Earl Carlson
Fast facts:
Born: 1925, Kenora, Ontario, Canada
Lived: Darlington, County Durham
Position: Centre
Joined Wasps: 1947
Last played: 1967
Profile photo credit: Trinity Mirror / MirrorPix / Alamy. Used under license.
Like thousands of young Canadians in the 1930s, Earl Edmond Carlson would head out with his teenage pals to the nearest lake whenever the temperatures plummeted, hockey stick and skates in hand. But even at that early age, there was something different, something special, about the youngster from Kenora, Ontario. He had a natural ability: a fast skater and a brilliant stickhandler.
The rare gifted-few, with comparable talents, and at a similar time would go on to skate a path into the NHL and Carlson had the skills to do just that. But he would ultimately turn down the opportunity for fame and fortune, dedicating his hockey career to one team: the Durham Wasps.
Born on August 4, 1925 to railway worker Gustaf and his wife Alice - both of Swedish heritage - Earl’s upbringing on the quiet, picturesque shores of Lake of the Woods in western Ontario was quintessentially Canadian. He was skating on frozen lakes as soon as he could toddle.
As he honed his hockey skills as a youngster, he would be often seen practicing puck-chasing with no gloves on, skating with his eyes closed to see how far he could control the puck. It was a quirky habit that stayed with him. Throughout his career, he would cut out the centres of his hockey gloves so he could feel the stick and puck with his bare hands.
A young Earl Carlson (2nd from left, pictured next to Coach Obie Baizley) with the 1941-42 Kenora Rotary Juveniles - farm team for Toronto Maple Leafs
By the age of 16, he was showing great promise playing for his hometown junior team, Kenora Rotary Juveniles, before making the decision that would not only change the course of his own life, but would ultimately have a huge impact on the future of hockey team that didn’t even exist yet - 6,000 miles away in Durham.
Following his elder brother, Earl signed up to the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1942 at the age of 17. He was posted to R.C.A.F base at Middleton St George and then later to Croft, where he was part of the ground crew operations, supporting bomber missions during one of the most dangerous phases of the war.
Off-duty, Earl gravitated toward familiar comforts: playing hockey and ‘going to the dance’. He found both at the recently built Durham Ice Rink - where he would play ‘Bomber League’ hockey alongside his R.C.A.F. comrades - and the Majestic Ballroom in Darlington. It was at the latter that he met Cathy, a local girl two years his junior, who he would go on to marry.
While playing for his squadron team at Croft, against some of the NHL’s finest including Roy Conacher (Boston Bruins), Alf Pike (New York Rangers) Jimmy Haggerty (Montreal Canadiens) and the famous ‘Kraut Line’, the young Carlson, not even 20, was still noticed. A R.C.A.F press release from a game at Durham in February 1945 highlighting that “the little white-haired centre-ice for Croft was the outstanding player in the match.”
Also playing alongside him at Croft was fellow-Canadian Gordie Belmore, with who Earl would form a life-long friendship. Gordie too would be instrumental during the early years of the Wasps’ existence, despite the pair having very different styles when it came to playing the game of ice hockey.
Earl’s son Rob recalled: “Dad and Gordie were virtually inseparable. The main difference was that Gordie always liked a fight—he didn’t think he’d been in a hockey match unless he’d been in a fight. Dad liked to let his ability speak for itself; he didn’t need aggression.”
It was indeed an attribute that Earl was known and respected for: gentlemanly both on and off the ice, but also a player who could “let loose in no uncertain manner” when the occasion called for it.
Earl and Cathy in Canada, 1946
Earl married his Darlington darling Cathy in 1945 at the end of the war. Their first son Stuart was born in 1946, Robert the following year. Earl briefly returned to Canada with his young family, where he attracted the attention of several NHL scouts. Jack Adams of the Detroit Red Wings had his eye on him. The Toronto Maple Leafs even offered a generous contract, including paid trips back to England. But Cathy was homesick for Darlington, and so they returned to County Durham.
Later in life, Robert asked his Dad why he hadn’t accepted the offer to play in Canada. Earl’s response: “I came back because I loved your mother.”
What was the NHL’s loss became Durham’s overwhelming gain. In 1947, Mike Davy, another ex-R.C.A.F. veteran, was tasked with assembling a hockey team for the newly rebuilt Durham Rink. Carlson and Belmore, both living in Darlington, were among the first to sign up.
Carlson and Belmore - also living in Darlington - were two of the first to sign up to the new side.
Playing as an ‘amateur’ club, this meant that players could only be paid expenses. So Earl juggled hockey with working full time as a boilerman at the Faverdale wagon works for British Railways.
Earl Carlson pictured in the first Wasps team photo, front row, 2nd from the right. Next to him is Coach Mike Davy
However, such was his talent, that after only one game playing in a Durham jersey (where he scored a hat-trick), he was offered the chance to turn professional for Fife Flyers who attempted to lure him north of the border with the offer of more than double his railway worker wage to play hockey - plus an off-ice job thrown in also. Carlson turned down the tempting offer, politely stating that he preferred to remain with his own team, much to the relief of the newly-formed Wasps.
Speaking to the press later that season, Earl pragmatically explained:
“Ever since I first put on a pair of hockey skates when I was six years old I wanted to be a professional player. Now I don’t care so much. I like money, but not that much. Here I like the players, the place and the people and I want to help get the Wasps some place.”
Carlson certainly helped the Wasps get places. Ice hockey took off in Durham, regularly drawing crowds of 4,000 to 5,000. Earl quickly became the star of the show. Ice Hockey World newspaper described him as: “the most dangerous opponent in British Amateur ice hockey.”
In a 1948 profile, the newspaper’s Durham correspondent wrote:
“The King Wasp stands 5ft 9 inches and packs 185 pounds of liquid dynamite along with a few assorted bolts of lightning. Though slight of build he packs a real wallop in his body checks. That shifty, weaving change-of-pace-skating, so rare in present day hockey makes him a hard man to stop.
His dazzling speed outpaces most of his pursuers while the skillful stickhandling makes checking a difficulty. Many a net-minder has felt the sting of that little black rubber disc after Carlson has fired in one of his bullet-like drives goalwards. Many times he barely sees them whizz by.”
It was no exaggeration. One coach of a visiting team to the city rink in an attempt to quell the one-man onslaught assigned two men to mark Carlson. “If he goes to the toilet,” he added, “you go there with him.” He still scored four.
Earl Carlson circa 1950 (right) with Wasps’ linemate and best friend Gordie Belmore (centre) and Ronnie Sancaster (left)
But while Earl was happy to delight the crowds at Durham with his skating prowess and lethal ability to score goals, he shunned the celebrity that came with his sporting success. As Harold Williamson writing for Ice Hockey World observed: “Fans who try to corner him and sing his praises give up in exasperation. Earl listens, looks distant and blushes. Surrounded by chattering sweater girls he is most unhappy.”
Robert Carlson remembers from his own youth:
“We’d go to games with Dad and he’d try to sneak in with his duffle coat hood up without being recognised. He never thought of himself as anything special. I had a young girl come up to me when I was 14 years old, she was about 17 years old and she said do you think your dad would divorce your mam and marry me. Everyone just wanted to be around him all the time.”
From 1951 to 1955 under leadership of player-coach Bill Booth, Carlson topped the Wasps’ players points table and was instrumental in the 1950 and 1953 B.I.H.A. Cup wins for Durham - the annual finale of the Northern Amateur Tournament season.
From 1951 to 1955, under player-coach Bill Booth, Carlson topped the Wasps’ points table and was instrumental in their 1950 and 1953 B.I.H.A. Cup wins. But by 1955, ice rinks were closing across the country at an alarming rate. At Durham, addendances dropped below 1,000 and ice hockey was making a loss. The Wasps were disbanded.
After 18 months in the wilderness, the Wasps were revived for the 1956/57 season - this time playing out of the new Whitley Bay Ice Rink, temporarily dropping the 'Durham' name. Carlson was absent at first, but six months later he returned, though not before making a surprise guest appearance against the Wasps for Richmond Ambassadors in February 1957.
Three months later, Carlson and fellow Wasps Canadian team-mate Jimmy Carlyle were given the rare-honour of being selected by the British Ice Hockey Association to play for England in recognition of their services to ice hockey in the country.
In the 1957/58 season, the Wasps returned to Durham. On January 11, Carlson scored his 500th goal for the club in a game against the Glasgow Mohawks. Play stopped for two minutes while players from both teams scrambled off the benches and onto the ice to congratulate him. Ice Hockey World named him Player of the Week - a rare honour for someone outside the National League - and he was later presented with a walnut clock bearing an inscription plate bought by his teammates and club management. That clock still sits in the Carlson family home nearly 70 years later.
In November 1958, Earl registered the second-fastest recorded hat-trick in the world, smashing in three goals in just 24 seconds against a shell-shocked Liverpool Leopards side who ultimately went down 18-7 to the rampant Durham side.
The following month, he took the opportunity to briefly leave the North East for a nine-week coaching stint in Europe for Swiss team Crans-sur-Sierre. Writing home to Darlington in a postcard, he penned:
“We won our game away from home on Wed, 10-4, I scored and assisted and everyone thought I played marvellous, even some of the spectators shook hands with me. Will see you next week. Love Earl xx.”
Earl’s Alpine sojourn in the Alps not only broadened his horizons, it also proved rather lucrative. Amateur hockey players were rewarded for their efforts to a much greater degree in continental Europe. Stuart and Rob Carlson remember stories of their Dad returning home with cash stitched into his blazer lining, and dining with the exiled King Farouk of Egypt and the Swiss-born Aga Khan IV - who regularly visited the luxury Swiss resort in the late 50s and also, surprisingly, happened to be hockey fans.
Carlson returned to the Wasps in February 1959, and in October registered his 599th goal 25 seconds after the first puck drop in a game against Perth Blackhawks. Goal number 600 came less than 60 seconds later and according to the Sunday Sun “was applauded to the rafters”.
Senior ice hockey at both Durham and Whitley rinks ceased once more at the end of the 1960/61 season, forcing the players - and Earl - to continue on an away-game only basis as ‘Durham Bees’ for the next two seasons at rinks and arenas including Wembley and Brighton - Carlson netting 5 against Brighton Tigers on the first outing to the Sussex rink.
Earl retired from the Wasps at the end of the 1962/63 season, but made a brief comeback in 1966/67 when the team returned to home ice in Durham for the first time in six years. He laced up for two games that November, and by early December the Durham management were eager to get him on the ice for a high-profile match at Wembley Arena against the formidable Lions.
There was just one hitch—well, two.
Firstly, Earl had no idea he was supposed to be playing in that game. And secondly, in the years since his retirement, he’d quietly moved house… and no one at the club knew where to find him.
After exhausting every usual method of contact (and perhaps a few unusual ones), Tom Smith turned in desperation to the Northern Echo, the local paper in Darlington. A reporter eventually tracked Earl down - blissfully unaware of the frenzied search efforts - wallpapering his front room.
Despite the mad scramble and even with the name “Carlson” printed on the team sheet, the Wasps couldn’t pull off a miracle that night. They went down 14–4.
Earl played one of his last, if not the last game for Durham Wasps on January 29, 1967 in an 8-1 victory over Ayr Bruins - netting Durham’s 7th goal of the game from close range. He played seven games in his short comeback, scoring five goals and two assists.
By then, he had been battling stomach ulcers for years. In 1969, he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Though he returned to work after an operation, he died on April 14, 1970, from carcinoma of the stomach. He was 44.
A benefit game—England v Scotland—was held at Durham Rink on May 17, 1970, in his memory. To this day, those who saw him play speak of his brilliance in a Wasps jersey.
In 1988, Earl Carlson was inducted into the British Ice Hockey Hall of Fame. In 2015, he was named to the British Team of the Century at the 100 Years of British Ice Hockey celebration in Durham.
Today, Earl Carlson Grove - a residential street in a quiet Darlington suburb, built in 2018 - stands as a bricks and mortar tribute to the man who gave up Canada and became ‘The Earl of Durham’.
