CLUB HISTORY
Duffield Boys' Club, our original name operating in the City of North York, was started by its founder, Jim Nugent, in the spring of 1957. In May of 1959, the club was incorporated by the province of Ontario to provide sports and crafts to the children of the area. The name "Duffield" emanated from the old Duffield Estates that stood at the corner of Dufferin Street and Wilson Avenue, just around the corner from Jim Nugent's Body Shop. As a result of new Provincial guidelines, our incorporated name was changed in May 1989 to Duffield Sports Club of North York.
The club was started to provide children in the area with supervised activities such as hockey and softball with which to channel their energies. Duffield, in addition to starting their own House League hockey and softball programs, also entered teams in the North York Hockey League, as well as the North York Softball League. The Club has been playing at Downsview Arena (Located at Jane and Wilson) for decades on Sunday mornings.
The club grew along with the city and activities were expanded to include an indoor program. As the area changed to become more ethnic in character, programs were adjusted to include soccer on both a competitive and house league level. Today, Duffield offers strictly a comprehensive hockey program (House League, Select and GTHL "A") to over 500 kids per year.
The Duffield Club was the first team from the North York Hockey League to be accepted to the Quebec Pee Wee Tournament in Centennial year 1967.
Over the years, the club has celebrated many championships in Hockey in the North York Hockey League and the GTHL Metro Toronto play downs, in softball in the North York Softball League and the Ontario Softball League and in soccer in the Ontario Soccer Association.
We have seen graduates from our club, such as Earl Heiskala and Bob Lorimer to name only a couple, go on to exciting careers in the National Hockey League. In addition, many of our players graduated to play junior hockey in Ontario. More importantly, we have seen many young boys and girls grow up to be fine Canadians and a credit to Canada.
Over the years, Duffield's strength has always been the hundreds of volunteers (parents, coaches, sponsors, executives) who have dedicated their lives to better our community and provide our kids a safe, fun place to develop their athletic and life skills. As a club we could not have achieved our success to date without this level of commitment and support from all of the past and present Duffield members. As a group, we will continue to do everything possible to promote: respect, fair play, sportsmanship & most importantly fun among our young people and to assist them in the very difficult task of growing up to become good citizens.