Honour To Carry Torch
Heroes Remember
I had the occasion to go back last January
for the 2018 commemoration
which took place in a little town,
well I shouldn’t say little town.
A town called Paju who had built an
ice rink to do for this commemoration
and from this ice rink we could see
where we played hockey on the
Njimgen River.
We had a Team Canada formed
with four players of the Vandoos,
four players of the Pat’s and locals,
Canadian locals in Korea to form
Team Canada. And against Team
Canada it was Team Corea, not Korea
as we spelled it but Corea, C-o-r-e-a,
which is different in the spelling in English
with a “k” and so on. Of two universities,
two of the highest branded universities in
South Korea and that’s when I learned that
hockey started officially, officially registered
in 1928 between those two universities.
It came up to me like that,
I said oh we were not the first ones.
But we can always claim that our
missionaries brought hockey in
Korea before that.
This particular commemoration,
the embassy and the Olympic committee,
local committee, had arranged for
the Olympic torch to go through Paju
where we were playing on the 19th of
January on its way to the Olympic site.
And I was greatly honoured and privileged
to carry, to be a torch bearer for a
hundred metres along the rink.
It is something I will never forget.
By the way I have turned over the torch
which I brought back to Canada to my
regiment museum in the Citadel Quebec City.
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