The Haunted Hockey Hall of Fame

Does Dorothy, the disgruntled ghost of the beautiful young teller of the old Bank of Montreal, haunt the new Hockey Hall of Fame?

Site: The Hockey Hall of Fame
Locale: Corner of Yonge Street and Front Street
Hours: Open seven days a week: Monday through Wednesday,
9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.; Thursday and Friday, to 9:30 p.m.;
Saturday, to 6:00 p.m.; Sunday, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Phone (416) 360-7765

Period: The Old Bank of Montreal (1847-1983)

Sources: Stefan Scaini, "Buildings that Hold the Souls of the Dead," The Toronto Star, 14 January 1984
William Houston, "Truth and Rumours," The Globe and Mall, 19 June 1993

The lovely beaux-arts building on the northwest corner of Yonge Street and Front Street served as a downtown branch of the Bank of Montreal from its opening in 1847 to its closing in 1983. There were plans to turn the building into a museum of photography but these fell through. Restored to the 1885 period, it became part of the Hockey Hall of Fame at BCE Place, when the Hall moved from Exhibition Place to this site in 1993. Perhaps it should be called the Haunted Hockey Hall of Fame.

The tradition is that the old Bank of Montreal building was haunted by the disgruntled ghost of a beautiful young bank teller named Dorothy. She worked in the bank in the early 1900s and had an affair with a married teller. After being rejected, she shot herself in the upstairs washroom.

The ghost of Dorothy has been seen on a number of occasions. Journalist Stefan Scaini interviewed Len Redwood, the bank’s chief messenger for twenty-five years, who described Dorothy in these terms: "Lively, full of life and always smiling. She was the most popular girl in the bank." One morning in March 1953, he recalled seeing Dorothy enter the bank around 7:00 a.m. "This was much earlier than she was expected to be in. She looked pretty rough, probably had a night out." According to Redwood, Dorothy went up to the women’s washroom and remained there for some time. She came downstairs for a moment, then went back upstairs. "The next thing I heard was the shot." It seems Dorothy had shot herself in the head with the bank’s revolver.

Scaini noted that "in the weeks that followed, strange things began to happen. Lights would come on and turn off by themselves, doors that had been locked were found wide open. ‘We all felt something,’ Redwood recalls, ‘like there was someone watching us but you couldn’t see them.’ The cleaning staff became nervous about working in the bank after dark, claiming they heard ‘family noises.’ The women refused to use the upstairs washroom, so the bank was forced to build another one in the basement.

"Things settled down after some time, but Dorothy would occasionally remind the staff she was still around by turning on lights or tripping a buzzer. ‘Sometimes I got kind of edgy, but most of the time I didn’t worry about it,’ said Redwood. ‘I guess you get kind of used to it.’"

Dorothy is part of the folklore of the Sports Hall of Fame. Columnist William Houston quoted one of the Hall’s publicists as saying, "If we’ve misplaced something, we say, ‘Well, it must be Dorothy.’" He also quoted Ron Ellis, a former Maple Leaf, who works at the Hall. Ellis "has heard Dorothy but after playing for Punch Imlach he said nothing frightens him."