The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2002, Qupperneq 7

Vol. 57 #3
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
91
As a sports writer, Randy naturally
believes that hockey is more important
than sex. Somewhat to my surprise, he
wrote a front page piece on the Falcons less
than 24 hours later and banged the heck out
of the story for a week straight and inter-
mittently for the next few months. The
wire services picked up his articles which
were run by broadcast outlets and in news-
papers as far away as Miami, Florida. And
by the end of this barrage of publicity,
hockey fans around the globe knew all
about the immigrant sons who had
emerged from Winnipeg's west end and
sailed across the Atlantic to win Olympic
Gold.
There was also retribution for the
Falcons whose roster was exclusively
Icelandic-Canadian except for one player.
Caving from all the pressure, the CHA did
an about-face and the helmets of our 2002
NFIL Olympians were decorated with a
Falcon logo when Canada played its first
game against Sweden at Salt Lake.
The United Icelandic Appeal organiza-
tion also undertook a fund raising cam-
paign and mounted an exhibit of Falcon
memorabilia whose centrepiece is a large
mural of the team painted by Winnipeg
artist Luther Pokrant. The exhibit was
taken to the Salt Lake Olympics and was
on display for two spring months at the
Manitoba legislature after it was unveiled
by Premier Cary Doer who was wearing a
Falcon sweatshirt.
"We're going to maintain this history
not just in Manitoba, but in Canada and all
over the world," Doer said.
The Falcons, all now deceased, would
probably be perplexed by all the attention
they received in the modern era of televi-
sion and the internet. But the whole
episode was a valuable reminder to
younger generations that there was hockey
before Wayne Gretzky and Mario
Lemieux. A Winnipeg team, the Victorias,
even won the Stanley Cup on two occa-
sions around the turn of the century.
The challenge now is to keep the leg-
end alive. The Falcon story is so gripping
that it should be the subject of a movie and
somebody should revive a Falcon hockey
team in a large media centre so that the
team's exploits will not fade again with
time.
At least, though, the Falcons have
started to get their due.
But I sometimes wonder if I have got
mine. My original article on the team won
a bronze medal or third place in 2001 in the
annual awards competition sponsored by
the Manitoba Community Weekly
Newspaper Association. I wish Jim hadn't
under-played the story.
CANADIAN
The story of the Falcons first appeared in
several instalments in a Winnipeg publication,
“Canadian Sports and Outdoor Life,” during
the winter 1932-33. It ran again in the fall 1996
issue of The Icelandic Canadian magazine. This
past year the 1920 Falcons made international
headlines in newspapers and periodicals all over
the world.