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From: The St.Catharines Standard

MAY 23, 1929

ST.CATHARINES -- Practically all preparations have been made in connection with the official opening of senior lacrosse in St. Catharines on Victoria Day and the executive of the Athletics have spared no time or trouble to round out their proposed program. According to the program, it will consist of a monster street parade, starting at the market square and proceeding via Market to James to St. Paul to Ontario to Welland to Thomas to the sports grounds, where the opening ceremonies are scheduled to eventuate.

At the regular band practice, the band of the 1st Lincoln Regiment unanimously volunteered to head the parade, in civilian attire and they will be followed by motors conveying the lacrosse teams of both the Athletics and the champion Oshawa team. Immediately after them will come every boy in the city of ‘teen age, who is the possessor of a lacrosse stick, which will entitle him to free admission to the grounds to witness the opening game.

Arriving at the sports grounds, the ceremonies will be short but imposing.The members of the parks board of the City of St. Catharines will formally hand over to the Athletics the newly adorned grounds which have been entirely enclosed with a beautiful new steel fence and the green dividing one while all the essentials of perfect system have been added by the contractors and the aprks board to simplify the admission and handling of the anticipated crowd.

President E. T. Sandell, the guiding spirit of lacrosse in this city, has been given the honor of facing off the ball and he has graciously consented to act in that capacity. If arrangements can be concluded, it is also hoped to have the band of the St. Catharines Sea Cadets in the parade, but up to the present time, this has not been confirmed.

St. Catharines has always stood behind the boosters of the national summer game and there is every indication that the present season will see the most successful one in the history of the game in this city. So much has been said of the team that there is no need for recapitulation along those lines. Suffice it to say that the honor of the Garden City will be upheld to the best of their ability.

TC: Sadly, the promise of "the most succesful one in the history of the game in this city", failed to materialize. After an 0 - 4 start, the A's were found to be guilty of the crime of "failure to field a strictly amateur team." In a rambling and obscure public announcement, the Athletics management said it was "impossible to carry on and field a team that would prove up to the standard of efficiency of twelves that invariably repesented the city." And thus the team folded and a era closed. The long and often glorious history of St. Catharines Athletics senior field lacrosse came to an inauspicious end.

During the team's best years they won eight consecutive Globe Shields between 1905 to 1912, emblematic of Ontario lacrosse supremacy. Peter Conradi once wrote in the St. Catharines Standard that those teams would draw crowds of 6,000 to 7,000 to the "old corner lot" when the city's population was only 10,000.

Of the collapse of the '29 team, Standard sports writer Clayton Browne said this "sounds the death-knell of the world famous Athletics." He added that he "feels this as a personal loss as we evinced a great liking for the team, every one of them." And he predicted this "may be the outcome of the senior aspect of the game elsewhere in Ontario as a result of certain practices which have been tolerated but which have detoriated the principles of the game."