Chapleau on national sports championship map as Doug Hong curls and Jason Ward plays hockey

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Chapleau has been on the national sports map in hockey and curling from Whitehorse, NWT to Dundas, ON, in 2014 as Doug Hong and Jason Ward were members of winning teams.

Doug was the lead on the Northern Ontario bronze medal winning team at the Canadian Senior Curling Championship while Jason played for the Dundas Real McCoys who won the Allan cup, emblematic of senior hockey supremacy in Canada since 1908.

Jason and Charlie

Doug, of course, for the few who may not know him, is from Chapleau, a member of the Hong family, outstanding athletes all. His grandfather established the Boston Cafe now the Redwood which is still in the family operated by his father Jim.

Doug has also been a great hockey player and golfer over the years.

As an aside, Doug played on the last hockey team I coached in Chapleau.

When I learned from Doug's cousin Kim that he would be playing in a national curling championship I contacted him.

Doug replied: "The team that represented N.O. last year did not fare so well therefore, we have to go up there early to play in the relegation round.  Double knock out, four teams for two spots. Hope to get through that and play in the round robin Championship."

That proved to be an understatement, according to a Sudbury Star story by Bruce Heldman who wrote: "The Northern Ontario reps won bronze the hard way, playing a possible record 16 games at a national event after three pre-qualifying games, 11 round-robin games, a tiebreaker and a semifinal, all in nine days."

Doug

Doug also won the Most Sportsmanlike Player Award.

“You only have to be around Doug for a short while and you have a smile on your face,” Robbie Gordon one of his teammates told the Sudbury Star. “He keeps the atmosphere light and shoots well and sweeps like a dog and has a great eye for the stone and what it is doing and has physical strength unmatched in any senior curling I have seen. It is important to have someone like that on your team.”

“Doug has been to five Canadian events and that is the third time he has won the sportsmanship award, and that is voted on by the players, so that tells you everything,” Ron Henderson added in the Sudbury Star story.

Turning to Jason Ward and the Allan Cup, Charlie Purich kept me informed on the series played in Dundas where he lives.

After the Real McCoys defeated the Kenora Thistles in the semi final game, Charlie sent me an email, "Jason Ward got one goal and three assists."

Born in Chapleau, Jason played in the National Hockey League for the Montreal Canadiens and other professional teams. Charlie, who worked as a volunteer at the Allan Cup, had met Jason earlier -- although they did not know each other in Chapleau. Small world!

Charlie still plays hockey and for about 50 years he has been the "catalyst" wherever he played -- and as a volunteer at the Allan Cup too.

In the final game against Clarenville Caribous from Newfoundland and Labrador, the Real McCoys won their first ever Allan cup with a 3-2 overtime win.

Charlie and Ray

Charlie's final sports bulletin: "Ray Larcher, my grandson Finn and I watched Jason and the Real McCoys win the Allan Cup in a thrilling overtime to defeat a strong team from Newfoundland."

Ray, who was a hockey star in Chapleau playing for the Chapleau Junior "B" and Intermediate "A" Huskies had sent me a message on Facebook that he would be there.

Ray "cool" as always

Congratulations to Doug Hong and Jason Ward on their success, and thanks to Charlie Purich and Ray Larcher. That old saying was never truer: "You can take the boy out of Chapleau, but you can't take Chapleau out of the boy".  My email is mj.morris@live.ca

PHOTO CREDIT

2014 Canadian Senior Curling Championships Sportsmanship Awards: Doug Hong (NO) and Catherine Derick (QC) (Photo James MacKenzie) from Canadian Senior Curling

SEE ALSO ICE TIME WITH JASON AND CHARLIE http://michaeljmorrisreports.blogspot.ca/2014/03/ice-time-in-dundas-as-charlie-purich.html

 

Moment of childhood ecstasy for Neil Morris riding in steam engine cab with his Uncle Nick as engineer

IAN TELLS ABOUT ENGINES BELOW!!!!!!!

When Neil Morris was 11-years-old, he took his first ride on steam engine with his uncle F.A. 'Nick' Card, a Canadian Pacific Railway engineer in Chapleau.

Years later, Neil, no relation to me, a reporter at The London Free Press, wrote 'Moment of Childhood Ecstasy' after his uncle had retired from the CPR in 1978. It appeared in the Chapleau Sentinel, and is a wonderful heartwarming story about a child's trips in the cab of steam and diesel engines with his Uncle Nick as the engineer.

Neil wrote that his uncle to him as "a giant of a man."

"His engineer's cap shoved shoved back on his prematurely balding head he'd toss that enormous plumber's tool box that was really his next 24 hour's meals onto to the steel doorway. Then he was up the ladder and through the doorway."

Then it was time for Neil to join him.

"Up you come fella," his uncle would say "with a grin, arms reaching down to me when what I really needed wasn't a help up the ladder but something to hold a kid's pounding heart from exploding."

Nick Card was born in Lady Minto Hospital in Chapleau in 1914, and served the community as a councillor and reeve as well as being active in other community organizations throughout his life. He attended Chapleau Public School and graduated from Chapleau High School in 1934. His father, William Card, also had served on Chapleau council.

Neil continues: "Inside the warm cabin with its throbbing steam guages, his fireman smiled my way while swinging huge shovelfuls of coal into the gaping firebox.

"The engine lurched as my uncle's gloved hand eased the throttle lever open. Steam blasted from the cylinders behind the cowcatchers. We were moving."

Neil explained that for an 11-year-old it was a moment never to be forgotten, "a thrill relived every time I see a huge steam locomotive on display for a new generation of children to stand in awe over, albeit never to ride."

I contacted Ian Macdonald, now professor emeritus and retired head of the department of architecture at the University of Manitoba and a great railway buff to ask if he knew the type of engines being used by the CPR when Nick was an engineer. Ian also worked on the CPR and received training on both steam and diesel engines.

As always, Ian was back to me quickly: "Steam engine 5433 was actually a Winnipeg locomotive but this locomotive type was the dominant locomotive type on the Schreiber Division during the time Nick was on the road.  This is what makes it the  most appropriate locomotive to preserve. Kudos to Art Grout."

Steam engine 5433 has been on display in Chapleau Centennial Park since 1964 when Mr. Grout, the president of Smith and Chapple Ltd.,  arranged to get it from the CPR. N.R. Crump, then CPR president, was on hand for the ceremony.

As a matter of historical interest, when 5433 was being moved to the site on a temporary track, J.M. 'Bud' Park was the engineer and Earle Freeborn was engineer on the yard engine.

Back to Neil's story. Although he wasn't there  when that "giant of an uncle" retired, others were, nephews like himself who had "enjoyed their moment of glory in one of his engines in their childhood. Each in his turn had climbed that ladder first of steam engines then later of those diesels with their strangely different sounds and smells."

He explained that the diesels were never like the steamers with their familiar pant, hissing jets of steam and huge clouds of smoke billowing upward as they strained to tug a long freight" out of Chapleau.

Referring to his uncle's retirement:

"Gone are the days when an engineer's heart was in his mouth as his own headlight reflected back at him of a snow-covered evergreen on a curve  - his moment of  terror that he was meeting another engine head on.

"Gone are the days when he climbed back into an engine, his coveralls ice coated after a water tender spout took a crazy turn and drenched him in freezing  January weather.

"And gone are the nights of the 'call boy' shouting at the front door that he was called for this train and that.

His Uncle Nick would be home for Christmas when Neil wrote his article and would not have to leave when his 'call' arrived just as the aroma of turkey was starting to emerge from the oven.

"And then he would be gone into the snow without a grumble - just a grinning wish for a happy Christmas for all"

Neil noted this was the railroad life and his uncle loved it adding he hoped other uncles or dads would continue to slip a son or daughter, a nephew or niece onto one of those big diesels for Their "moment of childhood ecstasy."  I don't know if it would be possible today but Neil's story sure brings back memories of train travel.

Neil concluded: "To me, my uncle was a close kin to Santa Claus. Perhaps, in away, he was the spirit of what Santa Claus is all about. And not too surprisingly his name just happens to be Nick."

F.A. 'Nick' Card died in 1986.

Ian sent me other photos and explained: "There are two types of Alco locomotives.  Both were of the earliest type used on the CPR in the 1950's and 60's.  The two road engine consist is pulling a freight train over the trestle into Chapleau. The other more typical locomotive onsist is sitting outside the Chapleau shops.

"2841 is a classic Hudson locomotive was used mainly on the transcontinental trains before they were replaced by diesels. 2841 was relegated to freight service in the late 1950's before being scrapped.

"I include an image of the GM demonstrator locomotives which were the first through Chapleau in 1949.  I include the image because it shows the complete train including the dynamometer car immediately behind the locomotives that monitored locomotive performance. I attach another image of the same GM type in CP paint sitting outside the Chapleau shops."

Thanks Ian as always for your assistance. I received the Neil Morris story from the late David McMillan, who gave it to me when he came to visit me in Cranbrook.  My email is mj.morris@live.ca