Category Archives: canada

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.’

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]

Feds’ witch hunt isn’t punishing real war criminals [Article]

From the Toronto Sun:

The government has been after Oberlander since 1995, along with other Ukrainian-born individuals conscripted to work for the Germans in WWII, often as prison guards, some on pain of death to their families if they deserted, as some did.

None of the mostly Ukrainian-Canadians now on lists was ever proven to have been a Nazi sympathizer — just that they’d been conscripted, and hadn’t declared this connection, when they entered Canada.

In fact, there is no hard evidence that any of them “lied” to immigration authorities on entering Canada, just the “probability” they didn’t tell the whole truth. In fact, most records have long since vanished.

All major Nazi war criminals have been convicted or have died. Only small fry are left, and evidence is frail that any are war criminals.

Ukrainians conscripted as teenagers by Nazis have tended to be branded as suspect war criminals by the media, which overstates their “crime.”

Anyway, Oberlander is once again a Canadian citizen, and with luck his ordeal is over.

[Toronto Sun] via UkeMonde

A Ukrainian Canadian Julia Child and more: Savella Stechishin

If tomrrow’s DVD release of Julie & Julia is inspiring you to cook, don’t forget there was a Ukrainian Canadian version who paved the way for her prairie peers with her own brand of Ukrainian cooking, art, history and grammar books more than half a century ago:

Savella Stechishin (née Wawryniuk) worked to secure the integration of Ukrainian Canadian women into Canadian society while maintaining their Ukrainian heritage. Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan

Savella Stechishin was born in Tudorkovychi, Lviv Oblast, of Western Ukraine (Galicia), and her family emigrated to Canada in 1913, settling in Krydor, Saskatchewan. At age 17 she married Julian Stechyshyn, rector of the Petro Mohyla Institute in Saskatoon, and later bore three children, Anatole, Myron, and Zenia. She completed high school and teachers college, and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree specializing in Home Economics from the University of Saskatchewan in 1930, the first Ukrainian woman to receive a degree there. Wikipedia

She was the first Ukrainian Canadian woman to graduate from the University of Saskatchewan (1930), and the first Ukrainian woman in canada to graduate with a specialization in home economics. Ukrainian Weekly

She led an amazing life, heading up many womens’ organizations and stressing the importance of health and nutrition. She has had so many accomplishments in her life I couldn’t find the time to summarize them all, so I encourage you to read the Ukrainian Weekly article about her life and death – it’s quite amazing.

Shechishin’s most prominent book is the English-language Traditional Ukrainian Cookery (1957), which saw its eighteenth reprinting in 1995 and has sold 80,000 copies. Her other books are in Ukrainian: Art Treasures of Ukrainian Embroidery (1950), and a 50th anniversary book for the Saskatoon branch of the Ukrainian Women’s Association (1975). She assisted her husband, Julian Stechishin, with a Ukrainian Grammar (1951), and completed his History of Ukrainian Settlement in Canada (1971) after his death—an English translation was published in 1992. Ukrainian Weekly

These books are unfortunately out of print, with no republishing date scheduled in the near future. If you are lucky enough to have a copy of these books, please treasure them and make sure to put them to good use. If you can’t find Traditional Ukrainian Cookery at your local used bookstore or library there are some recipes scattered across the internet – definitely a good resource to have for Christmas!

Here’s one of her recipes re-published in The pioneer cook : a historical view of Canadian Prairie food:


A biography about her life is also available: Blossoming of a Ukrainian Canadian Savella Stechishin

British Columbia drops Holodomor bill, ignores KGB spies in province

Two weeks ago NDP MLA for Surrey-Whalley Bruce Ralston introduced Bill M 207 for Holodomor memorial day, similar legislation which has already passed elsewhere. The Victoria Times Colonist has confirmed that the bill is officially dead – along with every other NDP bill put in front of the majority Liberals:

the Liberals had good reason to cheer on election night. By defeating the NDP at the polls on May 12, Campbell had steered his party into a third straight government majority.

If the NDP doesn’t do a better job of getting some scandals to stick to government, they’ll continue to be ineffective and government will continue to roll out an unopposed agenda, Pilon said.

“I think it speaks to the arrogance of this government, and they are incredibly confident,” he said. “It seems like the Teflon premier rides again.”

BILLS THAT FAILED

The NDP Opposition tabled its own bills, but none received Liberal support, so none passed. Their proposals included:

– Memorial: Designating the fourth Saturday in November as Holodomor Memorial Day, to recognize the famine that killed millions of Ukrainians during Soviet occupation.

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It’s quite sad that politics has got in the way of paying tribute to this crime, but this is the same government who’s helping keep KGB spies in Canada. If you were wondering, yes Lennikov is still hiding in a Lutheran church and continues to receive sympathetic press – but don’t be fooled by the propaganda.

[Victoria Times Colonist]