each time, it’s a revitalizing tonic for mind and soul. The close camaraderie and laughs each morning make Rusty Nut sessions an essential winter pastime from October-April.
“Once you have a friend in hockey you’ve got a friend for life,” said Bellamy. “The war vets don’t talk about it very much, whereas us hockey guys love to brag. I always loved hockey because I had a fair amount of stress running my company, and when I went to hockey that stress all went away. It’s good for the mind.”
After their last game before the Christmas break, the players gathered in the dressing room at Kin 1 to present Bellamy his Rusty Nuts jersey placed in a wood frame with the team photo from that Australian trip. The guys autographed the back of the frame with the date each of them started playing with the Nuts.
“We didn’t want him to have that sweater in the closet, we wanted him to hang it on his wall for everyone to see,” said Rusty Nuts defenceman Gord Flewelling.
“Dave’s been doing this since 1986. He ended up being the financial guy, plus he’s a hell of an organizer. I said it to Dave several guys and guys have said it to me, this is their sanity through the winter months and it adds to their quality of life.”
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