June 9, 2011 Volume 10 • Number 23 50¢ Newsstand Price
INSIDe
downtown Pizza
KAIROS Cross-Canada Action – page 2
Pasta Professionals
Eat-in or Take-out
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also
258 Victoria St.
Manhandler Barbershop – page 5
100% Italian Owned & Operated
Authentic itAliAn PizzA!
your neighboUrhood. your newspaper.
Stanley Cup rings worn by local couple We may not be Vancouver, but there is definitely no lack of hockey spirit, history or lore here in the city. From the Storms, a championship junior B team, to the legendary Blazers we love our hockey. Our closest NHL team, the Canucks are on their way to the Stanley Cup and judging by the number of people flying those little flags from their cars you would think we were in downtown Vancouver. You don’t have to look far to find someone here in town who has an interesting relationship with Canada’s favourite game. The man who invented the flexible pins that every team in the NHL uses to keep their nets attached lives here as does Lawrence “Larry” Popein, one of the first original Vancouver Canucks. Kamloops resident Larry, who hails from Yorkton, Saskatchewan and his wife Joyce are proud owners of Stanley Cup rings from 1984 when the Calgary Flames took it all the way. It was one of the only years D - EL Mar31.indd 1 that players, management, and their wives all got rings and to this day they proudly sit up in their TV and memorabilia room. Talk about memorabilia, Larry has had a long and illustrious career in the NHL and it all started at 17 years of age in the 1940’s. Back then there was no NHL and like now it took drive and commitment to play hockey in the junior leagues let alone the higher leagues. “I played junior hockey for three years,” explained Larry. “I then got a summer job at the British American Oil Refinery. It Joyce and Larry Popein have a long association with the was a good job and my dad had always game of hockey, and cherish their Stanley Cup rings. said that if you ever get a good job, you
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keep it.” With hockey off his mind, Larry worked at the refinery. In 1948 he got a call to play for the Vancouver Canucks who were at that time part of the Western Hockey League. With a little push from Joyce, his lovely wife of 61 years, Larry took a gamble and headed out to the coast to play for the team. “Joyce told me to go and try it for a year,” he remembers. “It wasn’t like now, you only ever got a one-year contract, and you never truly knew where you would be the next year. I spent the next two summers back working for the refinery. The third year, 1953-54, we all packed up and moved to Vancouver. The very next year the New York Rangers bought my contract.” And from there it’s history. Larry spent many years playing for some of the greatest hockey clubs in North America. In 1961 when the NHL was officially started Larry went to Oakland and then from there he started coaching. He spent many years traveling North America working for a variety of clubs in a variety of positions but spent most of his time with the Vancouver Canucks, New York Rangers and Calgary Flames. From 1985 until 1999 he was prescout management for the Calgary Flames. More exciting than it sounds, Larry was responsible for watching and attending many, many hockey games all over North America, documenting and reporting back to the Flames what he had learnt about their opponents, players and strategies. – continued on page 2