Before War Amps, Chadderton was hockey star

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/11/2014 (4147 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On the day after Remembrance Day, The Devils’ Blast 2013, the Annual Chronicle of The Royal Winnipeg Rifles, arrived in my mailbox.

The “Last Post” section featured a lengthy goodbye to Capt. Cliff Chadderton, who died at age 94 on Nov. 30, 2013, in Ottawa. Chadderton played junior hockey for the Winnipeg Falcons-Rangers in 1938-39. When the Second World War broke out, he and several Rangers joined up. A photo of the 1939-1940 Royal Winnipeg Rifles team shows Chadderton and company wearing sweaters with the famous Little Black Devil on the chest.

If you check hockey databases for player records during the war years, you learn that they often played for military teams. Members of the Falcons-Rangers went on to play for navy teams in Winnipeg, Victoria, Esquimault and Cornwallis, RCAF teams in Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Vancouver and the Ottawa Royal Canadian Ordinance. Many hockey players are listed as being in military service for three to four years. Frequently there is a gap in the records before players returned to competitive hockey after the war.

Joe Vinet was a teammate of Chadderton on the Falcons-Rangers. He first tried to enlist in the RCAF on his 20th birthday in 1940, but was rejected due to a thyroid disorder. When his health improved, he was accepted a year later. His time in the service is chronicled in a memoir titled 02:13 July 23, 1944 as I remember it.

The title refers to the time and date the bomber Vinet was in crashed in France during a storm and 13 of the 16 on board were killed. After recuperating in hospital, the flying officer spent time in an interrogation centre and an international Red Cross centre, Vinet was then a prisoner of war for the duration.

Back home in Stony Mountain in the fall of 1945, Vinet returned to work with what he called “the phones.”

With dreams of making the NHL gone, he played senior hockey with the Winnipeg Plowmen and Nationals and intermediate with Letellier and Killarney. He also became a well-respected hockey referee, who worked a Canadian junior final in the 1960s. The golf community will remember him as the manager of the Wasagaming course in Clear Lake for several summers.

Chadderton’s hockey record shows that he played for the Truro, N.S. Winnipegs in 1940-41 and was in military service the following season. In 1942-43 the defenceman skated for the army team in the Winnipeg National Defence League. During that season, the army lineup included future Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame members Lin Bend and Jim McFadden, 1951 Manitoba amateur golf champion Bill Budd, 1998 Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame softball builder inductee

Jim Adams, and Wally Koster, later a singing star on Your Hit Parade.

Chadderton didn’t have the opportunity to pursue a hockey career after the war. On Nov. 8, 1944, at age 2,5 while commanding a Rifles company in the Netherlands, an enemy grenade took half his right leg, below the knee.

He later wrote, “I should have died right there. Hell, I stepped one foot into Holland, and left it there.”

Chadderton became a tireless champion for The War Amps, for whom he served as chief executive officer. He was known to Canadians as “Mr. Veteran” due to his presence in TV ads and at Remembrance Day observances.

Memories of Sport appears every second week in the Canstar Community News weeklies. Kent Morgan can be contacted at 204-489-6641 or email: sportsmemories@canstarnews.com