The 1920 Canadian Olympic Gold Medal Hockey Team
Ice hockey was an Olympic sport for the first time in 1920. Canada was represented by the Winnipeg Falcons, who had won the Allan Cup that year as the country’s top senior men's amateur hockey team.
The Winnipeg Falcons had an interesting background. Founded in 1911, its roster was initially made up entirely of players of Icelandic descent. The coming of the First World War three years later had a great impact on the sports landscape in Canada as hundreds of thousands of young men would enlist in the military—including every member of the Falcons.
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Members of the 1920 Canadian Olympic hockey team.
(Photo courtesy of the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame and Museum)
The brave players served overseas during the war and two of them lost their lives. When the surviving members made it back home after the conflict, they laced up their skates again and their team would earn the right to represent Canada at the Olympics.
The 1920 Olympics Games were held in Antwerp, Belgium—a country that had suffered greatly during the recently-ended First World War. The Falcons would defeat their opponents handily (capped with a 12-1 victory over Sweden in the final) and won the very first gold medal in hockey. Before returning home to victory parades and accolades, the team toured the battlefields of nearby Flanders where several of them had served as soldiers not so long before.
Today, the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto and Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame both have permanent displays honouring the Falcons and their impressive Olympic victory.
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