Perceptions by Gerry Warner

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, The game is over. The final buzzer has sounded. Seth Martin has left the ice.”

Like many others at the Seth Martin memorial, that was the first time my eyes moistened up and it wasn’t to be the last as Reverend and Celebrant Ken Siemens presided at the memorial for the great goaltender who played for the illustrious Trail Smoke Eaters.

The “Smokies” were twice World Amateur Hockey Champions – the only city in Canada to accomplish that feat – and Canada’s most celebrated hockey team outside of the NHL and maybe even more deserving of celebration than many NHL teams today.

It was only fitting then that the memorial was held in the Cominco Gym in the Trail Memorial Centre, the storied hockey shrine that was home to so many Martin and Smoke Eater triumphs over the years including Savage Cups, Allen Cups, and World Championships.

Close to 300 friends, fans and family packed into the old gym walking through an Honour Guard of the Cominco Fire Department, where Martin was a fireman himself when he wasn’t turning back rubber on the ice. And as I looked down from the wooden bleachers, I could see many of Martin’s hockey contemporaries in the assembled crowd.

Norm Lenardon, the shifty winger who tucked the puck behind the Russian goalie to give Trail its second World Championship in Geneva in 1961. Cal Hockley, the big Smokie captain and pillar of the team. Pinoke McIntyre, a bit frail now, but in his heyday a mercurial piece of dynamite on the ice as the Russians soon discovered. Harry “Hurricane” Smith, the bruising defenceman who along with Don Fletcher kept Smokie opponents honest and fearful with their booming checks. Dave Rusnell, the crafty centreman and stickhandler extraordinaire, who mesmerized many a Smokie opponent. There were other Smokies in the crowd. Apologies for not mentioning them all.

But despite the blinding amount of old hockey talent in the audience, Rev. Siemens made it clear that Martin was much more than a mere hockey player. First and foremost, he was a family man married to wife Bev for almost 61 years, father of three outstanding daughters and a score of grandchildren and great grandchildren. But most of all a modest man despite his many accomplishments, on and off the ice, including making his own goalie mask in a Cominco shop and wearing it on the ice before the immortal Jacques Plante did the same for the Montreal Canadiens.

But Martin will always be remembered most for his exploits on the ice, including being a starting goaltender for the St. Louis Blues in the NHL late in his career and shaking hands with the Pope in Rome when the Smokies toured Europe. And when his daughter Lynne, resplendent in her orange and black Smokie scarf, took the microphone we were soon reminded why her dad was such a great player.

“He was always reading the play and ‘saw the ice.’ He knew whether a player was going to shoot the puck or pass the puck. That’s why he stymied so many players.”

Martin was a stand up goalie with a great glove hand like the immortal “Iron Man” Glen Hall who he played with in St. Louis. When he was upward on his skates it was almost impossible to beat him, but when he went down a few pucks got by him, but not many.

Now it’s that Great Arena in the sky for one of Trail’s finest, though Martin did grow up in Rossland, up the hill, like several other Smokie players. More than half of the Smokie team that won in Europe were born in Trail and first learned their hockey in the Trail Minor Hockey Association and indeed it was Trail that started Minor Hockey Week in Canada.

Not bad for a gritty, little smelter town of 10,000 that all the pundits of the day predicted would lose in Europe and shame Canada.

Trail is a town of winners and that never was more obvious than at Martin’s memorial Sept. 13.

Goodbye Seth. I don’t know how many times I sat up in those wooden bleachers in the corner of Cominco Arena with the “cross the river” boys and watched you work your magic. If they ever need a goalie in heaven you’re a cinch for the job.

– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and a Cranbrook City Councillor, but most of all, a life-long Trail Smoke Eater fan.

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