Toronto Optimists: 1967

Another challenging year?

Canada's Centennial Logo

(Memories submitted by Bob Carell)

Optimists had won the 1966 Nationals with a show that, according to a reporter from Drum Corps News, would have won either the VFW or American Legion Championships. We had also lost the 1966 prelims to LaSalle Cadets. The last time we had lost a contest to another Canadian corps was in 1961 when Optimists local rivals, De la Salle, had beaten us three times. LaSalle was now the #2 corps in Canada. Since 1967 was Canada's centennial year the Nationals were being held in Ottawa, our National Capital. Ottawa was also the home of our main Canadian rival, the LaSalle Cadets. We knew that, when Nationals arrived, we would have to contend with an extremely partisan audience.

LaSalle was, so to speak, the "new kid on the block". They had only come onto the scene in 1964 and, within 3 years, they had pushed De La Salle into third place and they had beaten Optimists in the prelims to the 1966 Nationals. Clearly this corps was ambitious.  In 1967 LaSalle planned on bringing home the Nationals trophy. Not to be left behind, Del was also signaling a change. They had adopted Cadet style uniforms and they had started to add former Optimists to their instruction staff. The competition in Canada was definitely heating up.

Off the Line (1967)

Optimists' season got off to a rousing start with a win in Batavia over the Magnificent Yankees. Yes, we only won by a narrow margin; however, the show was in early June and this was our first win in New York State in a few years. We followed it up by a 3rd place finish at the Shriners, 5.4 points behind Boston Crusaders and only 1.8 behind Cavaliers. The Shrine show, to eliminate any sense of "Canadian" favouritism, used American Legion rules and had an international panel of judges. Doing this well in our second contest meant that the 1967 season was off to a promising start.

July 1st arrived and with it was the annual Port Hope competition. The results were a bit of a shock. The score sheet showed Optimists with 83.91, Cadets LaSalle at 82.31 and De La Salle "Oaklands" not far behind at 79.15 LaSalle's score had jumped from a 71.95 to 82.31 in just two weeks and Del's score had improved by 9 points in the same period! Yes, we had gained 4 points but the gap between us and LaSalle had shrunk from 8 points to 1.6 points. The competition in Canada promised to be more intense than it had been in a very long time! "Resting on our laurels" was not an option.

Commemorating 10 consecutive
National Titles (1967)

Optimists 10 year button (1967)

Our competition was changing. In 1965 we only had two contests in the US (one against St Joe's and one with Troopers and Garfield). In 1966, we had more contests but they were not against the top three corps. This year we went nose to nose with the best in the U.S. In fact, we competed against each of the top five American contenders at least three times. How did we compare? We're not sure because the scores depended on where we were. In the two contests in Canada we did quite well; however, things changed when we headed south. If you look at the chart below you'll see what I mean.

When Optimists began competing in the US we noticed that the scores we received south of the border were often lower than those that we received in Canada. Some variation in scores can be attributed to the effects of travel and to different rules in different jurisdictions; however, in an attempt to equalize the playing field, major competitions tended to use American Legion rules. Both of the major international contests in Canada (Shriners and North American) used Legion rules and both had an international panel of judges. Still, differences were often quite large. Consider the CYO Nationals in Boston and the North American in Toronto. At CYOs we went against the top two US corps, Boston Crusaders and Cavaliers. We received 74.8 while Boston got an 88.0 and Cavaliers scored 84.83. Four days later, in Toronto, Crusaders and Cavies scores had changed little (Boston won with 87.02 and Cavaliers had 85.3) while Optimists score increased by 8.2 points to 83.0! As corps members, we just wanted a valid comparison between ourselves and our competitors. We felt that was not happening and it was very frustrating.

Life sometimes throws us a curve ball. The week of Nationals arrived and one of our soloists had to report for duty at the Royal Military College in Kingston. Suddenly we were without a key player.

The Moment of Truth

Toronto Optimists (Nationals, Ottawa, 1967)

The moment of truth arrived and we were in Ottawa for the Nationals. We knew we would have to work harder because we were in LaSalle's home town; however, we were feeling confident because, just a few days earlier, we had beaten LaSalle by almost 5 points. While we could have done better in prelims, we felt like we'd done a good show. The judges begged to differ and gave first place to LaSalle Cadets (84.216 to our 83.783). While life is full of rude awakenings a few hours before finals was not a great time to experience one! The corps put together a plan. Of course, like all tourists our first priority was to ensure that we were photographed in front of the parliament buildings (I still haven't found a copy of that photo). We'd certainly allow some practice time; however, it was critical that we didn't burn ourselves out by practicing too much. We wanted to be rested for the evening show. As last year's winner we could choose whether to go on before LaSalle, and have them compared to us, or perform after them. We decided to go on before them. With a plan in place, we headed off to have our photos taken (really!).

Toronto Optimists (Parliament Buildings, Ottawa, 1967)

Having won nine consecutive National Championships, many people wanted to see another corps win, so we were used to hearing some fans boo us. We were not, however, prepared for what happened that night. It was not just the partisan crowd but members of another corps who were booing. That corps had not been allowed to compete at Nationals because their paperwork had been sent in late. They had won in 1966 and planned on winning again in 1967. We seemed to be the recipients of their frustration and anger. The collective "boos" were so loud that we could not even hear our drum major's commands. Rather than feeling disheartened by those boos we were pushed to try even harder.

This was "it". A year's work comes down to a single 13 minute show. We did not know whether we would win or lose. We did, however, know that we would do our best. We were a "bit" over-hyped so we took a collective deep breath in an attempt to focus ourselves. We confirmed our resolve with a yell of "Take Ten". In some memories it was "Let's Go" but, as we get older, memories sometime differ! You can listen to the recording and decide for yourself. What is clear is that the rest of the world disappeared as we set our focus on the performance.

On retreat at Nationals with a "10" written on the drum

As LaSalle stood on the inspection line, watching us, we stepped off the line. During the opener we were more "enthusiastic" than we should have been; however, we regained our focus. As we got further into the show the jeers changed to cheers. Other than that little bit I really don't remember much of anything about the show. Over the years I had learned that forgetting everything meant that we had moved and played as one. We finished our show and exited the field. While we didn't see their show we could hear that LaSalle performed to thunderous applause. All we could do was wait.

Now it was time for Retreat. We had not done a perfect show so we were worried. I'm not sure that anyone outside the corps can truly understand the blessing and the burden that goes with winning nine consecutive National titles. The blessing is obvious while the burden is silently carried by the corps members. What is that burden? None of us wanted to be "the corps that lost".

The scores were announced and, thankfully, we could celebrate. Someone used a magic marker to write a big "10" on the bass drum. Frans Rood's photo on the left shows that moment.

Other Material from 1967

• Recording: 1967 Shriners (June 17, Toronto, ON)
• Recording: 1967 CYOs (August 29, Newton, MA)
• Recording: 1967 Nationals (September 9, Ottawa, ON
• Recording: 1967 Individuals (National Champion Brass Quartet)
• Toronto Optimists Manual (for corps members)
• you can view an Acrobat File of Vern Johansson's Drum Corps News article on the 1967 Shriners' International
• view an Acrobat File showing reports from the Ottawa newspapers about the 1967 Nationals.

Special Notice

We want to add a page of memories for each year of the Toronto Optimists, the Seneca Optimists and the Optimists Alumni. What you see above is an example of what we are trying to create. We hope that these pages will help to rekindle happy memories of years gone by.

Our goal is to gather corps-related memories specific to a particular year, rather than "generic" memories that would apply to all years. These memories could be about such things as performing in the corps, traveling with the corps, watching the corps from the stands, excerpts from articles in old corps mags, etc. It's not necessary to submit a whole year's worth of memories since contributions from different people can be edited and merged together to form the web page. We'll save the memories that people submit and, once we have enough material, we will compile them into a web page for that particular year. We'll probably add photos, recordings, etc then we'll post that page on the website.

If you have other memories of this year, or any other year, that you would like to submit, please send an email to Bob Carell (toronto_optimist at rogers.com)