In a childhood accident Bob Senior lost two fingers on his right hand after a tussle with a wringer washing machine. For most of us any thoughts about playing competitive sports would have ended right there, but few had his grit and determination. Nicknamed ‘Ox’, he went on to have a stellar career as an elite goaltender, catcher, competitive curler, harness racer and coach.

During the heyday of Kingston sports in the 1950s and 60’s, Senior was arguably this city’s finest all-round athlete. With apologies to one Charlie ‘Goose’ Pester, a Hall of Famer in his own right.

For ‘Ox’ it wasn’t just his athletic ability, for many years he was a highly regarded coach with the midget & juvenile teams in the Elks organization in Rotary-Kiwanis Minor Hockey. Some of those years he did double duty, also coaching the Jr ‘B’ Kingston Frontenacs and winning championships in 1964 and 1969.

Rick Smith played defence for the Elks and credits Senior for getting him to the NHL where he won a Stanley Cup for the Bruins. It was Senior who instilled the confidence in Smith he could ‘carry the mail’ and play at the next level (Rick played Major Junior ‘A’ in Hamilton before moving on to the Bruins), and when Smith briefly considered giving up on hockey as a teenager it was Senior who convinced him to stay with it.

There was never any question about who was in charge when Senior was behind the bench. In an interview with the Whig Standard’s Patrick Kennedy, Senior was asked how he got along with the parents of his players, “I don’t know, I never talked to one”, was his short reply.

At age fourteen the lanky goalie was already starring for Max Jackson’s Kingston Victoria’s Junior B team, playing against players four or five years older. As a sixteen-year-old he played a Senior B game for the Kingston Goodyears (Ontario champions that year) when regular goalie Glyn Udall was injured during a game. Backup Kenny Johnson was reportedly ‘unavailable’ but rumoured to be enjoying himself at the Royal Tavern when Senior rushed to the Memorial Centre to don the pads as patient fans waited for the game to resume.   

In the fall of 1953, Senior left Kingston to embark on a junior career with the Toronto Marlboros, Galt Black Hawks and Barrie Flyers. In Galt he was briefly a teammate of a young Bobby Hull who was called up from the Junior ‘B’ team in Woodstock. Over fifty years later the Golden Jet came through Kingston with an NHL Oldtimers team and he asked about Senior, “he was a helluva goalie, he should have played in the NHL.” Quite a compliment coming from one of hockey’s greatest goal scorers.

In his final season of junior hockey he was regarded as the OHA’s top goalie with the Barrie Flyers. Picked up by the Toronto Marlboros for their Memorial Cup run, he played two games in the Eastern Canada Final.

The following year he joined the Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchman senior team and had another great season, losing to Whitby in the Allan Cup playdowns. After a brief stint back home with the Kingston CKLC’s senior team, his rights were still owned by the Bruins and he was assigned to Springfield of the American Hockey League to play for the notorious Eddie Shore. There he joined another fellow Kingstonian, a rugged defenseman named Don Cherry. With Shore at the helm Springfield was known as the Siberia of pro hockey, a place no one wanted to play and Senior was no fan of Shore and his archaic coaching methods. It didn’t last long and likely prevented Senior from playing in the NHL.

After two pro seasons he returned home to Kingston and earned his ticket as a tinsmith, beginning a thirty-year career with Corrections Canada. He saved enough money from playing hockey to buy a cottage on Cronk Lake, north of Kingston, that he called, “his little piece of Florida.” It remains in the family today.

In 1964 he married his wife Marion and they bought a house on Morenz Cres, appropriately named after hockey great Howie Morenz. They had two boys, John and Doug, both pretty good athletes themselves, and Bob lived in the same house almost to the time of his passing in 2023 (he spent his finals days at Helen Henderson Care Centre in Amherstview).

Working in corrections in the 1960s he remained active in sports as both an athlete and a coach. On the diamond, Senior was a hardnosed catcher who could hit. He starred for the great Prince George Indians teams in the late fifties and early sixties, winning several Kingston titles and an Ontario championship. Senior, who never wore a belly pad behind the plate, was tough as nails and an excellent hitter, winning league batting and homerun titles.

In the early 1960s Bob took up curling and started playing competitively. After a couple of seasons he approached the legendary J. L. ‘Jake’ Edwards, who had skipped his Kingston rink to the Brier in 1960, to see if he could join his team. Edwards said, “only if you throw rocks right-handed”, because Bob was a lefty. Senior replied, “if you change your mind and want me you’ll have to come back and ask.” Just over a year later in 1964, Edwards did ask and Senior joined his rink replacing another Kingston great, Bob Elliott Sr, who was having health issues. For several seasons Senior curled with the Edwards’ rink in the competitive ranks, despite being relatively new to the sport.

His true love was harness racing and later in life he would drive and train horses, owning two horses, Lucky May Jay and her colt Early Lead, racing them at Frontenac Downs. Bob said nothing gave him more enjoyment in sports than his love of horses.

How competitive was ‘Ox’?

Playing goal in an Oldtimers game at the Memorial Centre against the ‘Flying Fathers’ team of Catholic priests, one of the priests tried to cut through his crease and Bob took him down with a two hander to the knees. Forgive me Father, but no one comes through my crease.

Catching in a baseball Oldtimers game at Megaffin Stadium versus the Kingston Ponies, Senior showed once again he hadn’t lost his competitive edge. As told by Hall of Fame writer Bob Elliott Jr. in his tribute to Senior for the Canadian Baseball Network, a Kingston player went from first to third on a passed ball that skipped past Senior. A definite no-no in an old timers game. A couple of pitches later they had the kid picked off at third and caught in a run down. With the Oldtimers bench yelling to get the ball to Senior for the tag, the veteran catcher hit the kid so hard in the back the imprint of the ball might still be there today and the runner did a full face plant into the basepath. Lesson learned, don’t mess with anyone over forty, especially Bob Senior.

In retirement, Bob loved playing golf almost daily at Belle Park, enjoyed his cottage at Cronk Lake and was inducted into the Kingston & District Sports Hall of Fame in 2001. On his 80th birthday, a party that went well into the night (I was among the last to leave), a legion of friends, former teammates, and players he coached, gathered to celebrate the milestone, demonstrating the respect he had earned in the sports community.

He never talked much about his sporting achievements. A throwback, he could be loud and opinionated, and never took a step back when challenged. A student of the game he was self-taught through the school of hard knocks. Bob was a great competitor as a player and coach who was committed to winning, and pushed everyone around him to be better. Worthy of his Hall of Fame credentials.

Mark Potter is a long-time former Kingston broadcaster, Past President of the Original Hockey Hall of Fame and honoured member of the Kingston & District Sports Hall of Fame.