Claude C. Robinson

Canadian ice hockey and sports executive (1881–1976)

Claude Copeland Robinson (December 17, 1881June 27, 1976) was a Canadian ice hockey and sports executive. After winning an intermediate level championship as captain of the Winnipeg Victorias in 1905, he served as secretary treasurer and as vice president of the Victorias. He coached the Victorias to a Manitoba Hockey League championship in 1909, and felt that his team could have competed for the newly established Allan Cup, despite that challenges from senior ice hockey teams were accepted only from Eastern Canada at the time. The Victorias won the Allan Cup by default in 1911, when the Toronto St. Michael's Majors refused to play, then successfully defended four challenges for the trophy. Robinson arranged subsequent challenges for the Allan Cup as an executive for multiple leagues, including the Winnipeg Amateur Hockey League. By the 1914 Allan Cup, multiple debates arose on the eligibility of players, and numerous challenges for the trophy were difficult to manage. After he suggested to establish a national body for governing hockey and advocated his ideas to amateur clubs across Canada, the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) was founded on December 4, 1914, with Robinson elected as secretary. He also helped establish the Manitoba Amateur Hockey Association in 1914, and later served as its vice president. He remained a trustee for the Allan Cup until 1937, was a trustee of the Abbott Cup for junior ice hockey from 1919 to 1942, and was chairman of the CAHA finance committee from 1933 to 1937. Robinson helped establish the Manitoba Amateur Athletic Association in 1907, and oversaw finances for the provincial track and field championships. He favoured an alliance between the CAHA and the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada (AAU of C), and opposed former professionals competing in amateur sports. He disagreed with the CAHA changing its definition of an amateur, which led to separating from the AAU of C in 1937. He served as treasurer of the AAU of C from 1919 to 1940, and was treasurer of the Manitoba Citizens' Olympic Committee to fund local athletes. He was the honorary assistant manager of the Canadian delegation to the 1932 Winter Olympics, and oversaw travel arrangements as the associate manager of the Canada men's national ice hockey team. Robinson became the first life member of the CAHA in 1925, and was a life member of the AAU of C. When the CAHA had its silver jubilee in 1939, he was appointed to oversee the celebration, and Winnipeg was chosen as host in recognition of his work to establish the CAHA. In 1945, he was among the inaugural group inducted into the builder category of the Hockey Hall of Fame. He was also inducted into the International Hockey Hall of Fame, the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame, and posthumously into the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame.

Claude Copeland Robinson was born on December 17, 1881, in Harriston, Ontario. His parents Thomas D. Robinson and Elizabeth Copeland, had one daughter and four sons, and moved the family to Winnipeg in 1888. The elder Robinson was a businessman in coal and lumber industries, and established the T. D. Robinson and Sons Coal Company.

Robinson earned a degree from Wesley College at the University of Manitoba in 1902. While a student, he played university hockey for the Manitoba Bisons, and Canadian football for Wesley College; and also refereed inter collegiate hockey and football games. Robinson played cover point and rover for the intermediate level Winnipeg Victorias from 1901 to 1905, and served as the team captain during the 1903–04 and 1904–05 seasons. Despite that he missed part of the 1904–05 season due to typhoid fever, During the summers, Robinson rowed in the Winnipeg Rowing Club regatta in 1903 and 1904. Robinson refereed inter collegiate and intermediate level hockey in Winnipeg c. 1902 – c. 1910. He also refereed in the Winnipeg Mercantile Hockey League and the Winnipeg Bankers' Hockey League from 1907 to 1909. During the 1908–09 season, he refereed games in the Manitoba Professional Hockey League, and the Fit Reform Cup for the Western Canada championship.

The Western Canada Amateur Intermediate Hockey League elected Robinson its president for the 1903–04 season, while he played on the Winnipeg Victorias in the same league. At the 1904 annual meeting of the Victorias, Robinson was elected to the club's executive committee and delegated to establish an intermediate team in a local league. The club supported the intermediate team playing an exhibition tour in Western Canada on route to Edmonton. Robinson helped establish the Manitoba Amateur Intermediate Hockey League for the 1904–05 season, and was appointed its temporary secretary. He was subsequently elected president of the league, which adopted a two referee system for its games. Robinson was elected secretary treasurer of the Victorias in 1905, then served for six seasons in the role until 1912. Robinson was named a trustee of the Abbott Cup in 1919, after it was donated by the SAHA to be awarded to the junior hockey champion of Western Canada. He then spread the word to junior teams in Western Canada of a new national championship which became the Memorial Cup. After the CAHA assumed control of scheduling for the Abbott Cup and Memorial Cup games in 1919,

When teams from the Big 4 League were denied entry into the 1920 Allan Cup playoffs, Robinson urged the league to affiliate with the Alberta Amateur Hockey Association to play. He felt that the CAHA needed teams from Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, to have championships that were representative of the whole country. During the 1922 Allan Cup, Robinson protested that two eastern referees were appointed to the series, and claimed that Western Canada was entitled to appoint one of the referees. A vote by the CAHA upheld his protest, and changed one of the referees. As of the 1924 Allan Cup, the CAHA excluded senior teams representing a commercial organization from playing, after Robinson noted that no such clause existed in the constitution. In the 1920–21 season, Robinson voiced opposition to former professionals competing for the Allan Cup, but stated that they could play if permitted by the AAU of C. He subsequently spoke out against the continued reinstatement process, and felt that rules which permitted youth to become professionals would destroy the spirit of sportsmanship. In June 1921, CAHA president W. R. Granger met with Robinson and hockey officials in Western Canada to discuss cleaning up veiled professionalism in amateur hockey. The meeting resulted in a recommendation that branches of the CAHA update their by laws to give executives the necessary powers to enforce regulations and investigate amateur status of a player. The CAHA then established its own registration committee with W. A. Hewitt as the registrar, aimed at investigating all registrations to exclude professionals and reduce the number of players touring Canada from one team to another. At the 1922 CAHA annual meeting, Robinson was opposed to a suggestion that a professional in one sport could be an amateur in hockey, and reiterated that professionals were not welcomed by the AAU of C.

Canadian Olympic Committee president P. J. Mulqueen named Robinson to the winter sports committee, in preparation for the national team at the 1932 Winter Olympics. Robinson was later named the honorary assistant manager of the Canadian delegation to the 1932 Winter Olympics, with Melville Marks Robinson as manager of the delegation. When the 1931 Allan Cup champions Winnipeg Hockey Club were chosen to represent the Canadian national team in the Olympic hockey tournament, Robinson was named associate manager of the team by the Canadian Olympic Committee. He arranged for exhibition games on route to the Olympics, including games in Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario. Olympics organizers expected a large crowd for the gold medal match between Canada and the United States national team, and scheduled the match to be played on an outdoor rink in the centre of the speed skating oval. Robinson advocated for the game to be played on the larger indoors surface without concerns about the weather, but the game was played outside to accommodate more spectators. Canada won the Olympic gold medal in hockey, then played exhibition games Robinson arranged versus the Atlantic City Seagulls, and the Crescent Athletic Club at Madison Square Garden.

Robinson served as chairman of the CAHA finance committee from 1933 to 1937. He assumed the role at a time when the CAHA was annually increasing grants to its branches to promote minor ice hockey. He subsequently announced austerity measures which included suspension of grants to branches, and reductions in honorariums to executives and travel expenses for teams. In November 1936, the CAHA proposed amendments to the AAU of C constitution to alter the definition of an amateur athlete, and allow for mingling of amateur and professionals in sport. Robinson felt that professionals would be a bad influence on amateur athletes, and had no place in amateur sports. When the AAU of C subsequently rejected three of the four CAHA amendments, the relationship between the organizations deteriorated. Robinson was opposed to the impending divorce of the CAHA from the AAU of C, and suggested that the Allan Cup be withdrawn. Without the AAU of C alliance, he felt that the CAHA would lose its authority over amateur hockey in Canada, the ability to administer its finances, and control of the Allan Cup. Robinson raised his objections despite that H. Montagu Allan had recently declared that the Allan Cup should remain in the possession of the CAHA. The CAHA formally separated from the AAU of C in January 1937. The Winnipeg Free Press then speculated that Robinson's position as chairman of the finance committee would be abolished, since he continued to be a vocal opponent of the CAHA's new definition of an amateur. In April 1937, the CAHA abolished its finance committee and assigned those duties to the president. The CAHA agreed to pay Robinson's expenses to future CAHA meetings as a life member;

The CAHA hosted its silver jubilee in Winnipeg in recognition of the work of Robinson and Winnipeg Amateur Hockey League officials in forming the CAHA. CAHA president W. G. Hardy appointed Robinson to oversee the celebrations hosted at the Royal Alexandra Hotel from April 8–11, 1939. Attending the jubilee were eleven of thirteen former CAHA presidents, six founders including Robinson who attended the first meeting of the CAHA in 1914, and all four CAHA life members including Robinson. Hardy credited Robinson at the jubilee as, "a man whose acknowledged guidance was the foundation of the CAHA, and a man who was the sower of the acorn from which the CAHA oak tree grew".

During World War I, Robinson served on the executive of the Athletic Patriotic Association, which promoted sporting activities in Winnipeg and provided equipment to military sports teams. He represented the Winnipeg Victorias at the association, and was the chairman of the Winnipeg Amateur Baseball Association junior league c. 1918. Beginning in 1919, Robinson was delegated to represent the CAHA at national meetings of AAU of C. He was re elected treasurer in 1920, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1938, and 1939. The AAU of C suspended operations in November 1940, when that year's annual meeting was postponed indefinitely due to World War II. Robinson was appointed to a Manitoba Amateur Athletic Association committee to arrange training quarters for track and field athletes in advance of the Canadian trials for the 1924 Summer Olympics. He oversaw finances for the provincial track and field trials championships, and lobbied the Government of Manitoba for $4,000 to develop and send athletes to the national trials. He later sought for annual funding by the government to foster amateur athletics, and was part of a delegation of amateur sports organizations who met with Duncan Lloyd McLeod, the Municipal Commissioner of Manitoba, to lobby for repealing the amusement tax on gate receipts of amateur sporting events. In 1923, Robinson was appointed to a committee to discuss an AAU of C affiliation with the Dominion Football Association (DFA), whose executive were also based in Winnipeg. An agreement was reached for the DFA to join in 1928, but delegates to the AAU of C general meeting voted against the resolution which would have allowed professionals and amateurs to mingle in soccer. Robinson continued as a liaison with the DFA until the 1930s. In preparations for the 1932 Summer Olympics, Robinson was part of a group of delegates from the Canadian Olympic Committee who lobbied Edgar Nelson Rhodes, the Canadian Minister of Finance, seeking $15,000 in funds to cover travel expenses for Canadian athletes. In April 1932, The Manitoba Citizens' Olympic Committee was established to fund athletes in participating at the Canadian trials for the Olympics. Robinson was named treasurer of the committee, which aimed to raise $5,000 for Manitoba's athletes. The Athletic Patriotic Association reformed in 1939, with Robinson named to its executive. Twenty five sporting associations in Manitoba co operated to promote sports and give equipment to military teams during World War II. In November 1946, the AAU of C held its first annual meeting since 1939, with Robinson serving as its honorary secretary until 1948.

Robinson married Ellen Frances Doyle, in June 1913 in New York. They had one daughter, He was the superintendent of the annual regatta at Winnipeg Beach, and sat on the event's organizing committee. By 1918, Robinson was in business as a coal dealer and distributor based in Winnipeg. He was a director for his father's business, the T. D. Robinson and Sons Coal Company, of which his brother became president upon their father's retirement in 1926. then was vice president of the company by 1940. During a junior hockey game on December 9, 1941, Robinson was supposed to pick the star of the game for a local radio broadcast, but left early with an injury after he was struck in the head by a hockey puck. Robinson departed Winnipeg for British Columbia on May 3, 1942, then worked as a civil servant for the Government of Canada. He served two years in Steveston as the Custodian of Enemy Property for Japanese Canadians. In February 1944, he was appointed the assistant regional director for the National Selective Service in the Canadian Pacific. Robinson was the last living founder of the CAHA, when he died on June 27, 1976, in Vancouver. His funeral and burial were at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Burnaby.

At the CAHA general meeting on March 24, 1925, vice president Frank Sandercock eulogized Robinson's work in hockey, then made a unanimous motion to make him a life member. Robinson became the first life member of the CAHA, in recognition of his contributions to founding the association. Winnipeg Free Press sports editor Maurice Smith, subsequently wrote that Robinson was often referred to as the father of the CAHA. By 1968, Robinson attended his 51st CAHA annual general meeting, missing only one meeting. He donated his copy of the minutes from the founding meeting of the CAHA to the Hall of Fame, and received his inductee's scroll at the 1948 CAHA general meeting. Other recognition for Robinson included induction into the International Hockey Hall of Fame in 1947, and the Ontario Hockey Association Gold Stick award in 1953, in recognition of service to hockey. He was a life member of the AAU of C, He was a life member and honorary president of the MAHA which he helped establish, and was posthumously inducted into the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame in 1985. As a member of the Winnipeg Victorias that won the Allan Cup in 1911 and 1912, he was posthumously inducted into the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame, and the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and Museum.