The hockey innovators: Bill L’Heureux and Father David Bauer
By Matt Hoven
Cover of Hockey Priest: Father David Bauer and the Spirit of the Canadian Game (2024, CUA Press) written by Matt Hoven, photo of Bill L'Heureux, cover of Hockey for Boys by Bill L'Heureux
This article was written by Matt Hoven, Kule Chair and Associate Professor at St. Joseph’s College, University of Alberta. Its content comes from a recently released book, Hockey Priest: Father David Bauer and the Spirit of the Canadian Game (2024, CUA Press).
There was great turmoil about the future of Canadian ice hockey in the late 1960s. International competition had become more challenging for Canadian teams, which led to serious questions about the nation’s sporting system and its developmental structures for young hockey players. Western’s Dean of Physical Education, Bill L’Heureux, BA’68, stepped into the fray and played an important role in countering the status quo with national icon Father David Bauer.
L’Heureux and Fr. Bauer had a deep connection. L’Heureux had earned a bachelor’s degree in classics studying Latin and Greek at the Basilian-run Assumption University in Windsor. Fr. Bauer would later study with the Basilian Fathers elsewhere and eventually join the religious community as a priest.
L’Heureux, who had considered becoming a priest in his youth, was an excellent hockey player, winning the Ontario Hockey League Senior Championship in 1937-38 with the Chatham Maroons as a defenseman. He turned down tryout offers from the NHL and chose education over hockey, and later teaching over coaching as a leading physical educator in the Canadian university system.
Fr. Bauer established Canada’s first ever National Team and led teams into international play for more than a decade, including three Winter Olympic Games.
Working together on an appointed committee examining the status of Canadian amateur hockey, L’Heureux and Fr. Bauer released a national report in 1967. They argued that if specific structures were not specified to support youth and amateur hockey, commercialized sport would monopolize the game. Whatever is good for the NHL, they argued, is not necessarily good for Canada’s game.
Although the report was viewed with disdain by the game’s powerbrokers, it was hoped that their athlete-centred approach would be embraced by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, who played hockey internationally in young adulthood.
In the end, Pearson effectively buried the report because of his unwillingness to challenge the professional game and the electorate’s enjoyment of Hockey Night in Canada. Interestingly, that decision angered the committee’s junior researcher, Bruce Kidd, whose 1972 book, The Death of Hockey, was in part dedicated to the inspiration of L’Heureux and Fr. Bauer.
L'Heureux and Fr. Bauer remained friends. When Fr. Bauer was a director with Hockey Canada Corporation, he supported garnering research assistance from L’Heureux for Hockey Canada and later sought him for a role in its development committee. L’Heureux had long been considered an excellent educator in hockey, especially with his original instructional book—Hockey for Boys—and its subsequent award-winning series of short films. At Western, he coached the women’s hockey team even after his retirement. Significantly, L’Heureux also led discussions with the Canadian Medical Association to form the Canadian Association for Sports Medicine.
Together L’Heureux and Fr. Bauer promoted a form of hockey that was educational, skillful and values-based. Both were innovators and leaders, demanding more than entertainment from sport and seeking a way that hockey could build up the common good.
