The Winnipeg Falcons

In this interview with the author of When Falcons Fly, David Square talks about the genesis of the novel and the historical background of Winnipeg and the game of hockey  in the early 20th century.

JL:  WHY DID YOU WRITE WHEN FALCONS FLY?

DS: A few months before the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002, I was asked to write a series of articles about the Winnipeg Falcons for The Logberg Heimskringla, North America’s Icelandic weekly.

My articles were written in response to a claim by supporters of the Toronto Granites in 2002 that their team won the first Olympic gold medal in Chamonix, France in 1924. 

Manitobans, especially those of Icelandic descent, were outraged by the assertion.  Calls to the Canadian Olympic Committee by both sides yielded a decisive response – the Winnipeg Falcons were in the COC books as the official winner of the world’s first Olympic hockey gold medal in Antwerp in 1920. The Ontarians had incorrectly contended that the game was not a full sport in 1920 and was part of the summer, not winter, games. (The Olympics were split into winter and summer games for the first time in 1924.) 

As I researched the history of the Winnipeg Falcons, it became apparent the players were unsung heroes and their achievement widely ignored. Aside from newspaper stories in the 1920 Manitoba Free Press, only one recounting of the Falcons' saga existed—an article in Canadian Sports and Outdoor Life by Fred Thordarson edited by his daughter Shirley McCreedy.

I was astonished because the story had all the ingredients for an historical romance. Indeed, it fit Joseph Campbell's template for a great legend described in The Hero with a Thousand Faces:  an unlikely hero is confronted by insurmountable odds and an indomitable enemy, only to survive, triumph and return home with a great prize such as the Holy Grail or, in this case, an Olympic gold medal. 

JL:  WINNIPEG IS VERY MUCH PART OF YOUR STORY­­––ALMOST A CHARACTER IN THE NOVEL. DO YOU AGREE?

DS: That's true. Another facet of the story that fascinated me was the history of Winnipeg from 1909 to1920 when the Falcons were building the team that won gold in Antwerp.

 Winnipeg was called the "Chicago of the North" because it was the center of the grain trade in Canada. It also had the dubious distinction as the most sinful city in North America. In fact, the character Minnie in When Falcons Fly is based on a Winnipeg brothel owner who made a fortune in the city’s bustling sex trade. Some of the buildings mentioned in the novel still exist today and are frequently used by the film industry to suggest old Chicago or New York at the beginning of the 20th century. The same is true of houses on Wellington Crescent and Roslyn Road.
My research also showed that ethnic groups who emigrated from Europe to Winnipeg carved out sections of the city for themselves. For example, Jews, Poles and Ukrainians settled in the north end, while those of British descent built homes mostly on the south side of the Assiniboine River. The Icelanders occupied the west end. Sargent Avenue, which today is the center of a large Filipino community, was the main thoroughfare in Little Iceland. Icelanders and Winnipeggers alike referred to it as Goolie Crescent.

JL: WHAT DOES GOOLIE MEAN?

DS: Goolie was originally a derogatory term referring to people of Icelandic descent who settled in Manitoba. The derivation of the word remains a mystery. The most plausible origin I encountered while researching When Falcons Fly was that the first Icelandic settlers had thick Norse accents and pronounced the word “goalie”  as "goolie." Interestingly, the word is specific to Manitoba and is unknown in other areas of Canada, Iceland, or parts of the U.S. such as Salt Lake City with large Icelandic populations.  Today, the word has lost its insulting meaning and is considered a term of endearment for Manitobans of Icelandic descent.  

JL: WHY WAS THERE AN INFLUX OF ICELANDERS TO MANITOBA AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY? WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN ICELAND AT THE TIME?

DS: In the mid-19th century, a series of disasters forced many Icelanders to leave their country. An epidemic killed thousands of sheep which the people depended on for food, volcanic eruptions destroyed parts of the island, and volcanic ash lingered in the atmosphere, reducing sunlight so the climate became unsuitable for agriculture.  Although the name Iceland suggests a country with a bitter climate, warm Gulf Stream currents normally sustain a pleasant mean temperature in the lowlands of 11 Celsius in July and minus one Celsius in January. 

In 1870, Icelanders were given the choice of resettling in Denmark or moving to North America. Knowing that the tyrannical rule of Denmark would not allow them rights and freedoms as an independent people, most of them chose to emigrate to Canada or the U.S.

JL: ARE THEIR DIFFERENCES IN THE GAME OF HOCKEY TODAY COMPARED TO 1920?

DS: The rules of hockey and the equipment worn by players have changed considerably since 1920.  When the Falcons played at the Olympics in Antwerp, seven players were allowed on the ice including a goalie, three forwards, two defensemen, and a rover. The position of rover, a player who could move freely about the ice, was eliminated from professional hockey in Canada in 1912, but continued to be used in Canadian amateur hockey until about 1915 and in Europe until 1924.  Forward passing was introduced in the neutral zone (between the blue lines) in Canadian professional hockey in 1911 but was not adopted by amateur hockey until several years later. Teams had two spares and, in some cases, a back up goalie. However, spares received little ice time as starting players were expected to skate a full sixty minutes (no line changes as today) and the starting goalie was only replaced in a dire circumstance such as a major laceration to the face.The offside rule was introduced in 1929 and the first icing rule in 1937. When the Falcons played, tie games were decided by sudden death overtime periods which continued until one team scored. Recently, the NHL introduced a new overtime rule that allows for five minutes of four-on-four overtime to break a tie. If the game remains tied, a shootout determines the winner. These are just a few of the major rules that have changed since 1920. For more information, hockey buffs can refer to Internet sites and books that explain regulation changes in detail.

JL: IN YOUR BOOK, THE GOALIES ARE REPEATEDLY INJURED BADLY IN THE FACE.

DS: Jacques Plante's revolutionary goalie’s face mask (introduced in 1957) is one of many equipment improvements that have evolved since 1920. For example, the 1920 Falcons wore pads adopted from the game of cricket to protect their shins, owned two wood hockey sticks worth about five cents each that were expected to last the season, and donned gloves reinforced at the wrist with thin sticks of wood.  Moreover, the Falcons had no shoulder pads, hip pads, elbow pads, or helmets. By comparison, some of today's hockey players wield high-tech graphite sticks costing several hundred dollars apiece and break many in a season. Modern players are outfitted in virtual suits of armor including helmets, state-of-the-art gloves, pants, shin, elbow and shoulder pads.

JL: WHAT HAPPENED TO FRANK FREDRICKSON AND DO YOU FEEL HE IS A CANADIAN HERO?

DS: After the Falcons' Olympic victory, Fredrickson had a spectacular career in the NHL, winning a Stanley Cup in 1925 and becoming the highest paid player in the league in 1926-27 when he signed with Detroit for $6,000. He retired because of a knee injury in 1932.  In 1933, he was hired as coach of the Princeton University Tigers, where he was a friend of Albert Einstein.

Later he moved to the west coast where he coached the Sea Island Flyers of the Royal Canadian Air Force. He coached the University of British Columbia hockey team for five seasons and in 1949-50 took the team to unprecedented victory over both Canadian and US college teams. Fredrickson was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1958 and the UBC Sports Hall of Fame in 1983.  He sat as a councilor for the city of Vancouver and was renowned for bridge and playing the violin.  He passed away in Vancouver in 1979.

I think Fredrickson is a Canadian hero ranking with hockey greats such as Maurice Richard, Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. Fredrickson overcame poverty and discrimination to become the motivating force behind the world champion Winnipeg Falcons. Some of the hockey plays Frederickson innovated while starring in the NHL are still in use today. I believe the entire Winnipeg Falcon team was composed of heroes. Although Fredrickson was a gifted athlete and leader, he could not have won Olympic gold without the help of his never-say-die teammates. The Falcons were inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in 1980 and, in my opinion, remain one of the greatest hockey teams in the history of Canadian sport.

JL:  HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO WRITE THE NOVEL?

DS: I began researching the book in late 2002 and it was finally published in July of 2007.

JL:  DID YOU PLAY HOCKEY AS A KID?

DS: I played hockey on outdoor rinks at the River Heights Community Centre in Winnipeg. I enjoyed a Saturday afternoon game of shinny over organized hockey because there were no coaches or parents to scream at us over the boards.

JL: HOW DID YOU BLEND TRUTH AND FICTION?

DS:  Blending truth and fiction was fairly easy. I interviewed many descendants of the Falcons and used their information as fact. When none of the interviewees could answer a question such as how Frank Fredrickson and Huck Woodman (the only Wasp on the team) became friends, I made up a plausible fictional scenario, e.g., in the book Fredrickson and Woodman meet at a law firm in Winnipeg. This bears some truth as Fredrickson did quit school in Grade 8 to work for a Winnipeg law company.