Sports & Teams

Early sports teams in Copper Cliff, Ontario, were anchored by the storied Copper Cliff Braves hockey team, which thrived at Stanley Stadium and won multiple championships, including in 1975 under coach Bert McClelland. The town also featured a strong baseball history, highlighted by the 1939 Copper Cliff Junior Baseball team.

Early Sports Highlights in Copper Cliff

Copper Cliff Braves (Hockey): A prominent local team that played out of the historic Stanley Stadium, winning championships in 1948, 1950, 1953, 1954, 1963, 1966, and 1975.
Notable Braves Players: Included future CFLer Paul Aloisi and Ken Shaw, alongside Tom Mikkola, Paul Duffy, and Ralph Ferris.
1939 Copper Cliff Junior Baseball Team: Featured players like Stan Germa, Dunc MacKinnon, Buster Paquette, and others, representing local community league efforts in the pre-war era.
Minor Sports: Copper Cliff has a long history of minor hockey, contributing to the region's strong amateur sports culture.
These teams were central to the community, often drawing packed crowds to Stanley Stadium on Saturday nights.

Baseball

Copper Cliff baseball game 1909 Sudbury.com

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The Inco Triangle December 1938

Copper Cliff Redmen 1923 Sudbury.com

Recalling Nickel City’s baseball glory days

Inco Triangle October 1939

Inco Triangle August 1944

Jo Walmsley, Professional baseball player.

One of the best female baseball players ever produced in the Sudbury district was former Copper Cliffite Thelma Jo Walmsley. In fact, she was also the only woman from the area to play professional baseball in the United States.
Thelma Jo Walmsley (born in 1918) practically grew up on the baseball diamond. Her older brother, Fred (known as “Wiggy”), had been an excellent catcher with the Copper Cliff team of the old Nickel Belt Baseball League, eventually moving on to put in a stint behind the plate with the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball club.
In fact, it was Wiggy who rather inadvertently helped his younger sister's sporting development by occasionally “taking his eye off of” his catching equipment. It was then that Thelma Jo would "borrow" his gear in order to pursue her own baseball ambitions.
With an intense dedication to the game, she developed into one of the best ball players across the entire province. Sportswriters of the day reported that she had the ability to play just about any position on defence with unsurprising dexterity while, as a batter, she excelled as well. (Obviously she must have taken a loan of her brother’s equipment more than enough times)
In the 1930’s, Thelma Jo was recorded as having thrown a baseball 237 feet at the British Empire Games in Montreal. The throw was good for the gold medal and shattered the previous record by 29 feet. And, as befits a baseball catcher who was also interested in track and field events, she was also a star in the javelin and discus throw.
In 1943, the owner of Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs, Philip K. Wrigley, was facing a dilemma. He feared that the continued conscription of young men into the American war effort would bring about the suspension of Major League Baseball, as had already happened in some minor leagues.
Wrigley (a chewing gum magnate whose name still adorns the Chicago Cubs’ ballpark) wanted to ensure baseball could continue as a business during the Second World War. And, his solution you ask? It was to organize a league of women softball players.
The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) operated between 1943 and 1954, with franchises in several cities across the American Midwest. It provided a rare chance for female athletes to earn good salaries while playing professionally a game which they loved. The league began as an underhand-pitching softball league but evolved quickly to sidearm pitching and overhand pitching, using various sized balls.
The women’s circuit involved a 120-game schedule, spring training and $100 per week paycheques ($1,745.65 in 2024) for the players. A total of 68 Canadian women from six provinces signed contracts to play on its various teams.
Thelma Jo’s prowess on the baseball diamond led her to a distinction that few women in Canada were able to achieve and that no female Sudburian, before or since, has been able to match.
In the mid 1940s, Walmsley, a right-handed hitting catcher, was just 26 years old and playing senior baseball professionally for the Montreal Royals. She was scouted and offered a tryout to turn professional by a scout with the Racine (Wisconsin) Belles of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
During her time in the league, Thelma Jo earned a healthy sum of money per week playing in the professional girls' baseball league.
The league and team she played for was later immortalized in the 1992 Penny Marshall film “A League of Their Own” with actress Geena Davis doing a very passable imitation of a Thelma Jo-esque catcher. (Though she is not the recorded inspiration for the character)
“I had to go down to Passcagoula, Mississippi, to spring training. There were 400 girls there trying out for the team so you can imagine the competition. The coaches and scouts would sit up in the stands and each day some of the girls would leave. But I made it," said Walmsley in an interview 45 years later.
The team then barnstormed throughout the United States as it made its way back to Racine for the start of the regular season. “We (even) trained in Havana, Cuba one spring as well and that was a lot of tun," recalled Walmsley.
Thelma Jo was one of three catchers with the Belles. “I'd catch about 60-65 games per season. My batting average was around .350," she added. Walmsley played for Racine for three seasons with the highlight coming in 1946 when her team won the league’s regular season pennant and advanced to the women's version of the World Series where the Belles beat Peoria to win the championship.
Unfortunately, she had to give up her pro career in 1947 when her father became ill, making a return to the Nickel Capital a necessity. However, she returned to play one final season, in 1948, for the Chicago Bluebirds. She then returned to live and work in Sudbury and Copper Cliff after that.
Baseball was not Walmsley’s only game (not by a long shot). She was also a big star in bowling, a game which she considered in some ways her best. News clippings from the early 1940s, when Walmsley resided in Montreal, show her consistently cleaning up in various leagues.
“I always competed against men because most of the women didn't take it seriously enough," said Walmsley.
Although she enjoyed five-pin bowling, she didn't restrict her leisure activities to the city bowling alleys throughout the winter months. Curling was another sport which caught her eye and she decided to give it a try as well.
Since she worked during the day as a receptionist at Inco, Walmsley had to find a time and place where women could curl at night. This search led her to the Sudbury Curling Club where, in the 1950s, she was able to get out on the ice every night. Along with other working women at the time, Thelma Jo formed what was known as the “Business Girls Curling League.”
Thelma Jo also became a member of the Idylwylde Golf and Country Club where she endeavoured to head out for nine holes of golf as much as possible during the summer. Her scores were recorded in the 48/49 range over nine at Sudbury’s oldest golf club.
In fact, if you look at the numbers which Walmesley put up in her athletic endeavours spanning several decades, they had her often competing with and beating men.
Even into her mid-70s, Thelma Jo remained very physically active. She would often be found working out at the McClelland Community Centre in Copper Cliff three times per week. And, she wasn’t one to do aerobics, Thelma Jo chose instead to hit the weights.
As well as all of her different athletic pursuits which I have already listed above, Walmsley said at the time, “I like to ski and I walk several miles each day. I also like to skate..."
Thelma Jo would laugh when recalling, “Many people tell me, Jo, you don't look 70. Really, I feel the same as I've always felt. I really want to stay in shape…Whenever I get frustrated, I like to get out and go for a walk. In summer, I'll do a little running. It's the best thing in the world for your nerves.”
Thelma Jo passed away in 1997, just shy of her 80th year.
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