Login onto to Google Maps and look up Trail, British Columbia, Canada, it's about 120 miles North of Spokane, WA. I am here with Dominic Disaia, shooting a photo essay about small town hockey in Canada and particularly the Trail Smoke Eaters, a 100 year old hockey club, with it's little place in Canadian Hockey history.
We have met and photographed the current Junior A Smoke Eaters, a great bunch of kids and yesterday we started digging in the vaults to hear some of the folklore from the horses mouth. With the help of Sarah Benson from the Trail Historical Society and the current management of the Smoke Eaters, we tracked down a few players from the 1961 World Championship Hockey Team. Our first visit was to Norm Lenardon's house outside of town, overlooking the Columbia River. An outstanding person and great story teller, for any hockey fan like myself it was a dream, I could have stayed all day and Norm would have had no issue with that. But we had work to do, off to Cal Hockley's place, the captain of the 61 World Champs for more stories and great portraits. They may not be household names, but what you need to realize is the the 50's and 60's there were only 6 Teams in the National Hockey League, 16 players per team, that's 96 professional players (compared to today's 720 NHL players) and these guys were the next best players to the pros.
The Rocky part about the story comes from the fact that the '61 Smoke Eaters lost the Canadian Championships to Chatham Maroons, who would have represented Canada at World Championships but declined to attend for financial reasons. The people of Trail went door to door to raise funds to send the team and the Cominco Mine where all the players worked agreed to pay the players while they were off work. And against Hockey Canada's governing body and the hockey writers of the east, who said "We need to send the best team to represent Canada, not the 4th or 5th" Against all the odds the team from the little town in the Canadian Rockies were crowned the best hockey team in the world.
Tomorrow we'll meet another legend from Trail, Gordie Robertson, who was on the last team prior to Canada's 2002 Olympic Championship to win Gold in Olympic Hockey, the 1952 Edmonton Mercuries. For his portrait he will wear his 50 year old jersey and hold the Olympic gold medal in his hand.
I was trying to be ironic when I posted on Facebook that I could scratch visiting Trail off my bucket list, but this trip truly has been a hockey Pilgrimage.
Steven Currie and Norm Lenardon, Trail, B.C., January 28, 2011
