One of the most memorable games in Trail’s hockey history had the RCMP on high alert due to its potential “off-ice intrigue,” according to a story in the latest issue of The Hockey News.
On Jan. 27, 1960, more than 5,000 people crammed themselves into the Cominco Arena to watch a much-anticipated exhibition match between the Moscow Selects, featuring some of the Soviet Union’s top players, and the powerhouse Trail Smoke Eaters.
But as writer Ron Verzuh explains in his four-page story, a previously untold drama was playing out off the ice, against the backdrop of the Cold War.
The Soviet team was on a 10-city tour of Canada and riding a three-game winning streak when it arrived in Trail. A significant number in the overflow crowd were rooting for Moscow. As Verzuh explains, about 1,500 local Doukhobors had given the Soviet team a warm welcome, feting them at a dinner in Grand Forks. The players were also thrilled to go shopping and otherwise experience Western culture.
Outwardly, it was a peaceful visit and a goodwill tour. But as Verzuh discovered, the RCMP were keeping close tabs on the players and the Doukhobors they were interacting with. Verzuh found a police report that linked two bombings during the Selects’ visit to the Sons of Freedom sect: “[T]here is a definite connection with the setting of the bombs and the visit,” the police said.
According to Vancouver Sun reporter Dick Beddoes, “Gossip spread that there might be a bombing if the Russians lost, but the wild rumour did not become a solid fact.”
Police had also long kept an eye on local union organizer Harvey Murphy, who was openly communist, even during the Red Scare of the 1950s. Local 480 of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers made the Selects honorary members, and Murphy presided over the ceremony.
It’s not clear if Murphy actually went to the game, but probably not if Pierre Berton is to be believed. In a notorious Maclean’s magazine story Berton wrote in 1951 about organized labour in Trail, he claimed Murphy’s associates steered him clear of hockey games and movies “because he’s apt to take his eyes off the screen or blueline at crucial moments to talk shop.”
Verzuh said in an interview that the Hockey News story came out of unrelated research he was doing on Murphy. “It was completely unassociated with what the story ended up being, and yet there it was: it fell out of the archives and into my hands,” he said.
Verzuh himself was there on that memorable night, but he doesn’t remember much about it. “My memory doesn’t serve me super well, but I think my dad and I went,” he said. “I was only about 12, but it was the thrill of a lifetime for a lot of us to see the teams go out on the ice, and particularly the Russians.”
Spoiler alert: the Smoke Eaters won 7-6. Moscow ended up with five wins and five losses on its tour. The following year, Trail beat the Soviets to clinch the World Hockey Championship.
The magazine with Verzuh’s story can be ordered here.
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