Against All Odds

by P. J. Naworynski

  When Murray started playing for his middle school team, their big weekly outing was to pile into a few parents’ cars and head out of town to practise in Markham. It was the treat of all treats. An old farmer had a giant barn with a beautiful pot-bellied stove that roared away in the corner. All winter the farmer hosed down the dirt floor of the barn, opened the massive barn doors and windows, and let the cold air blow through the rugged wooden structure. It created a perfect sheet of smooth, glassy ice that was protected from the elements yet infused with the sweet smell of crisp country air. For the princely sum of two dollars, the boys got to practise for hours in the farmer’s rural ice palace, protected from the stinging winds and driving sleet and snow. Playing in the barn was like nirvana.

  For a skinny little guy, Dowey had surprisingly fast reflexes. His legs and pad work were pretty decent, and his blocker and stick work were solid, but his catching hand was his secret weapon. Murray figured that as long as he could see a puck coming at him he could stop it. The thing that would irritate him the most was when his teammates were warming up and tried to rifle pucks at his head for fun. The head shots made things a little dicey when you had no mask. Despite the flimsy equipment, none of the injuries he got growing up were too serious. One time he took a puck off the head at a practice. Fortunately the coach of the team was a barber. He shaved the part of Murray’s skull where he was cut so he could get a few stitches, and that was it. Now and again he got some cuts on his face and a broken nose, but for the most part Murray’s time in net was relatively pain-free.

  That is, until one day when he was fifteen and playing a game of shinny at Fairmount Park. There was a scramble in front of the net. A player let a stick go, and it hit Murray in his left eye. It pretty much closed right up. After that Murray never had great sight out of that eye. Eventually the left eye essentially gave up on him, and he went partially blind in it. Thing is, Murray never made that knowledge available to any of his friends, coaches, or employers. He didn’t want his vision issues to affect the way people treated him in hockey or in the war.

  Like Patsy Guzzo, Murray Dowey was a double threat on the ice and the baseball field. He may have been a little skinny, somewhat short-winded, and partially blind, but he could catch anything that flew. He was also one helluva great pitcher who had a rubber arm, pitched no-hitter games in both fastball and softball, and won three Bulova watches in the top fastball league in the country while pitching against American teams at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto.

  EARLY DAYS FOR DEFENCEMAN FRANK DUNSTER, aka the Blue Line Masher, were equally riddled with challenges and obstacles. The fourth of seven children, Frank was born on March 24, 1921, in a tiny shack of a wooden house in Richmond, Ontario, on the outskirts of Ottawa. Frank’s father was a farmer with a small patch of land and a lot of mouths to feed. He did his best to provide for the Dunster clan, but it seemed hardship pursued the family with a vengeance. When Frank was just a boy, one of his older brothers contracted tuberculosis and died. Living in the cramped quarters of the meagre farmhouse, one of his sisters also succumbed to the disease not long after.

  In a desperate attempt to save the family, Frank’s parents upped stakes and moved the remaining Dunster kids to Ottawa. Thankfully things started looking up when Frank’s dad secured a job as a special constable with the RCMP. With a houseful of kids on a special constable’s salary, there weren’t a lot of new toys or fancy pieces of sports equipment kicking around. But playing sports and being active was part and parcel of growing up in the Dunster household. Frank gravitated towards the physical games of football and hockey, and quickly displayed a natural aptitude for both. But it was hockey that ignited a fire deep within him.

  An outdoor rink just down the street from their house in the Glebe area became Frank’s second home. He hit the ice with a fervour, using borrowed and hand-me-down equipment, and rapidly packed on the muscle and developed into a top-notch player. His physical strength and rough play encouraged the older kids to invite Frank to play with them. Unfortunately his time on the ice with the big kids didn’t last long. In his early teens Frank was struck down by tuberculosis. It seemed the disease was doing its best to wipe out the entire Dunster family. For the better part of an entire year Frank was bedridden and engaged in a heated battle with the deadly disease. Racked with wicked chest pains, swollen glands, feverish chills, a hacking cough, and blood in his spit, Frank waged war with the vicious child killer as it ate away at his once strong and impressive frame. Whether it was the hand of God, a twist of fate, or Frank’s iron will, somehow the disease did not win. Frank persevered and fought it off. He then immediately set his mind to rebuilding his body, getting back on the ice, and resuming his studies.

  Smart as he was strong, Frank caught up quickly. He was quite gifted at school and did exceptionally well at mathematics. As for his physical rebirth, Frank launched himself back into hockey and earned a starting spot on his high school team, the Ottawa St. Pat’s of the Ontario Junior Hockey League. At seventeen Frank helped lead the St. Pat’s to the Canadian junior championship. The following year Frank made the jump to Junior A hockey and won the Memorial Cup while playing with the Oshawa Generals. Scouts and reporters in Oshawa took notice of Dunster’s aggressive style of play, deft puckhandling skills, menacing hip checks, and tenacity at guarding the blue line. Frank was an intimidating force who played hard and possessed the skills to make it all the way to the big leagues.

  When war hit, Frank put the brakes on his dreams of a hockey career in the NHL. Like so many of the young men of his generation, he felt a burning desire to do his part and sign up. For Frank this meant a war fought in the air. But he wasn’t about to totally abandon the game he loved. He packed his beloved skates with him when he went overseas just in case he got a chance to grab a game of shinny, or perhaps even lace up with an air force team on one of the bases in Europe.

  SEVENTEEN MEN MADE UP THE FINAL roster rocketing towards New York and then on to Europe. Only eight of them were from the original squad that got creamed in front of all those eyeballs on Olympic Night. Although the final seventeen had yet to play a game together, all the men now lacing up for the RCAF Flyers were guys who had learned to never give up—whether at home, on the ice, or in the air. They were all talented hockey players imbued with a passion for the sport who were accustomed to staring danger in the face, forming tight bonds, and doing their best when called on.

  Maybe it wasn’t so crazy for Sandy Watson and Frank Boucher to believe they could create a winning team out of this disparate group of guys in record time. Maybe it wasn’t that far-fetched for them to be cautiously optimistic they now had the right combination of ingredients for success. If Sandy and Frank could build on the shared experiences and many commonalities of the boys speeding along on the train, perhaps they could get them to play as a cohesive, organic unit. Hopefully, as they did during the war, they could all take on the world and come back as champions.

  PART TWO

  Canada’s Mystery Team

  Ready for action and sporting their practice jerseys.

  Ralf Brooks

  On the deck of the Queen Elizabeth. Front row (left to right): Frank Dunster, Murray Dowey, Hubert Brooks, George McFaul, Orval Gravelle, Louis Lecompte. Middle row (left to right): Pete Leichnitz, Ab Renaud, Ted Hibberd, Patsy Guzzo, Irving Taylor, Frank Boucher, Roy Forbes. Back row (left to right): Wally Halder, Andy Gilpin, Dr. Sandy Watson, Reg Schroeter, Ross King, André Laperrière, George Mara.

  Tom Schroeter

  EUROPE BOUND

  06

  Somewhere between Ottawa and Montreal, Patsy Guzzo sidled up beside newcomer Murray Dowey as the Canadian Pacific Railway sleeper train sped towards the Big Apple. Blustery winter temperatures frosted their windows with a sheen of ice as four inches of freshly fallen snow created banks alongside the train tracks. It was late in the evening on January 8, 1948. In just three weeks the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics were to commence and the boys
were to play their first game against the number-two ranked Swedes.

  Patsy was one of the first men to win over the coaching staff and earn a spot on the RCAF Flyers. Murray was the last. Although separated in age by more than a decade, Murray and Patsy found they had a few things in common. Both were married, both saw their military experience curtailed by health issues, and yet both of them were supreme athletes in hockey and in baseball. In fact, over the years they had squared off against each other more than a few times at various fastball tournaments when Murray pitched for Toronto’s Tip Top Tailors team and Patsy pitched for the Ottawa clan. Murray was still getting the lay of the land and figuring out who the other folks on the Flyers were. He knew George Mara and Wally Halder, but the other guys were a total mystery to him.

  As they careened through the countryside in the darkness of night, Patsy suppressed the inner fears that were bubbling to the surface. Just days earlier, his wife had suffered a miscarriage, and he was worried about leaving her at home alone with an infant daughter for three months. He had almost quit the team so he could stay back to help, but his mother-in-law insisted he go. She could manage the family just fine in his absence. A friend who drove Patsy to the station gave him a diary to take over to Europe in hopes that writing down his thoughts would ease his mind and help him feel more connected to home. Murray, on the other hand, had no problems leaving Toronto in the rear-view mirror, and he was brimming with elation to be along for the ride. He had never been to New York, he had never been on an ocean liner, and he was ecstatic to be heading overseas to see the world. For Murray, this was the beginning of the adventure of a lifetime.

  When the train pulled into New York City at 8:00 a.m. on January 9, the boys had a few hours to enjoy the sights of the city before they had to board the Queen Elizabeth for a six-day Atlantic crossing to Southampton, England. They grabbed breakfast at Churchill’s restaurant across the street from Grand Central Station and hit the town to take in a Rockettes show at Radio City Music Hall. Next Sandy, the consummate scrounger, secured the boys a free lunch at NBC, where they tackled some public relations duties with a live radio broadcast before they saddled up in preparation for a suppertime departure on the high seas.

  As the late-afternoon sun began its descent in the sky, the boys hauled their bags aboard the massive ship. Young André Laperrière and neophyte traveller Murray Dowey were in awe of the sheer size of the monstrous vessel. The RMS Queen Elizabeth was the world’s largest passenger liner. With a gross tonnage of more than 83,000 ton she was akin to a floating city. Over 1,000 feet long and 230 feet high, she could carry more than twenty-two hundred passengers at a blistering speed of twenty-eight knots. Purpose-built by Cunard Steamship Lines to serve the needs of both well-heeled and budget travellers, she was pulled into service for troop transport during the war. She ferried close to a million troops safely back and forth during her time as a war horse, packed to the rafters with boys itching to join the fight. Her speed allowed her to outrun and outmaneuver German U-boats prowling the shipping lanes between the old world and the new.

  Ocean voyages were familiar territory for most of the Flyers. Hubert Brooks and Frank Dunster had been crammed in like sardines swinging from hammocks with thousands of other warriors on their last sailings across the Atlantic. George Mara and Wally Halder were seasoned navy men. And as veteran bomb aimer Roy Forbes made his way up the gangplank, he quipped to reporters, “This is a bit different from last time I was on the Lizzy—I was lugging a kit bag then.”

  With the New York skyline for a backdrop, the boys assembled on deck in full uniform for a series of team photos for North American newspapers and newsreel cameramen. Then it was time to wave goodbye to the Statue of Liberty. They weren’t going to see her again until April, when they sailed back into New York City. They still had virtually no idea what they were up against. They knew the Americans had handily beaten McGill in an exhibition game, and they knew the Czechs, Swedes, and Swiss were very strong teams that had already played together for months, if not years, and were stacked with talented, skilled players. Aside from that, they were pretty much in the dark.

  Accommodations for the Flyers on the Queen Elizabeth were far from luxurious. Strapped for cash, they travelled steerage class, as far belowdecks as you could go. They slept two to a room in bunk beds just up from the massive boilers and mechanics that kept the floating iron behemoth plowing ahead through rough seas. Forbes joked to the new guys to be careful where they put their feet. They were down so low, one misstep might send them through the bottom of the boat.

  The American team was also on board, but unlike the boys sporting the air force woollen blues, they were travelling in first class. The Americans haughtily paraded around the upper decks wearing smart grey flannels, snazzy blazers with distinct U.S. Olympic crests, and fur-lined coats. While the Flyers were rocking away in steerage belowdecks, up in first class the Americans hobnobbed with movie celebrities like Burgess Meredith and his new wife, Paulette Goddard, as well as former Olympian and on-screen “Tarzan” Johnny Weissmuller. The American boys also dined and mingled with titans of industry and the wealthy elite, like car magnate Henry Ford.

  Although the Flyers had to sleep belowdecks, they weren’t relegated to staying down there for the entire voyage. But it seemed like whenever they stuck their heads up for a breath of fresh air, they invariably crossed paths with the cocky American players. The negative press from the Flyers’ shellacking in the McGill and army games the previous month had preceded them. This provided plenty of fodder for the Americans to have a go at them. The Yanks leapt at every opportunity to mock and taunt the Canadians, insisting that the U.S. team was going to wipe them off the map. Many of the American players went so far as to challenge guys like Brooks, Forbes, Dowey, and Halder to a bet, promising to pay up if they didn’t whitewash the Flyers by at least ten goals.

  But the Canuck boys weren’t about to take the bait. In fact, they couldn’t have cared less about all the grandstanding and chose not to engage with the Americans. Brooks, Halder, Dowey, and the gang figured, Let them shoot their mouths off. We’ll do our talking when we meet them on the ice in St. Moritz! If anything, the taunts and jeers from the American squad, much like the negative press from the newspapers at home, only fuelled their desire to silence the critics and prove everyone wrong. The men made the best of it and took advantage of the week-long crossing to recover from injuries, bond as a team, and enjoy some of the luxuries of peacetime travel on a ship like the Queen Elizabeth. They snuck into movie screenings in first class, enjoyed hot, well-cooked meals, attended mass in the lush first-class lounge, and settled into the daily ritual of ship life.

  Those who weren’t nursing injuries exercised lightly and did laps around the upper deck several times a day. Murray Dowey, Patsy Guzzo, and André Laperrière bundled up in their RCAF flying jackets and stood with arms open wide against the railings on the upper deck while the wind pelted their faces. This high up, with the ship cutting through the waves and nothing but open water as far as the eye could see, they almost felt as if they were flying. “We were living like kings and we didn’t realize how lucky we were,” recalled Dowey.

  When the rolling seas weren’t too bad the guys played shuffleboard or deck tennis and grabbed their sticks for a bit of deck hockey. Inside, they marvelled at the facilities their floating, oversized hotel had on offer. The ship was equipped with running water and elevators. One of the prized features, especially at night or when the weather was bad, was a smoke room that doubled as a bar. Many of the Flyers took a shine to a parlour game the staff of the Queen Elizabeth hosted every day before dinner. Wooden horses with wooden jockeys on a stand that measured about two and a half feet high were placed at one end of a long carpet marked off with about thirty lines. Spectators downing drinks and sucking on cigars or cigarettes then chose their horses and placed their bets: one shilling, or twenty cents, a ticket. A young lady then placed a dice in a cup and gave it a roll. An officer of the
ship read out the numbers, and two other young women moved the horses along the carpet. Some of the guys burned their two-pound daily allowance betting on the horses. Others took advantage of the fifteen-cent rum drinks and enjoyed themselves a little too much in the bar room on the upper deck, which the boys had dubbed “the Snake Pit.”

  In many ways a number of players seemed to be treating their time on the Queen Elizabeth like more of a holiday than preparation for an Olympic mission. Roy Forbes and a few of the guys were invited to party up top by high rollers Paulette Goddard, Burgess Meredith, and Johnny Weissmueller. They had a lot of fun drinking and dancing with the movie stars up in the Snake Pit and the smoke room. Various groupings of guys played impromptu games of rummy and poker, drank beer, strolled the decks, played bingo, watched movies or live concerts, and bet on the wooden horses. When the weather permitted they ventured out onto the deck to take in the heavy smell of the sea and marvel at the vastness of the ocean.

  Roommates Sandy Watson and Frank Boucher were glad to see the new guys blending in with the old, but the drinking and gambling of some of the boys was going too far. By Wednesday, January 14, the men had travelled close to two thousand miles. The next day they would be approaching Cornwall, England, and the time for fun and frivolity was over. Sandy and Frank had given the boys a long leash to let loose and get to know each other, but now it was time to hunker down. Sandy appointed war hero Hubert Brooks to rally the men to a meeting in the ship’s gymnasium and play the heavy as his aide-de-camp. There Sandy issued a stark warning: “The first one that drinks beer or liquor or engages in any gambling from the time we land until the Games are over is being sent back on the next boat.” He went on to berate the boys and told them how disgusted he was with some of their behaviour. Frank Boucher didn’t add a word but stood stone-faced beside Sandy. His silence spoke volumes, and his disappointment was plain for all to see. Clearly the two of them were dead serious.