CANADIAN NATIONAL HARDBALL CHAMPIONS ROSTER By Rob Dinerman

When Jamie Bentley defeated WPSA colleague Scott Dulmage in late January '95 in a four-game match between two former champions(Jamie '89, Scott '87), he thereby became the final winner of the Canadian National Hardball Championships, an event that began in 1912 and wound up with 75 renditions.

Other than a break during the two world wars (1916-1919 and 1941-1945), the Canadian Nationals not only was held every year but combined with its U.S. Nationals counterpart to become the culmination of the hardball season. Especially in the second half of the twentieth century, the presence of the leading Canadian players in the U.S. Nationals became increasingly common, and the fact that the two events were often bunched on consecutive or nearly consecutive weekends in mid-February contributed to the psychological synergy between the two events.

This phenomenon presented itself in virtually every conceivable permutation. John Nimick gained so much momentum from winning the Canadian Nationals in '82 that no one could stop him when the U.S. event was held in Washington D.C. the following week, while Ned Edwards became so demoralized by his unexpected and convincing semi-final loss to Victor Harding in '81 that he never regained his equilibrium and didn't come close to fulfilling his top-seeded status in Detroit the following week, losing in the quarters to the unseeded Edgardo Alvarez. Both Victor Niederhoffer in '74 and Peter Briggs two years later were so galvanized by the upset losses they suffered in Canadian National finals they had been considered sure shots to win that the extra motivation spurred them to U.S. championships one week later, with Victor exacting revenge over his Canadian Nationals conqueror, Gordy Anderson, in Annapolis, while a chastened Briggs buzzed through the draw in Philadelphia without the loss of a single game.

Some players, like three-time champs and native Canadians Phil Mohtadi('76, '77 and '80)and Scott Stoneburgh('91-'93), reached their peak at the Canadian event and entered the U.S. tourney too exhausted or satiated to match this standard, while others, notably Charles Brinton, looked upon the entire season as a kind of ramp that led to what he regarded as the top of the mountain, the U. S. National championship. It is a tribute both to Brinton's perception and modesty in knowing that he could reach his true peak only once per year and to his ability to time precisely the attainment of that peak that he never won the Canadian Nationals (which he regarded as the final stepping-stone in his season-long pre-U.S. Nationals climb), yet managed to win the U. S. Nationals four straight times in the early 1940's.

In 1953, Earnest Howard parlayed his aggressive volleying style to become the first of four Canadians to win the U. S. Nationals (followed by the hard-hitting Colin Adair in '68 and '71, the fleet-footed Michael Desaulniers in '78 and '80 and the smoothly graceful Scott Dulmage in '88). All four of these men also won their home country's national squash championship-Howard in '53, Adair in '69 and '71, Desaulniers in '78 and Dulmage in '87, and the first three-named are joined by six Americans in their dual accomplishment of winning both titles in the same year, namely Beekman Pool in '32, Henri Salaun in '56 and '57, Sam Howe in '67, Anil Nayar in '70, Niederhoffer in '75 and Nimick in '82.

In addition, Mario Sanchez in '79 became the only Mexican to win both events in the same year and, for that matter, the only Mexican ever to win the Canadian Nationals. In addition to the foregoing, there are also four other Americans---Herbert Rawlings in the late 1920's, Neil Sullivan in the late 1930's, Ben Heckscher in the late 1950's and Steve Vehslage in the mid 1960's-who won both national titles at some point in their careers, usually only a year or two apart.

Many of the Canadian Nationals winners, especially from the late 1970's onward when professional squash started to seriously grow, would go on to become stars on the WPSA hardball tour, and it is a tribute to their staying power that even now, nearly seven years after this event made its curtain call in the mid 1990's, that a number of the last few Canadian National champions, including Stoneburgh, Dulmage and Bentley, are still very highly ranked on the current ISDA professional doubles tour that has enjoyed such recent success. The Canadian Nationals has a rich history that thoroughly permeated squash throughout the twentieth century, and its legacy continues strongly even today.

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