Action around the Stoney Creek Warrior net as the Kiltys scored against Warrior goalie John Jackson. Kiltys won this November 1991 game 10-3. Courtesy of the Hamilton Spectator.

Hockey History

Hamilton’s Kilty B’s played over 20 years in Junior hockey rank

Team starts in the Golden Horseshow Junior B League

The Kilty B’s started as one of two Hamilton-based Junior B clubs in the early 1970s. One team, the Hamilton Red Wings Junior team, started in 1973, and continues to this day. The other team began as the Hamilton Mountain Bees in 1975, but by 1977, under new ownership, were known as the Hamilton Kilty B’s, playing in the Golden Horseshoe League.

The Kilty B’s finished fourth in the six-team league their first season, with a 16 and 20 record. The next season they placed third, and for the 1979-80 season, topped their Doherty Division of the league, which had been split into two divisions with five teams in each.

Kilty John Mayich fends off a Burlington Cougar during a January 1994 game. Courtesy of the Hamilton Spectator.

The Kilty’s were on a roll, with a 33 and 6 record over division teams Brantford Penguins, Simcoe Jets, Caledonia Corvairs, and Dundas Blues.

During the 1980s, the team played at several Hamilton arenas. For the 1982-83 season, they skated at the Wentworth Triple Rinks. Then the team played at the Lawfield Arena. In 1986, the team opened the season with their new yellow and black Boston Bruin-style sweaters with coach Ken Morrison. Jeff Crawford, a former AHL player, took over as coach for the 1987-88 season, but former Red Wing Doug McKay Sr took over.

The Kilty B’s had entered into an agreement affiliation with the Hamilton Steelhawks of the OHL. This agreement would ensure the team has a nucleus of players with Major A potential. The Kilty B’s also worked with the Hamilton Huskies minor system to allow the team to stock up on Midget players when needed.

For the next few years the team was not as prominent, finishing anywhere from third to seventh in the eight-team league, until the 1992-93 season.

That was the team’s final year of Golden Horseshoe loop play, and the team went out in fine fashion with a 32-8 record.

Moving up to Junior A

The Kilty B’s would now compete in the Ontario Provincial Junior A Hockey League, the OPJHL.

The first season in the new division was a terrific one for the Kilty B’s, who amassed a 30-8-2 record in the loop’s West Division and finished first. The team also took a first-place finish in December of 1993 at the 16-team Newmarket Junior A Showcase Tournament. At the time there were 119 Junior A hockey clubs in Canada, and the Bees has a better winning percentage that 116 of them.

The team lost to the Orillia Terriers for the overall championship that year.

Coach Glenn Walsh would continue to lead the team throughout the 1990s.

But the team never recaptured the momentum and winning record that sent it to the top of the heap in its first year of league play. The team placed third in the 1994-95 season, then placed second in the division the next two year. For the 1998-99 season, the club was eighth in the 12-team West Division, placed fifth the next season, and then back down to seventh the year after.

But in its final year, 2001-2002, the Bees placed a respectable third with a 34-12-2 record. It was the team’s final season, and the Hamilton Red Wings became the team in the division.

Read about the exciting 1994 Kilty B’s playoff saga in the “Hamilton Hockey History” section.

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