T. Kent Morgan

It was 71 years ago this week…

When the Chicago Black Hawks visited the New York Rangers on March 23, 1952, the final NHL game of the season for both teams had little meaning.

Road warrior just keeps clicking along

If, in January or February, members of the Reh-Fit Centre on Taylor Avenue, spotted a man riding a fat-tired bicycle around the parking lot, it was Lindsay Gauld. Investigation by Memories of Sport confirmed that the honoured Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame member was just getting in a few extra kilometres before he went into the Reh-Fit for his regular exercise class.

Celebrating Manitoba’s best Black athletes

February is Black History Month, so what better time to remember Black sports personalities who were pioneers or made a major impact in our province?

Snubbed by O-Pee-Chee?

Let’s play a little trivia with hardcore Manitoba hockey fans and sports memorabilia collectors.

Remembering those we lost, part 2

In this second January column, Memories of Sport continues to remember sports personalities who died during 2022.

Remembering those we lost in 2022

To begin the new year, Memories of Sport wants to remember the sports athletes, builders, officials and volunteers who died during 2022. The best place to start is with individuals who were inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame, with their year of induction noted, as well as the members of teams honoured by the Hall.

High school bonspiel once ruled holiday sports

Right after Christmas, from the late 1940s into the middle of the 1970s, the Manitoba high school curling bonspiel was a major sporting event in Winnipeg.

Hockey the focus of this year’s sports books

Hockey dominates the sports books with a connection to Manitoba this holiday season. Winnipeg Jets fans will enjoy books by former player Norm Beaudin and broadcaster Curt Keilback, while the story of the 1920 Olympic champion Winnipeg Falcons is told in two very different books by Cathie Eliasson and David Grebstad.

A breezy history of pro basketball in Winnipeg

Word that pro basketball will return to Winnipeg in the summer of 2023 brought back memories of the two pro teams that played in our city in the 1990s. The new team will play in the 11-team Canadian Elite Basketball League and call the Investors Group Athletic Centre at the University of Manitoba home.

Newest members of Manitoba’s baseball HOF

The Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame announced its 2023 induction class at media conferences in Brandon and Winnipeg on Nov. 8. Eight individuals and four teams will be inducted at the 25th induction banquet at the Access Events Centre in Morden on June 3, 2023.

90 years of Big Blue memories on display

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers football team that won the 1990 Grey Cup will be inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame on Nov. 3. Head coach Mike Riley and more than a dozen team members are expected to attend the annual induction ceremony at the Victoria Inn. In the Grey Cup game played at BC Place in Vancouver on Nov. 25, 1990, the Bombers overwhelmed the Edmonton Eskimos 50-11. The Bombers had become the CFL’s East division representative by defeating the Toronto Argonauts.

Sporting halls catching up with inductions

The Manitoba Rugby Hall of Fame is the latest hall-of-fame organization to play catchup with its inductions. On Oct. 15 at The Gates on Roblin, rugby finally was able to honour its 2020 induction class of three at a ceremony. The planned dinner was cancelled in 2020 and again in 2021, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nearly 50 years since WHA Jets first home game

Sunday, Oct. 15, 1972, is one of the most important dates in Manitoba hockey history. That’s the day the Winnipeg Jets played their first home game in the World Hockey Association at the Winnipeg Arena and top-level professional hockey came to our city.

1962 Bisons honoured at U of M homecoming

Sept. 23 and 24 is homecoming weekend at the University of Manitoba. Events will include the 60-year reunion of the 1962 Bisons football team, which is considered to have begun the “modern era” of football at the university.

When the Summit Series came to town

On Sept. 2, 1972, Canada and the Soviet Union played the first game of what has become known in hockey history as the Summit Series. Probably no hockey battle has been discussed and written about more than that eight-game series, which Canada won four games to three with one tied.

Manitoba’s hall of fame swimmers, divers

While Manitobans are enjoying the heat of summer, let’s jump into the pool and remember athletes, who made an impact on water sports provincially and beyond.

Winnipegger was youngest to swim English Channel

On July 23, 1963, a St. James high school student became the youngest person to successfully swim the English Channel. Claudia McPherson completed the swim from France to England in 17 hours and 17 minutes according to the official Channel records. The Woodhaven teenager was aged 17 and four months and a Grade 11 student at Silver Heights Collegiate.

CUAC Blues were the ‘best of the best’

To complete the Memories of Sport series about Ukrainian sport in our province, more teams of note will be remembered. Several represented Ukrainian organizations while the lineups of others had strong Ukrainian representation.

Teams from the Institute Prosvita Athletic Club (IPAC), which was established in 1916 and sponsored by the Canadian Ukrainian Institute Prosvita of Winnipeg, competed in several sports. In 1952, the IPAC Rovers, coached by Frank Moski and captained by Sam Dolhun, had an undefeated season and won the Canadian junior soccer championship. The lineup included Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame basketball inductee Fred Ingaldson and Gordie Chem, who also played for the 1954 and 1955 Manitoba junior lacrosse teams in the HOF. On the basketball court, IPAC reached the Canadian senior final in 1963-64.

In 1951-52, the Sts. Peter and Paul Church in St. Boniface entered the Catholic Inter-Parish Hockey League with a team made up primarily of Ukrainians. It went on to win three straight championships from 1953-54 to 1955-56. In the latter final, the St. Boniface team beat another Ukrainian team from the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary. At various times the champions were coached by playing coaches Jim Mosienko and Pete Petrow, while John Kozoriz was the manager.

In his book Their Sporting Legacy, about the athletic exploits of Canadians of Ukrainian descent, K. W. Sokolyk writes about a little-known University of Manitoba team with an interesting accomplishment. Headed by Nestor Budyk and Myrslav Zatwarnicky, the Ukrainian Students’ Club formed a team called Kozaks to play in the intramural hockey league in the 1974-75 season. Coached by Rev. Michael Wiwchar and managed by Peter Melnycky, the team won the championship in its first season. In February 1976, the Kozaks travelled to Newark, N.J. for a two-game series with the Chornomorska Sitch all-star team. Sokolyk states that this was the first time a Ukrainian hockey team from Canada played a Ukrainian team from the U.S. The Manitobans won both games. 5-2 and 9-0.

Hockey, football greats inducted into halls of fame

The Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame has announced its induction class for 2022. The group includes six players, one builder, one official, one member from the media, and two teams. In addition, one veteran player from early in the 20th century will be honoured. The induction dinner will be held at the CanadInns Polo Park on Oct. 8.

The six players all got their start in Winnipeg at local outdoor rinks. Goalie Sami Jo Small first played at Norberry Community Centre in St. Vital when she was five. In her autobiography, Small mentioned that she played minor hockey against fellow inductee Jason Botterill, who grew up Fort Garry and played for the AAA Mavericks. At age seven, Brad Chartrand started to play at Heritage Victoria in St. James-Assiniboia. Mark Mackay, who was born in Brandon, moved to Winnipeg at age five and began playing at age 10 for the St. Boniface Saints AAA atoms.

The four later played university hockey en route to their HOF careers. Small played on the men’s team at prestigious Stanford in California, where she had a track and field scholarship. Botterill helped the University of Michigan win the NCAA championship in 1996. Chartrand attended the Ivy League university Cornell and captained the team in his junior and senior years. Mackay played two seasons for the U of M Bisons.

Dave Hrechkosy got his start at Northwood CC in the North End before playing junior for the West Kildonan North Stars of the MJHL and then the Jets in the Western League. Defenceman Barry Legge played playground hockey at the Crestview CC before joining the St. James Canadians of the MJHL at age 15. Like Hrechkosy, he quickly moved up to the junior Jets.

Tragedy struck after Black Hawks first cup win

After the Chicago Black Hawks won their first Stanley Cup in the spring of 1934, tragedy struck the team not once, but twice, that summer. In both cases, it happened in Winnipeg.

In April, Chicago beat the Detroit Red Wings three games to one in the National Hockey League final. The 1-0 championship series victory came in the second period of overtime of game four on a goal by Harold (Mush) Marsh.

The final had a distinct Winnipeg flavour with two local goalies in the net. Chicago captain Charlie Gardiner gave up just two goals in his club’s three victories. Wilf Cude backstopped the Red Wings to their only win. In the final game, Marsh’s goal was the only shot he let in; he stopped 52 others. Gardiner had 40 saves in his shutout. Gardiner and Cude were boyhood friends who attended Albert School in the inner city. Being slightly older, Gardiner had been a mentor to Cude both on and off the ice.

The Black Hawks roster included Winnipeg products Art Coulter and Bill Kendall, St. Boniface’s Lolo Couture, and Montreal-born Johnny Sheppard, who learned his hockey in Selkirk. Along with the two goalies, they all have been inducted into the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame.

Manitoba’s rich junior hockey legacy

When you examine Manitoba’s amateur hockey history, it becomes clear that for many years our province produced strong junior hockey teams. The list includes 12 teams that won the Memorial Cup, emblematic of the Canadian junior hockey championship. The Winnipeg Falcons won the first one in 1921 and the Winnipeg Braves won our last Memorial Cup in 1959. Will the Winnipeg Ice end the long Memorial Cup drought this season?

After major junior hockey became the highest level in the country with leagues in Western Canada, Ontario and Quebec, a decision was made by the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) that teams from the three leagues would compete for the Memorial Cup. That left teams from long-established leagues as such as the Manitoba Junior Hockey League (MJHL) and the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) out in the cold, so to speak. In December 1970, the Manitoba Amateur Hockey Association, now Hockey Manitoba, donated a new trophy called the Manitoba Centennial Cup to the CAHA. Teams representing leagues rated as junior A, a step below major junior, would compete for the cup.

In the first half of the 1970s, teams representing the MJHL won back-to-back Centennial Cups. The first happened on May 14, 1973 at the Winnipeg Arena, when the Portage Terriers beat the Pembroke Lumber Kings 4-2 in game five of the best-of-seven Canadian final. Steinbach product Randy Penner scored three times and Al Hilton added a single for the champions. Frank Leswick had two helpers. The Terriers were coached by Muzz MacPherson.

En route to the Canadian final, Portage had won the MJHL title in four straight games over the St. James Canadians and then beat the Humboldt Broncos of the SJHL and the Penticton Broncos from B.C. Against Pembroke, Portage won the first three games 5-0, 4-2 and 3-0 before dropping game four 6-4.

Remembering more great Ukrainian-Canadian athletes

In the two previous columns about Ukrainian sports people in Manitoba, more than 50 Manitoba athletes and builders have been recognized. The majority have been inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and/or individual sports shrines in our province. Several were honoured as the Manitoba Ukrainian Sportsman of the Year.

Many readers have recommended others who deserve to be remembered.

Former Sport Manitoba CEO Jeff Hnatiuk, soccer’s Peter J. Manastyrsky, and hockey’s Murray Balagus, Julian Klymkiw and Don Kuryk have also been named Ukrainian Sportsman of the Year by the St. Nicholas Men’s Club. The current president of the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame, Kuryk also played football for the Canadian senior football champion St. Vital Bulldogs.

This columnist wants to remember George Konik, his high school friend from the north. Born in Flin Flon, Konik played for the 1957 Memorial Cup champion Bombers and was an all-star catcher and batting champion in the Polar Baseball League. The defenceman later was an All-America hockey player at Denver University and served as captain of the U.S. team at the 1972 world championship.

Manitoba’s best Ukrainian athletes

Ukrainian athletes, builders and volunteers have made a major impact on the Manitoba sports scene for many decades. If you have played a sport in our province, you′ve had many teammates and opponents with Ukrainian roots. The surname of the centre on my first line in peewee hockey in The Pas was Melnick.

In previous columns, Memories of Sport has covered the history of the Canadian Ukrainian Athletic Club (CUAC) in Winnipeg’s North End, which produced outstanding teams in baseball and hockey and the CUAC Blues women’s softball team that dominated in the mid-1950s and 1960s. For more than 50 years, the St. Nicholas Men’s Club held a spring dinner at the St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church where the Ukrainian Sportsman of the Year was honoured. Now seems to be the right time to remember some of the best of Manitoba’s Ukrainian athletes.

When the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame inducted its first class in 1980, hockey star Bill Mosienko was one of the nine individuals honoured. Terry Sawchuk, who was named Manitoba Professional Athlete of the Century in the year 2000, was inducted in 1982. In reviewing the list of athletes and builders honoured by the HOF in its 40-plus years, you find several dozen with Ukrainian heritage. They came from the sports of baseball, basketball, bowling, curling, football, golf, hockey, softball, track, volleyball, and weightlifting.

The St. Nicholas Men’s Club recognized a number of Sports HOF inductees as its Sportsman of the Year. Hockey player and golfer Nick Mickoski was the first in 1967. Bill Juzda, Dale Hawerchuk, James Patrick and Mosienko were other hockey players selected. Among the other individual HOF inductees are baseball’s Joe Wiwchar, Ken Galanchuk, Fred Ingaldson and Vic Pruden from basketball, curler Kerry Burtnyk, football players Steve Patrick and Cornell Piper, golfers Glen Hnatiuk and Ted Homeniuk, volleyball’s Mike Burchuk and Dale Iwanoczko, and all-around builder Buck Matiowski. Team members include Orest Meleschuk, the skip of the 1972 world champion men’s curling team, and John Shaley, who led the CUAC Blues to the first Canadian women’s softball championship in 1965.

Bombers ruled the field and the court

Once Bud Grant took over as head coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 1957, the football club became a dominant force in the Canadian Football League. After losing the Canadian final to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in Grant’s first season, the Blue and Gold won the Grey Cup four times in the next five years. The run was interrupted in 1960 when the Edmonton Eskimos upset the Bombers in the Western final. The score was 4-2 for Edmonton and that’s not a typo.

Some of the team′s American imports chose to remain in Winnipeg after the football season and find work to supplement their football incomes. In Canada, multi-sport athletes played baseball in the summer, football in the fall and hockey in the winter. In the States, the main winter sport was basketball. At the same time as the Bombers were successful on the football field, a Blue Bombers basketball team became a force on the local courts.

A team called Rae and Jerry’s Bombers entered the Greater Winnipeg Senior A League in the 1957-58 season. With Grant heading the lineup, the team had instant credibility. The Bombers coach had played college basketball for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers. Then, during the 1949-50 and 1950-51 seasons, the 6-foot-3 forward played 96 games for the Minneapolis Lakers of the NBA. The Lakers, who relocated to Los Angeles after the 1959-60 season, won the NBA championship in Grant’s first season. After he ended his pro basketball career, Grant spent two seasons in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles before coming north to join the Bombers.

In the playoffs, the basketball Bombers lost to the league champion Kodiaks in the semi-final. During that season, Buddy Tinsley, George Druxman, Norm Rauhaus, Gerry James, Ron Latourelle, Nick Miller, Gord Rowland, and Barry Rosebourgh all saw action. Glenn McWhinney was the playing coach. The following season, with imports Frank Rigney and Ernie Pitts strengthening the team, Rae and Jerry’s reached the league final, but lost to Kodiaks. The champions picked up Grant, Rigney and Miller for the Western final, but the trio were ruled ineligible due to their professional football status. Grant suggested that the $10 he paid to register nationally should be refunded.