CHARLIE BENSON

Charlie Benson moved along with his brother Harold through the Winnipeg Schools lacrosse League and Argonaughts Midget teams. Like his brother, Charlie played only one season of Junior before being a top pick to the Senior Argos squad. The Winnipeg Tribune described the Bensons as being “probably the pick of the junior league, being fast and dead shots.”

The game of the day was field lacrosse. The new game of box lacrosse was introduced while Charlie was playing and, according to reports, “the Benson Brothers made a smooth transition from field lacrosse to box lacrosse without a hitch.”

In that memorable 1932 season, when the Argos won the provincial and Western Canadian titles before losing in the Mann Cup finals, Charlie was one of the Argos’ leaders, and in the provincial finals against the Wellingtons, he scored four goals. In the Mann Cup finals against the Mimico Mountaineers, the Tribune wrote, “Drama was written into the game when Charlie Benson knotted the score with one minute and 10 seconds to go.”

Following the Western championship win against the Squamish Indians, Ralph Allen of the Winnipeg Tribune wrote, “Old-timers who love to talk about the days when men were men and lacrosse players were supermen, will have a difficult time convincing those who saw last night’s game that the national pastime ever crowded more action into 60 minutes than the Argo-Squamish skirmish provided.”

Charlie Benson was described as an all-round player – a good defender and prolific goal scorer. He won another provincial Senior championship in 1933 before retiring in the mid-1930s.