Brodeur breaks Terry Sawchuk’s all-time shut out record

From the Toronto Star:

Martin Brodeur’s teammates crowded around in the tiny visitors’ locker room at Mellon Arena, eager to share in the celebration of a record that once looked as if it would never be broken.

The New Jersey Devils goaltender sat smiling in his stall, holding a puck inscribed with “104” – the record number of shutouts he reached with Monday’s 4-0 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins. It moved Brodeur past Terry Sawchuk on the all-time list and gave him the only major goaltending milestone missing from his resumé.

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Terry Sawchuk, the previous record holder was a prominent Ukrainian Canadian hockey player:

Sawchuk grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in a working-class Ukrainian family. Two of his brothers died at a young age, and by 17 he was his family’s sole breadwinner. He broke his elbow playing football, and each time doctors operated to remove bone chips in subsequent years, he had them put in a jar that he kept with him throughout his life. At 18 he almost lost his eye when he was hit in the eye with a shot.

Sawchuk made it to the N.H.L. with Detroit in January 1950 and was almost unbeatable. The Red Wings won three Stanley Cups in five years, and in 1952 they swept the playoffs in eight games, with Sawchuk allowing just five goals. In his first five full seasons he recorded 56 shutouts.

Before Sawchuk, goalies tended to stand tall in the nets, but Sawchuk’s crouch was revolutionary. It served as a bridge between the old standup style and the butterfly style of his contemporary, Glenn Hall, the forerunner of today’s goaltending techniques.

Even with his great hockey playing abilities, Sawchuk faced his share of discrimination for being Ukrainian:

“There was all kinds of baggage he carried,” says Maggs, who honoured Sawchuk’s brilliant career and anguished life in a 2008 book of poetry Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems. The book was the culmination of 10 years of research into Sawchuk’s life.

Part of that baggage was his background. His father was Ukrainian, which meant that in those politically incorrect times, Sawchuk was simply known as `The Uke,’ just as Armstrong, a native Indian, was `The Chief.’

Happy St. Nicholas Day

Today in the Julian calendar is St. Nicholas Day (Святий Миколай) – December 19th. This morning good Ukrainian boys and girls around the world looked under their beds to find presents delivered by St. Nicholas, who departed heaven on a chariot carried by angels. Giving gifts is usually reserved for today rather than on Christmas in traditional Ukrainian culture, but is becoming more laxed with western traditions. Those who were lucky to visit the bishop at their school or church saw him dressed in his 4th century Byzantine attire and participated in plays and song.

Here is a traditional song for the Saint:

Ukrainian food, crafts for sale in Irondequoit this weekend [Article]

From the Democrat & Chronicle:

St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Church will have a Ukrainian Food and Arts & Crafts Sale from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, at the school cafeteria, 940 Ridge Road East in Irondequoit.

The Ukrainian food for sale includes varenyky (Ukrainian-style pierogi), holubsti (cabbage rolls), meatless borscht and a variety of baked goods. There also will be a variety of handmade Ukrainian crafts.

Proceeds will benefit the St. Josaphat centennial fund. To learn more, call (585) 467-6457.

Irondequoit is near Rochester in Western NY, while I have yet to visit a Ukrainian festival there I have been to the ones in Buffalo a few times. I will definitely make a trip next year to a Ukrainian festival in Irondequoit.

Ukrainian news round-up – Dec 17 2009

Update: Collected and sorted for your viewing pleasure, enjoy!

Sports

Politics

Economy

Abroad

Russian Relations

Other news

Interview with Ottawa’s Tribute to Liberty for the Victims of Communist Crimes memorial

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Alide Forstmanis, the chair of Tribute to Liberty, a new organization based in Toronto that seeks to have a memorial built in Ottawa to the Victims of Communist Crimes, by November 2010:

We want a memorial built in our nation’s capital Ottawa to the victims of communism, a commemoration to the more than 100 million who were subject to the denial of their fundamental rights and freedoms, to torture, to deprivation, and to murder. We are doing our utmost to have it ready next year. You might ask, why the rush? It took 15 years to complete a similar monument in Washington DC.

A monument like this will be a recognition by Canada of the determination of millions to come to a country like ours that celebrates liberty and opposes the oppression of totalitarian communism… This monument will hopefully generate curiosity about communist crimes and through studies teach Canadians to be aware of and vigilant about them, and of the capacity for such evil in the world when our liberties are not protected.

According to 2006 Census almost 9 million of Canada’s 33 million inhabitants come from either former or current communist led countries. This is close to a third of the Canadian population.

Communist propaganda machines like that of the former Soviet Union have been incredibly efficient around the world at hiding the evils of communism and spreading myths about the good life offered under it.  Many in the west bought this rhetoric – naivety, duplicity, ignorance – who knows the reasons. Many still refuse to acknowledge the truth about communism.

But many wonder why communism – which was in part the inspiration for Nazism, managed to survive its brutal offspring for so long.   I think part of the reason was that the West had to make the communists our allies in the Second World War.   This was a necessary evil at the time, but the result was that Stalin emerged largely unscathed from public criticism in the West.   This despite his horrific abuses – the Holodomor genocide of Ukrainians, the Katyn slaughter of Poland’s senior officer ranks and intellectuals, to name just a couple.

I believe Hollywood has done a tremendous job in exposing and teaching about the Holocaust and its victims. It is time for Hollywood to make a few movies about life in the Gulag. It’s my understanding that there has been talk about making a film about the poisoned ex Soviet spy in London UK, however for some reason that production has come to a standstill, and the film might not be completed

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[FrontPage Magazine]