Walter “Wally” Halder played ice hockey for two seasons in the Junior Ontario Hockey Association from 1938-1940, first with the Toronto Young Rangers, and then with the University of Toronto Varsity Blues, before joining the Toronto Hockey League’s (TOHL) Toronto Tip Top Taylors from 1940-1943. In that year he signed up with the Canadian Navy and joined the country’s effort in World War II, in addition to playing five games with the Toronto Navy. When he returned he spent his first year split between the Tip Top Tailors and the University of Toronto. Academically, he entered the University of Toronto’s Trinity College in 1942 and left in 1946 with a degree in education. In his final year he was awarded the Biggs Trophy for “outstanding Leadership, Sportsmanship and Performance.”
In 1946 Halder rejected an offer to join the New York Rangers because he wanted a no-trade contract and instead joined the Toronto Barkers of the TOHL, where he was playing when the offer came in for him to join the RCAF Flyers, Canada’s ice hockey delegation to the 1948 Winter Olympics. He had drawn attention after being named the Toronto Hockey League’s MVP in 1947. After accepting, it was Halder who suggested Murray Dowey to replace Dick Ball as team goalie, after the latter failed his medical tests. At the tournament Halder, a forward, was the team’s top scorer, with 21 goals in eight games, helping his team secure Olympic gold that year. He retired from active play after the Olympics and coached hockey at the University of Toronto from 1949 through 1951. He was the founding President and Chief Executive Officer of the Olympic Trust of Canada and died of cancer in Toronto in 1994. As a member of his gold medal-winning Olympic team, he was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in 2008, and he received personal inductions into the University of Toronto Sports Hall of Fame in 1990, as well as the Canadian Armed Forces Sports Hall of Fame.
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