Bruck’s various clubs: at the heart of the community

Minor hockey club, circa 1967

As the town’s main employer, the company actively contributes to the local news and the lives of its workers. Between the 1940s and 1970s, it organizes or finances numerous sports and leisure activities, as well as several clubs for both workers and citizens of Cowansville. This involvement reinforces a sense of belonging to the local community.

Cowansville Baseball Club, circa 1970

Local clubs
The company sets up men’s and women’s sports teams, whose performances are covered and photographed by the Entre-Nous newspaper. The community fervently supports its baseball, hockey, softball, and bowling teams, while the Bridge Club and the Bruck Gardeners Club also attract their share of enthusiasts.

Women’s softball team, circa 1950

The Bruck Clubhouse
Company staff also benefit from the elegant Bruck House, which serves as a recreational and social club. The rooms, equipped with speakers and a pool table, also host employee wedding receptions and the factory Christmas party. This is where Madeleine Fournier and Jean-Jacques Hamel, employed in the engraving department, celebrate their wedding in 1955. From the 1940s to the 1950s, the Club d’la Bruck, as Francophone employees called it, is at the heart of Cowansville’s social activities.

Cowansville Christmas Parade, circa 1965

Christmas parades 
Bruck Mills organizes the annual Cowansville Christmas Parade during which it offers gifts to the staff and their children. These are joyous times, as Henriette Enright, an employee of more than 40 years at the plant, recalls. As a little girl, while her parents worked at Bruck, she waited patiently in line with the other children to see Santa.

Gatherings at the Cowansville Golf Club, 1964