Happy New Year !

[Ken Kurkowski]

Re: Happy New Year !

I joined SCC around 1981 when it was located at Porter Collegiate. Over the next few years SCC was the top location in Toronto for rated chess tournaments. As pointed out in this thread, the club was open two nights a week plus Sunday afternoons (the latter especially popular with the juniors). They had three guys who shared the job of running the club on a volunteer basis (can't remember the names). When they were no longer able to make the required committment it was decided to hire a club manager. IIRC Al McDonald was the first one. In the early nineties there was some kind of dispute (can't remember the details) and Al resigned. Emanuel Strauss ran the club for a while before being replaced by Mark Dutton. In the late nineties Mark went off to start the club on Bayview Ave. (which I joined as it was a more conveniet location for me). But, like the prodigal son, I returned to SCC in 2007!
Players who have trouble with the G90 time control of the current SCC would have enjoyed the old days - the curfew was later (11:30pm?) and games would be adjourned at that time, so you could spend a few hours figuring out how to save that difficult ending. On the other hand cigarette smoke was a problem for the non-smokers until the schools banned the practice in the late eighties (I think).

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Happy New Year !

It sounds like it was fun at the club in the 80's. I gave some thought to rejoining in the late 80's when I stopped organizing Correspondence chess. The problem was I was living out of town and by the time I got home it would have been after midnight. I'm a slow player. Health problems had set in and I had to get up around 6 AM so didn't want the late nights anymore.

I liked Sundays at the club. Usually it was speed chess at Macey Hall. Game after game. Even after I stopped playing at the clubs, Correspondence club members would drop in and my chess clock would get a good workout. Sometimes, after not many remembered me, I'd play some chess downtown for small coins. I haven't played that in years now. I cut back when they installed a battery to keep me running.

[Jason Lohner]

Re: Elimination of the Tournament Playing Fee ( = " Tournament Membership " )

Hi Jason:

I'd remind you that the elimination of the tournament playing fee ( = " tournament membership " ) was a straw vote motion passed by the CFC Governors from across Canada at the July 2008 CFC AGM in Montreal ( there were a number of governors in attendance, and numerous proxies submitted ).

Bob

try voting on just the elimination of tournament fees without tying it into the other motions and see how far you get. until then you are pissing in the wind

[Erik Malmsten]

Re: Toronto CC and other clubs

I remember paying visits to chess clubs in Toronto during the 70's and 80's when I would travel there a couple of times a year. Wasn't there a club downtown on Adelaide St., and the Central Y on College St., and the club on Vaughan Rd. (not all in existance at the same time) - as well as "Chess Canada" on Wychwood?

The Central YMCA Chess Club (Y) on and off since there was a YMCA back in 1880s, and was big in the 1940s. The Toronto Chess Club (TCC) used to have a plaque "Established 1880" but goes back to 1840s and frequently moved (died and came back). In the late '60s TCC had 5-minute speed on Friday nights on Davenport. But the Y, under Dobrich, grew big with activities 7 nights a week while the TCC only had oldtimers. The two clubs merged around 1976 and moved to the old courthouse, 57 Adelaide St. East. President Jaeger thought that there should be a new name, something like Toronto Central CC. Despite a heavy investment in renovations the club had to move in 1978 when the main tenant went under, moved to Vaughan Raod north of St. Clair and prospered for a few years there, led by Lavin, Boyd, Days, etc.. The rent was paid for by coffee sales.

The GTCL had a flourishing inter-club league and the flyer listing chess clubs (usually designed by Dutton) was both sides of an 8/5 by 14, over 50, maybe 100 clubs! But most were small, and several were in ethnic communites centres like Estonian, Lithuainian, Austrian. There weren't as big as the old Hungarian and Scandanvian Clubs of the 40s-50s.

Thanks Hugh for the history of Montreal's clubs.

[Hugh Brodie]

Montreal chess clubs

Back to old Montreal clubs - you can read my "History of Montreal Chess from 1844 to 1979" at http://chesscanada.no-ip.org/chess/history1x.htm (click on the year range you want).

The Montreal CC moved around and changed its name to and from "Westmount CC" a few times. A disastrous fire in January 1924 at Victoria Hall (in suburban Westmount) destroyed almost all the club's records dating back to 1844.

The "Montreal Chess League" was founded in 1918 - grouping all the local clubs together and organizing annual team championships. It fulfilled (and expanded) its duties until recent years.

Like most social institutions in Montreal in the early to mid 1900's, clubs were usually "English" or "French" - MCC being the primary "English" club, and Nationale the primary "French" one. There was some overlap; the MCL scheduled interclub matches between both "sides"; visiting masters gave exhibitions on both "sides" (Frank Marshall's then-record 156-board simul on Jan. 7, 1922 took place at the Nationale club). Companies (e.g. Bell and "La Patrie" newspaper) also had clubs in the MCL. In November, 1937 a women-only club ("Cercle Femina") began operations.

After WW2, ethnic clubs began their appearance. There had always been a Jewish presence, but except for a YMHA club for a short time, they had no club of their own. Most Jews attended the "En Passant" club - run by Maurice Fox - during the 1940's and early 1950's. Other ethnic groups with their own clubs that I have been able to trace include Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Poles, Ukrainians, Germans, Hungarians, and Serbs. All are believed now to be defunct - with the possible exception of the Serbian club.

The Fischer boom of the 1970's led to a number of short-lived new clubs scattered around the city.

So - in the present day we are left with one "central" 7-days-a-week chess cafe (often with 30-40 chess players present, but no organized events (well - the poker games are somewhat organized - someone has to collect the money and hand out the chips), one "central" chess club (in name only - it organizes a few tournaments, but does not really provide a place for casual play), several mid-sized "suburban" clubs (e.g. Lakeshore, Laval, Longueuil - all open 1 or 2 days a week with a more or less formal structure of chess activities), and an unknown number of "community" clubs (e.g. Cote St. Luc library, Westmount library, Atwater library, etc.) - not really designed for the tournament player.