Interview Erica Woolley – Memories of Harry Woolley CLHOF Class of 2004

Remembering Harry Woolley – an Interview with Erica Woolley

Stories of Harry abound but here Erica tells of one about her father she only learned recently.

https://youtu.be/paNe_aE5lGcHarry’s efforts on behalf of the sport were recognised twice with BCLA’s Tom Gordon Shield for outstanding service and the Hugh Gifford Merit Award for accomplishments of instilling sportsmanship in players, their leadership and contribution toward improving the image of lacrosse. In 2004 he was Inducted into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame

With that let’s welcome our next guest and I got to say our next guest is uh is is here for a couple of reasons first of all just huge huge huge props to our next guest for generating a ton of interest in the past present and future

Of the game with her Facebook page also um the the daughter of one of the to me an iconic member of the lacrosse Community Harry wly so we want to just say thank you to Erica wooly for joining us all the way from Sunny Las Vegas uh

Thanks much for doing this Erica Jake I’ll turn it over to you to uh to start the grilling yeah I had no idea you were actually down in in Sin City or okay but maybe let’s start there how did you end up down in Vegas uh being a a BC

Girl well my husband’s a dual Citizen and um during all of our trips down here we loved it so much that we decided that we would move down here interesting and and this Facebook group like I’ve mentioned on my podcast a few times about this group that you’ve created and

And moderate and and admin for and I don’t know where you you dig up some of these nuggets that you that you post it’s absolutely incredible stuff but maybe start with where you got the the idea to come up with this concept and like I know when I’m making like a

Weekly post like I I’m like oh man but like you’re like constantly kind of updating this page how much time per week do you think you spend so tell me where where the idea the concept came from and then how much time per week do

You spend on it of course um so one of the things I promised my dad he passed away 2009 um that he wanted was that his era to be remembered so I had all of his scrapbooks and all of his old material and so I came across the page lacrosse

Past present and future probably about a year ago and I just decided to post all the stuff I didn’t expect any type of reaction to it I didn’t think anybody would I didn’t even know if any anybody would honestly care and I was getting messages and the response was really

Really overwhelming so um I continued to post things and then I discovered newspapers.com which you can find old um newspaper clippings and stories and YouTube and so it evolved from there um a fellow by the name of Bill Fox who is currently um nominated for the NL Builders category he’s the one who’s

Created the page and then I asked him because there was so many people signing up for the page through the various posts if he needed some help ad Min it so um I took on the role and um I’ve been really surprised by the response and I mean the membership but we’re over

7,000 people and you know every couple months you know there’s just so many people joining and there’s so much enthusiasm for looking at what’s happened in the game you know and um just finding old videos of man cups and Mento cups and of course the salmon

Bellies are always like in the middle of it all yeah and I like I mean you allow other people to post other things as well and and some of the things that other people post are are just absolutely fantastic so once you get kind of through all your dad’s stuff

Like where do you like it these things just kind of resurface and then they get shared again but I mean we just saw recently uh that that manap footage from from 81 and Wayne gos get Post in there with which had really kind of never been

Seen before and I think a lot of this stuff kind of turns up this rare rare footage that a lot of people have never even seen before that’s right and um I mean thank you to the Goss family and to everybody that contributes to this page because

That is what makes it what it is um and you know getting a hold of people who haven’t you know haven’t really been involved in the LA lacrosse Community um currently but they they find find out about the page and then they want to contribute and share their clippings and

Their photos and their stories and I think with CO as well you’re seeing this push for that because of course right now there’s currently no sports happening so I think people are enjoying the time reminiscing about you know old games and some of their some of their own experiences speaking speaking of

Reminiscence sorry Paul maybe I’ll just get this one and before before you do and and I got a chance to to kind of meet your dad and hang around your dad little later on in my career but give me a give me a special memory that you

Remember from your dad’s you know either playing or coaching or whatever it may be from from your dad’s lacrosse career um so I actually found out the story from Jim Butterfield who was my dad’s roommate in Quebec well he played in that League from 65 through

68 um and he played for a coach by the name of John Ferguson senior who was the five-time uh Stanley Cup champion for the Montreal Canadians and I didn’t know about this the oral Jim shared it with me and was kind enough um he he was uh

My dad was playing for the sell Titans um in they were playing in Valleyfield in Quebec and um my dad as some people know um he was a former boxer he was always getting into fights and in all sorts of trouble and shenanigans and Lacrosse and there was a fellow by the

Name of Coco Blanchard who wrote for the Montreal G um Gazette um and he was always writing horrible stories about my dad and um he had a number of like relatives on the Valleyfield team so my Dad decided late in the third period while he he was playing against

Valleyfield that it would be a great idea to attack his son and completely knock him out cold and um Michael Blanchard had to be taken out um in an ambulance in a Stretcher and in those days I mean lacrosse was you know widely followed um and so there was like an

Aren arena full of like you know tons of fans that were completely upset with with my father for doing this and so the Quebec police actually showed up at the end of the game I mean my dad had being thrown out and said that they weren’t allowed to leave their dressing room

Because there was an angry mob of fans circled that had circled the arena and they wanted my dad dead pretty much for doing this um so they said that they had to leave all their gear behind and to take their sticks and that they would

All have to like fight off this mob and kudos to my dad’s teammates who didn’t want to murder him because I’m sure they wanted to with with that experience um so I guess they left and the police had to try to make you know a pathway to

Their vehicles and the angry mob threw rocks and bottles and I mean they wanted to kill them I mean at they were Rivals as it was and my dad being you know of English background too I’m sure that didn’t help so my my dad and Jim made it

To back to their vehicle to try to leave and with their girlfriends and they thought that that would be the end of it but the mom just continued and they actually started rocking the car and it got so bad that the Quebec police actually had to fire gunshots into the

Air to back off the crowds so that that they could actually leave the area and not only that but they had to escort them out of Valleyfield because they actually feared for my dad’s safety and nevertheless when they followed up um for the playoffs which you could imagine

The angry mob was still just as angry um the police actually had to escort my dad back into Valleyfield and um for provide protection but I guess like the there was fans surrounding their dressing room they were surrounding their bench um and I was surprised to learn

That like you know he’s still Infamous to this day there’s still people that remember my dad and all of his shenanigans that happened in the Quebec league and he eventually came back played for the adnex and then was a thorn in the side for the New West

Minister salmon bellies as I’m as you interview Al Al Luth weight later can um you know share his own story with my dad but um yeah I say that sounds like a regular Sunday night at like a new s Bruins game back in the day right like

Yeah it sure does I remember those just rof the- mail stuff back there yeah exactly hey Erica I heard your dad tell that story a little bit the abbreviated version during his Hall of Fame induction speech and uh it was uh you brought it to life even better than he

Did you’ve done a great honor to the wool here today and to the game I can’t thank you enough uh as I said to you when we were prepping for this you inspired this with your uh with your Facebook page I love the fact that uh

You’re a tradition keeper and uh we want to thank you so so much for coming on today I want to tell you before we leave that we are inching very close to $5,000 we at 4885 so please all those people who are part of Erica’s Facebook page hey go on

Sell.com and start bidding and donating and help us bring uh a few more bucks toward our goal thank you so much Erica we really appreciate you coming out today and stay out of the casinos and on the golf course well of course and maybe when you guys come down here I can show

You the ropes okay awesome thanks so much thank you