Team Canada Alumni Association Winter 2016 Newsletter Table of Contents Message from TCAA Chair Gord Sherven .................................................... 1 Celebrating the Past Team-building never ends for ‘Nats ....................... 2 At the beginning ................................................ 3 Where Are They Now? Cliff Ronning .................................................... 4 Alumni Recognitions Jayna Hefford, Gillian Apps, Catherine Ward ........... 5 Carey Price ....................................................... 6 Pat Quinn......................................................... 7 Whats new at the Hockey Canada Foundation? Halifax to host HCF Celebrity Classic ...................... 8 The next step toward a lasting legacy .................... 9 Photo: Matt Murnaghan/Hockey Canada Images Recent Events International Events Recap ................................10 Message from Gord Sherven Chair of the Team Canada Alumni Association Advisory Committee Team Canada Alumni Association Welcome to your 2016 Team Canada Alumni Association winter newsletter. Where We Want To Be – Our Vision: We have a great story on the early years (1920-1939) of the Olympic Winter Games and IIHF World Team Canada Alumni – Coming Together, Championship from the book Canada on Ice by Dave Holland. Our hockey heritage cannot be Reaching Out forgotten and in future newsletters we’ll continue to recognize the great teams that represented Canada in these international tournaments. Why We Want To Go There – Our Mission: In the latest edition of “Where Are They Now?” we highlight the great career of Cliff Ronning and To engage, encourage, and enable Team Canada his business venture in the game, working out of his hometown of Burnaby, B.C., creating custom- alumni to maintain a lifelong relationship with made hockey sticks. Hockey Canada and our game The TCAA would like to congratulate a number of members on recent honours, including: Who We Will Be Along the Way – Our Values: • Carey Price – Lou Marsh Award recipient as Canada’s athlete of the year We are committed to honouring Canada’s • Gina Kingsbury – inducted into the St. Lawrence University Sports Hall of Fame international hockey heritage, assisting with the growth of Canadian hockey and the pursuit • Pat Quinn – to be inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame this spring of international hockey excellence for Canada, We would also like to recognize and celebrate the retirements of three decorated alumni: Gillian while providing an opportunity for our alumni Apps, Jayna Hefford, and Catherine Ward, who helped Canada to a number of gold medals at the to reconnect and celebrate the game and their Olympics and IIHF Women’s World Championship. experiences. These objectives will be within a spirit of teamwork, inclusion, integrity, On behalf of all Team Canada alumni, enjoy your newsletter! and service. We currently have contact with more than 2,500 alumni, of which over 1,000 have officially registered with the Team Canada Alumni Association. The Team Canada Alumni Association was founded to help connect alumni with former teammates and offer alumni opportunities to help Hockey Canada grow the game and make the best sport in the world accessible to Publisher: Hockey Canada all Canadians. Contributors: Gord Sherven, Hockey Canada If you have not already registered (for no cost), please contact Norm Dueck ([email protected]), who Communications (Wendy Graves, Jason La Rose) oversees the alumni association’s activities. We want to be sure that we have updated email addresses, mailing addresses, and phone numbers of all of our alumni, so invites can be sent for future alumni events across Alumni Advisory Committee: David Andrews, the country! Chris Bright, Norm Dueck, Mike Murray, Terry O’Malley, Tom Renney, Gord Sherven, Ryan Walter Gord Sherven Alumni Administration: Norm Dueck Chair, TCAA Advisory Committee Team-building never ends for ’Nats Alumni of Canada’s National Men’s Team program come together for ninth reunion by André Brin & Jason La Rose Photo: Hockey Canada More than 50 years ago, they travelled from every corner of the country In all, the original Nats competed at two Olympics and five IIHF World to Vancouver, B.C., invited by Father David Bauer to be part of Canada’s Championships, bringing home Olympic bronze from the 1968 Games in first true national hockey team. Grenoble, France, and bronze from the worlds in 1966 and 1967. In late September a core group of those teams travelled once again, this Despite the fact the program lasted only seven seasons, the bond time to the Red Lodge Resort on Manitoulin Island near Sudbury, Ont., formed between players remains even five decades later, and is reason for their ninth reunion, proving that Bauer’s vision had lasting power. the reunions have become as popular as they have. The national team program is still team-building to this day. “Originally we started these reunions every three years, and then we The group included a number of players from the original team, which changed it to two years because of people getting older. We’ve even was together from 1963-70, and a few from the early 1980s when it made had a couple deaths in the group,” says John Ferguson, a member of the its return following Canada’s hiatus from international competition. national team based in Ottawa in 1967-68. “It’s kind of nice to make sure “What it is … is we have such an identity,” says Barry MacKenzie, a when you come back the same old folks are here that you played with, member of Canada’s National Men’s Team from 1963-68, then again for [and] played against in a lot of cases. It just means a lot. You don’t see the final season in 1969-70. “We see each other after three or four years your buddies for a couple years; it’s a long time.” and it’s like we’ve never been apart. It’s something we try to keep going The Manitoulin Island reunion included a banquet dinner, and a cruise every two or three years. We realize every now and then that we’re losing on Lake Huron, although the lasting memories come from just being a few people so it’s more time we can get together and tell stories.” together and rehashing old memories with old friends. “I just love [the reunions]. I look forward to them,” adds Paul Conlin, a “Most of us have common backgrounds, a lot of common experiences,” member of the national program from 1963-68. “These people that we says Jim Keon, a member of the national team based in Ottawa in 1968- have at these reunions, they’re like family. They really are. You see these 69. “We do stay in touch, not with everyone but you get a sense. But to guys and it’s like you’re still in the dressing room with them, and now we come and renew acquaintances and retell old stories and the songs and also have the wives and significant others. It’s fabulous.” everything is a lot of fun.” Bauer’s vision for the original Team Canada when he founded the “Of course, my shot has become better,” MacKenzie says with a laugh. program prior to the 1963-64 season was to create an opportunity for “You know I think I’ve become a much better hockey player over the past players seeking both a high-level hockey experience and an education. few years … so it’s good for the soul.” The national program was put in place in time for the 1964 Olympic Previous reunions criss-crossed the country, held in Wilcox, Sask., St. Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria, where the Canadians finished John’s, N.L., Gimli, Man., Niagara Falls, Ont., Ottawa, Ont., Winnipeg, fourth; the result remains, to this day, one of the most controversial Man., Penticton, B.C., and Charlottetown, P.E.I. in international hockey history, with a bronze-medal finish changed Plans are already underway for a 10th reunion in 2017 or 2018. to fourth by the International Ice Hockey Federation somewhere between the end of the final game of the tournament, and the medal presentations. Team Canada Alumni Association – Winter 2016 Newsletter 2 HockeyCanada.ca/HCF At the beginning 1920-1939: The first Winter Olympics and world championships Photo: Hockey Canada Images NOTE: This is an edited version of an excerpt from Canada on Ice by Dave Holland World War I had ended and Europeans began to rebuild from the tournament. Following the Olympics, interest in the European champion- massive devastation that was inflicted on their lives, homes, and cities. ship was renewed. Austria (readmitted to the LIHG in 1924), Hungary, and Recreation held new importance, and hockey was quickly revived in Poland prepared for their 1928 Olympic debuts in St. Moritz. By the end of Belgium, Austria, Germany, France, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic and the decade, the LIHG membership grew to 17 countries, including Spain, Slovakia), Switzerland, and Sweden. Romania, and Italy. With enough international participation in the sport, hockey met the A new course was charted for the federation at the 1929 LIHG congress, criteria for inclusion as an Olympic sport and joined figure skating as held in Budapest, Hungary. The Ligue recognized the excitement gener- a demonstration event at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics. The new winter ated by Canadian and American participation during the Olympics and events were held several months before the Summer Olympics. An inde- decided to recapture this enthusiasm on an annual basis. Thus the LIHG pendent Winter Olympics would not be held until 1924, so the results were would hold an annual contest, the first of which would be played in simply recorded as part of the 1920 Antwerp Games. Hockey was originally Chamonix, France in 1930. proposed for the 1916 Olympics in Berlin, but the war delayed its debut. As the 1920, 1924, and 1928 Olympic champions were eventually recog- As the International Olympic Committee (IOC) relied on international nized as world champions, the 1930 event would be the fourth world growing bodies for overseeing each sport, the Ligue international de championship.