Cold As Ice

Hello there and wel­come to the May 2nd edi­tion of Hangin’ in the Ham­mer; where we take a quick daily look at some of the inter­est­ing peo­ple and events from Cana­dian his­tory, sports and enter­tain­ment asso­ci­ated with the day’s date.

We are so glad to have you here for our Wednes­day edi­tion and once more you can count on a flood of great Cana­dian facts to be sent your way about this date, well, once we get Gordie out here that is. Would you wel­come please, our chief spokesper­son, Gordie Cornforsale.

On this day in 1610, King James I, gave a grant to the Com­pany of Adven­tur­ers & Planters of Lon­don & Bris­tol (The New­found­land Com­pany) at urg­ing of Sir Fran­cis Bacon. The com­pany then turned to John Guy as ‘their guy’ to orga­nize the col­o­niza­tion of the New Found land.

On this day in 1670, King Charles II of Eng­land, granted a char­ter to com­pany formed by his cousin Prince Rupert of the Rhine that turned into quite a prize. The char­ter gave the com­pany the exclu­sive monop­oly of com­merce in lands drained by waters that flowed into the Hud­son Bay and required them to search for mines and a route to the South Seas whilst con­duct­ing their busi­ness. In exchange, the Com­pany had to pay ‘two Elkes and two Black beavers’ to the King when­ever he or his suc­ces­sors vis­ited the ter­ri­tory (a pay­ment that was only made four times in the Company’s his­tory.) In 1859, the HBC’s exclu­sive trade license expired and in 1869, the Com­pany agreed to sur­ren­der its Rupert’s Land rights to Canada. In 1870, the lands were offi­cially handed over to Canada, who imme­di­ately cre­ated the province of Man­i­toba and the North West Ter­ri­tory from those same lands.

On this day in 1885, Cana­dian Mili­tia Colonel William Otter and his 300 sol­diers were forced to retreat with eight dead and 15 wounded, as Cree chief Pound­maker held off his six-hour attack at Cut Knife Hill near Poundmaker’s Reserve. Otter had attacked with­out orders and later realised that the Crees were sur­round­ing his troops so he ordered a quick retreat. Pound­maker com­manded his war­riors to let the Cana­dian troops retreat with­out fur­ther attack, spar­ing the mili­tia any fur­ther human toll.

On this day in 1939, an act in Par­lia­ment was passed that allowed for the cre­ation of The National Film Board of Canada. Since its cre­ation later in 1939, NFB films have won a total twelve Acad­emy Awards.

On this day in 1986, Prince Charles and Princess Diana helped the city of Van­cou­ver offi­cially kick-off the World’s Expo­si­tion being held there.

From the world of sports, on this day in 1964, Cana­dian sports fans were treated to a sur­prise vic­tory at the Ken­tucky Derby from a lit­tle horse named North­ern Dancer.

On this day in 1967, the Toronto Maple Leafs last won the Stan­ley Cup in a stun­ning upset of the Mon­treal Cana­di­ens. The next sea­son six new teams joined the league, of which three have since won the cup (Philly, Pitts­burgh and the Stars), one has dropped from the face of the Earth (Oak­land Seals) and St Louis and Los Ange­les remain with­out a cup as long as the Leafs. ( But they have at least made the finals since then and are still alive this year as well.)

On this day in 1970, the city of Mon­treal was awarded the right to host the 1976 Sum­mer Olympic Games (and the very next day, con­struc­tion was six weeks behind and mil­lions of dol­lars over budget).

Some Cana­di­ans of note born on this date include Abra­ham Ges­ner, who invented a refin­ing process for kerosene that lit up the world; Eli­jah McCoy, whose inven­tions were so good, they spawned the phrase, The Real McCoy; William Buell Richards, who was the first head of the Cana­dian Supreme Court; Art Hurst, who was a mem­ber of the KW Dutch­men when they won a bronze at the 1956 Olympics; Blythe Hart­ley, who claimed a bronze in syn­chro­nized div­ing at the 2004 Olympics; Dave Neville, who was part of the sil­ver medal win­ning Port Arthur Bearcats from the 1936 Olympics (born in Hamil­ton, BTW) and an ani­ma­tion producer/director who was involved with projects like The Wall from Pink Floyd, Heavy Metal and the tv series ReBoot, Alan Best (also a Son of the Hammer.)

Today’s Juno Moldy Oldy was inspired by Goldy McJohn, who was born on this day in 1945, in Toronto. Goldy played key­boards in a band with fel­low Cana­di­ans Jerry Edmon­ston and John Kay called Step­pen­wolf and they released Mon­ster in 1969 (for the Leafs, who appar­ently have one under their bed.)

Born on this day in 1946, Miss Les­ley Gore, who inspired us to ask when was the last time you heard It’s My (Stan­ley Cup) Party.

Our musi­cal title today, Cold As Ice was inspired in part by the fact that Lou Gramm from For­eigner was born on this day in 1950.

At this point and time I will send you back over to Puck and the clos­ing com­ments. Later.

Don’t for­get Doors Open hits Hamil­ton this week­end, with plenty to see and do on both days so check the web­site for details.

Per­haps we have been a lit­tle hard on one of the most finan­cially suc­cess­ful sports fran­chises in his­tory but, it is far too much fun to stop. (We’re pretty sure the pay­back will come once Hell is as cold as ice.)

We sure do appre­ci­ate you drop­ping by to see us today and we look for­ward to the plea­sure of your com­pany again. Until then, have fun and be safe.

You’re as cold as ice…