Penticton Western News, March 06, 2015

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NEWS PENTICTON WESTERN

www.pentictonwesternnews.com

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Survivor of Princeton shooting testifies

VOL. 49 ISSUE 19

9

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FRIDAY, March 6, 2015

entertainment Art Gallery does spring cleaning sale

Don’t forget, set your clocks forward an hour on March 8

THE CINDERELLA KIDS

NEWS Emanuel Sequeira PENTICTON WESTERN Western News Staff

Sixty years ago, with the hopes of the nation riding on their backs, a small-town team from Penticton returned world amateur hockey supremacy to Canada. It was March 6, 1955 and thousands of disbelieving fans who packed the Krefeld Arena on the outskirts of Dusseldorf, West Germany watched as the Penticton Vees, behind the shutout netminding of Ivan McLelland, blanked the defending World Champion Russians 5-0. Relying on the gritty, physically-punishing style of play that got them through the first seven games of the tournament undefeated, the boys from the Peach City hit hard and scored often, building up a 3-0 lead by the second period en route to victory and a place in history. However, in McLelland’s book Gold Mine to Gold Medal, he wrote that the game actually did not begin well for Canada. “Our defence gives up the puck in our zone, and Russia is handed two good scoring chances,” he wrote. “Then, George McAvoy is given a penalty. The Russians try again, but no goal for their efforts.” After killing off the penalties, Mike Shabaga scores on a beautiful pass by Jim Fairburn, giving Canada a 1-0 lead. Bill Warwick made it 2-0 while trying to clear the puck from behind the Russian net and it hits their defenceman and goes in. Warwick scored again and McAvoy added Canada’s fifth goal. Viktor Shuvalov, 92, the lone surviving member of the Russian national team said they were “hopelessly unlucky.” He responded through an email, translated by the Russian Ice Hockey Federation, that the Canadians gathered a really powerful team after the loss in 1954 and the game against them was tough. “After 1954, I guess the Hockey Canada management understood that they can’t beat us by hardly shedding any blood, so in Germany, team Canada was much stronger than

THE 1955 World Championship Vees, from left to right, Captain George McAvoy, Ivan McLelland, Kevin Conway and Hal Tarala celebrating their 5-0 win over Russia at the tournament, which was held in Germany.

a year ago.” Shuvalov, a five-time all-star in Russia, said they didn’t learn anything about Canada until they were at the tournament. During the loss, Shuvalov said the top line of Yuri Krylov, Alexander Uvarov and Valentin Kuzin missed a lot of good chances. “The defenceman Pavel Zhiburtovich played with broken finger (had novocaine injections) since the first game, but the Canadians were lucky to score almost every

chance,” said Shuvalov, who scored 222 goals in 150 games in the Russian Elite League. “Former professionals, the Warwick brothers played brilliantly.” For the Vees, who defeated the Sudbury Wolves 3-2 in the 1954 Allen Cup, there were some substantial on-and off-ice hurdles just to get to Europe for the chance to compete for the title. Described by some people in their own country as unsuitable to represent Canada,

Submitted by Ivan McLelland

there were members of the media and sports experts who questioned the team’s ability to be there in the first place, let alone have the strength to tackle the mighty Russians who crushed Canada 7-2 the year before. One of those hurdles was being told by the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association that the team would have to foot the $30,000 bill to get to West Germany. See VEES on PG. 19

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