After a five-year absence from baseball, Collins returned in 1896 as a player-manager in the Canadian League for the team in Galt, Ontario. He also managed the Hamilton, Ontario team in the Canadian League and International League from 1897 to 1900. His 1898 Hamilton team won the league championship "with one of the strongest minor league aggregations ever seen In Hamilton." In September 1898, "Sporting Life" wrote: "Manager Charles ('Chub') Collins occasionally gets in the game, and the old ex-International Leaguer has not forgotten how the game is played. His work on several occasions has been of the fire-escape order."