Born March 14th 1924 in Portage-la-Prairie, some fifty miles west of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Bill Glennie was to become one of fourth round of inductees into the British Ice Hockey Hall of Fame.
Before coming to Britain in 1946, Bill Glennie played the first post-war season with the Washington Lions in the Eastern Hockey League. He first came to England with the Canadian Army during the war with his buddy, Wyn Cook. Stationed in Hampshire, both men married English girls.
After spending the first peace-time season back in North America with Washington Lions of the Eastern Hockey League, Bill and Wyn returned to the UK and signed for Harringay Greyhounds.
They started as they meant to go on. Greyhounds won the playoff title, Cook was fourth in the scoring and Glennie sixth. Bill was voted right-wing on the All Star team, an honour he went on to achieve year after year. He became player-coach of Greyhounds' sister team, the Racers, during the Fifties and took them to the league title.
As a right-winger of some standing, he was also described as having few equals defensively. In twelve seasons with the Harringay teams. Always a big scorer, he posted phenomenal figures as he tallied over 1,000 points in this country, scoring 516 goals and 527 assists In 613 games in ENL competitions. He took 538 penalty minutes – little wonder the critics of the day unanimously endorsed him a Canadian post-war player rating alongside the greatest right-wingers of the past.
Other highlights of his career include playing on the English National League (ENL) Select team which beat Canada and the USA to win the Churchill Cup; and leading Racers to victory in 1955 over the previously unbeaten Penticton Vees, who won the World Championships that year, competing as Canada.
Bill himself always regarded his taking the first Western team to Moscow in 1955 as the outstanding memory of his hockey playing years.
Tall and rangy (175 pounds and six feet tall in his prime), he was a tough, two-way skater who developed a devastating defensive move in which he circled behind his own defence to check an unsuspecting attacker.
During his time with Harringay, Bill Glennie was a three-time All Star A-team selection, 1947, ’49 and ’50, as well as receiving four B-Team nominations, 1952, ’53, ’56 and ’58.
At one time early in his career he wore spectacles, but Brighton Tigers' 'artful dodger', Bobby Lee, knocked them off one night and 'accidentally' skated over them. After that, Bill wore contact lenses.
Off the ice, he was a quiet and thoughtful man who played the piano and loved golf which he was good enough to have played professionally. His most regular golf partner was Marsh Key, the Scots-born centreman with Dundee and Harringay.
Bill so impressed his employers, the Greyhound Racing Association, the owners of Harringay Stadium, that when he retired from playing they appointed him to an executive post. Eventually he became general manager of the Powderhall Stadium in Edinburgh and he and his wife, Doris, made their permanent home along the coast in Longniddry.
He died there on 11 March 2005, three days before his 80th birthday.
Compiled with research, provided by Martin C.Harris and Stewart Roberts
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