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"‘I could skate pretty fast," he said. Fast enough that the Chicago Blackhawks gave him a tryâ€"out way back when Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita were kids on frozen ponds. Though he never got into the sixâ€"team NHL, he did time on a Chicago farm team as well as the senior Marlies. ‘‘The hockey may be faster now but it sure was tougher to make it (into the NHL) back when they‘re were only six teams .‘ One of his old linemates on the Marlies squad (owned at the time by Harold Ballard) never hit the ice but saw lots of NHL time nonetheless â€" the late George ‘Punch‘ Imlach. Looking through a huge and wornâ€"atâ€"theâ€"edges _ scrapbook loaded with old West Toronto Journal and Telegram â€" clipâ€" pings, it turned out that Dippy‘s scoring ability, though not the stuff of legends, was certainly exceptional for a league that saw more 2â€"1 and 1â€"0 games than a five year old‘s soccer league. ‘‘God, we called it the ‘blood and thunder‘ league,‘‘ laughed Dippy, who now works at the Maple Leaf branch of the Royal Canadian Legion "‘doing a little bit of everything .‘‘ The mercantile league was as far removed from today‘s ‘no bodyâ€"checking, no slapshot‘ inâ€" dustrial leagues as Gretzky is from an Atom defenceman. It‘s the kind of nickname that stuck when you laced up your skates for 19 years of action in the West Toronto Mercantile Hockey League. But the name wasn‘t meant as a slur or some kind of character assassination . They called him â€" back then . A lot still do That‘s what Weston resident Gord Diplock did and though the league saw its last season back in the 1950‘s, Dippy still grins when he remembers the hardâ€"nosed brand of hockey they played for the folks . Dippy remembers rough ‘n‘ tumble times in Mercantile Hockey League But a Dippy conversation on Gord Diplock, parked comfortably here at the Maple Leaf Legion at Dundas and Jane, keeps a scrapbook of his days in the West Toronto Merâ€" cantile Hockey League and the news uDippyn ‘Well, I‘m 70, just a kid myself. Maybe I‘ll be making a comeback soon,‘‘ he grinned and then laughed. ‘‘She was very pregnant when she came to one game. I played until 11 at night and then we went to the hospital. I fell asleep while she was giving birth,""‘ he said. And the last few decades have given him more than a few players to admire. Does he ever get the urge to lace up again and show today‘s youngster a thing or two about the game and how it should be played? ‘But I‘m not gonna say at what .‘ J Dippy still enjoys tuning into hockey games but even as a veteran of the city‘s roughest league, he finds the style of toâ€" day‘s game "too chippy"‘. ‘‘Don‘t get me wrong..It was rough back then â€" Z was rough back then, but we didn‘t see any of this highsticking."‘ ‘‘That Gretzky‘s just super. Bobby Orr might have been the best I‘ve ever seen,‘‘ he noted, adding his final praise for another oldtimer, ‘"‘and Gordie Howe, well, he was just Gordie Howe .‘ However, Dippy did rememâ€" ber one ‘pay cheque‘ that he‘ll never regret. ‘"‘Jack Ostander wanted me on his team and to get me, he gave me a wedding ring.‘‘ His wife, Muriel, turned out to be a faithful fan evén under the most trying of conditions . And though the seating was usually ‘to the rafters‘, the pay scale for players certainly wouldn‘t be any indication of the league‘s popularity . those Marliedays drifts back to the league . ‘‘We used to get over 4,000 fans jammed into that arena in Ravina Gardens.‘‘ That arena was an indoor facility on what‘s now Ravina Park â€" a football fieldâ€"baseball diamond . clippings indicated he was a fairly gifted scorer for the half dozen or so different teams he laced the skates up for. ‘‘"‘Maybe I‘ll be making a comeâ€" back soon,‘‘ he laughed. Don Redmond invariably mercantile Gord ‘Dippy‘ Diplock was a member of the Lambton Beavers hockey team (above), a squad that won the 1935â€"36 Toronto Hockey League Junior â€" Championship. That‘s Diplock in the front row, second from the right and his brother, Russ, the trainer, in the back row at the right. His hockey career didn‘t end with the Beavers, though, as he carved out 19 years in the West Toronto Mercantile Hockey League in the 1940‘s and 1950‘s. Dippy played for six difâ€" ferent team in the league that specialized in _ "blood _ and thunder‘‘ hockey. Among the squads, Dippy played for in that league was the Ontario Stockyards team (right). Gune SPORT S "Recognized for Excellence in Secondary Education for over 60 years" The Board of Education for the City of York a8a Register now by calling Runnymede Collegiate Institute 569 Jane Street Toronto Ontario M6S 4Â¥3 â€" tel: 394â€"3214 Continuing September 1988 at the Grades 9,10,11 and OAC Levels at Runnymede Collegiate Institute EXTENDED _ FRENCH Humber Valley Villager March 1988 Page 17