Books on rival starch companies celebrate marketing tie-in with NHL in 1930s

The decades-ago promotion was a match between a valiant boxer and an opponent who was at least a few weight classes heavier.

Even if the wildly popular, still coveted Bee Hive Golden Corn Syrup NHL picture promotion was the heavyweight Canadian hockey collectible between 1934-68, the rival Edwardsburg Crown Brand Corn Syrup campaign of 1935-42 went a few good rounds as a worthy competitor.

Hockey fans were the winners in an acrimonious marketing battle between two Canadian starch companies whose sweet corn syrups were a staple in the nation's kitchens spread on toast and pancakes, poured on cereal, blended in porridge and baking.

Four years after the publication of "The Golden Years," a wonderful 2020 study of the St. Lawrence Starch Company's Bee Hive promotion, comes "The Seven Year Pitch," a delightful look at the Canada Starch Company's Crown Brand campaign.

The booklet "How To Become A Hockey Star," credited to Montreal Maroons coach and GM Tommy Gorman, was a popular premium from the Crown Brand hockey picture promotion, featured here in a Jan. 30, 1936 ad in The Maritime Merchant of Halifax, Nova Scotia; an ad for the same booklet in the Nov. 13, 1936 Canadian Grocer Magazine.

Lavishly illustrated, the books celebrate an era when fans followed the NHL on radio and in newspapers, before television hugely broadened the base.

Don Pillar, a historian and retired teacher, has been instrumental in the research and publication of both books. With friend and fellow collector Aubrey Ferguson, a retired consumer marketer and businessman, Pillar dug deeply for a 296-page, cloth-bound tour of Bee Hive's history.

That project inspired him to look at Crown Brand's rival promotion, his 248-page large-format soft-cover volume an exhaustive study of a much less famous national campaign but still a trailblazer that vied for the loyalty of consumers.

Pillar's book is a perfect companion to "The Golden Years," but it stands strongly on its own.

Bee Hive's campaign remains the most successful consumer promotion in Canadian history, 34 years from 1934 to just beyond the NHL's 1967 expansion from six to 12 teams.

The 1934-35 Stanley Cup-champion Montreal Maroons, featured in montage photo as part of the Crown Brand photo promotion. The inset features coach and GM Tommy Gorman, the Canada Starch Company's newly appointed spokesperson and endorser.

It is a massive collection, 1,025 pictures featuring 604 different players from eight NHL teams. By comparison, the Crown Brand promotion, which featured hockey for five of its seven years, produced just 78 pictures, including 13 team photos and 50 different players from seven clubs.

Indeed, the photos of the St. Lawrence Starch Company's promotion would be known simply as "Bee Hives." More than a half century after the campaign ended, they remain a cherished collectible, especially among the "completionists" who strive to assemble the almost impossibly gathered full set.

"Underappreciated, Crown Brand hockey pictures are too often dismissed as being simply 'Bee Hive-like' pictures that were available from 'that other' starch company," Pillar writes in the preface of "The Seven Year Pitch."

The concept of both campaigns was simple: proofs of purchase from Bee Hive or Crown Brand corn syrups were mailed to the starch companies in exchange for black-and-white photos of NHL players, and other premiums.

BeeHive (one word from the original two) Golden Corn Syrup between bottles of Crown Brand corn syrups, Canada-born products that today are the property of a United States food-products conglomerate. The embossed crown on the neck of the BeeHive bottle might be a nod to Crown Brand.

With "traditional" hockey cards appearing erratically from cigarette and chewing-gum companies in the 1930s and 1940s, Bee Hives and Crown Brand photos often were the only scrapbook-worthy pictures, beyond newspaper clippings that a youngster could collect.

They were enormously popular with at least two future Hockey Hall of Famers. As a boy, Bobby Hull would rummage through garbage piles in tiny Point Anne, Ontario, in search of a Bee Hive proof of purchase. Gordie Howe would speak with great fondness of his 180 boyhood Bee Hives and the devastation he would feel when a relative trashed his collection.

During his NHL career, Hull would be featured on seven Bee Hives, more than any other player; Howe appeared on four.

Bee Hives were far and away the more popular collectible then and still today, but Pillar didn't believe that the smaller, even pesky rival should be merely an asterisk.

The Crown Brand promotion, he suggests, was instrumental in shaping that of Bee Hive, two feuding companies acting and reacting as consumers flooded their mail seeking photos of favorite players.

The campaigns were broader than just photos. There was sponsorship of radio programs and endorsements by NHL players as the companies battled for the larger share of the sweet-toothed national market.

A miniature-rink Crown Brand board game, here in French (translated to "Hockey School of the Air"), had players simulate games with disks bearing the names of Montreal Canadiens and Montreal Maroons players, cut from either end of the game board. Montreal radio station CKAC aired a program Saturday nights, describing games played on this board.

Responding to St. Lawrence's "Bee Hive Sportsviews" syndicated radio show, originating out of Toronto's CFRB station, Canada Starch soon was broadcasting "Crown Brand Sports Club" on Toronto's CRCT, engaging listeners with contests and giveaways.

With the Bee Hive picture promotion in high gear, Canada Starch stunned its competitor with its own out-of-nowhere picture campaign, stretching beyond its early cycling and rugby roots.

Unbeknownst to St. Lawrence, which had been pursuing endorsement contracts with members of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Canada Starch signed a handful of Montreal Canadiens and Montreal Maroons players. Even better, it locked up Maroons coach and GM Tommy Gorman, who was credited as author of the Crown Brown booklet, "How to Become a Hockey Star," published in English and French.

The booklet was a smash hit, available for the paper label from any size tin of Crown Brand syrup along with the front of the carton of any other Canada Starch product.

A 1937-38 checklist of player photos available through the Crown Brand picture promotion.

Further, Crown Brand team pictures of the Canadiens and Maroons were something that St. Lawrence wasn't offering. The war was on and even it lasted a relatively short time, it was spirited and bitter and even went into the courts with at least one lawsuit filed by one against the other.

"It was certainly not the world's most storied corporate rivalry," Pillar said. "By comparison to the Cola War of Coke vs. Pepsi or the Burger War of McDonald's vs. Burger King, the battle between these Canadian starch companies was merely a 'Starch Skirmish.'

"The Bee Hive picture promotion did eventually emerge as the victor, but for seven years Canada Starch was a worthy competitor and profoundly influenced the shaping and early development of its rival's picture promotion."

Pillar says that Crown Brand "was clearly the straw that stirred the drink" during the formative years of the Bee Hive promotion. With that in mind, he dug into the history of Crown Brand to chronicle, document and celebrate its place in hockey history.

The 1937-38 NHL schedule of the eight League teams, part of the Crown Brand promotion.

"The Golden Years" and "The Seven Year Pitch" were labors of love for Pillar and Ferguson, who paid out of pocket for very small print runs sold only online. "The Golden Years" is, in fact, sold out and a waiting list is set up. Very few copies of "The Seven Year Pitch" remain. Pillar will distribute his new book to museums and archives, with limited quantities available for sale.

Both corn syrups are still available, Bee Hive having become one-word "BeeHive" over the years. The Canada-born products today are the property of ACH Food Companies of Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois, though both are manufactured by ACH's Canadian division.

Only shoppers of a certain age, or collectors of the long-ago promotions, will give pause should they see either BeeHive or Crown Brand syrups among the baking supplies. For those who remember, the Bee Hive and Crown Brand photos were and remain at least as sweet as the golden corn syrup that their mothers would purchase by the gallon, no matter how much already was in the pantry.

"The Seven Year Pitch" and "The Golden Years" are available only at the authors' website: https://beehivegoldenyears.com/

Top photo: Cover of the 2024 book "The Seven Year Pitch" and a photo of author Don Pillar, who produced a Crown Brand-style picture of himself.