WINDSOR, NS – David Hunter is looking forward to another NHL season, but unlike his favourite team, the Leafs, Hunter has acquired a valuable trophy – a 1924 artifact thought to be lost in a fire, more than a half-century ago.
“And now to have it on display here for everybody to see, it kinda connects a few dots,” said Hunter, proudly displaying the Starr Shield trophy to Global News at the Hockey Heritage Museum in Windsor.
As President of the town’s Hockey Heritage Society, Hunter is keenly aware of the trophy’s significance. The Starr Shield was awarded each season to the top team in Maritime Senior Hockey.
“In the early 1900’s, with the NHL, we didn’t have access to TV (so) you listen to it on radio. The senior league was our NHL,” Hunter said.
The Starr Shield went missing in 1947 after fire in the building where it was being stored in New Brunswick.
Gone forever, or so everyone thought, until a random Google search by self-described “hockey heritage detective” David Carter.
“Lo and behold, in British Columbia, there’s this item for Starr Manufacturing Trophy (Starr Shield),” Carter said.
A BC man, who says he found it recently at a flea market, sold it to the museum in Winsdor for $2000.
“It’s quite a profound effect that it has on you” said Carter. “When you realize that you’ve actually rediscovered something that you thought was lost, of a wide-scoping heritage.”
Exactly where the trophy was hiding for all those years remains a mystery. Carter admits he doesn’t know either, but he likes to think it was preserved, in loving hands.
It is scarred, presumably from the fire, which he believes destroyed its wooden back, and, several plaquettes. But, the silver shield and its etchings remain intact.
It’s a good fit with other museum pieces, like vintage hockey sweaters and a collection from the Starr Shield’s sponsor, Nova Scotia’s Starr Manufacturing, which pioneered skate production beginning in the 1860’s.
A shimmering treasure from Canada’s game, returned for safe-keeping.
Comments