Against All Odds: The Untold Story of Canada’s Unlikely Hockey Heroes

Amazon.com Price: $19.99 (as of 19/04/2019 04:15 PST- Details)

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Description

For readers of The Boys within the Boat, the remarkable story of the unlikely Canadian hockey team that clinched Olympic gold in 1948

The announcement used to be shocking—Canada, the birthplace of hockey, would not be sending a team to the 1948 Winter Olympics in Switzerland. Outraged, a Royal Canadian Air Force squadron leader, Sandy Watson, quickly assembled a team of air force hockey players who were “amateur enough” to complete under the Olympic guidelines.

Sergeant Frank Boucher used to be recruited to coach the team and begin the cross-Canada seek for players. Hubert Brooks, a decorated flying officer and serial escapist from POW camps, used to be every other early recruit. Andy Gilpin joined from the RCAF base in Whitehorse, as did airmen from Quebec, the Maritimes and western Canada. And when their starting goalie, Dick Ball, didn’t pass a medical exam, Murray Dowey used to be referred to as up from his job as a TTC driver and occasional practice goalie for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The ragtag team got off to a rough start, losing such a lot of exhibition games that Canadian newspapers referred to as them a disgrace to the country. But the RCAF Flyers battled back, and Boucher’s defensive strategy paid off. They eliminated the American team, tied the Czech team and beat the Swiss as the place of origin crowd pelted the Canadians with snowballs all the way through the game. At the same ice where Barbara Ann Scott won a gold medal, the underdog RCAF Flyers also won Olympic gold, and their goalie, Murray Dowey, set an Olympic record that still stands.

Against All Odds is the inspiring untold story of a group of decided men, fresh from the battlefields of WWII, who surprised a nation and the world.

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