JC Kids Started Playing Hockey in BC Internment Camps

                       It was a forced but happy start for Japanese Canadian kids, as they got their first taste of skating
                       and hockey on the frozen ponds of BC internment camps.


The Canadian Japanese Hockey League is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year,
but the roots for the sport in the community go back many years before.  Young Japanese
Canadian boys started skating and playing shinny on the frozen ponds and rivers that were
located near many of the internment camps in interior British Columbia.
            For equipment, some nisei, many now in their late 70s and 80s, told me their parents
bought skates, sticks, pucks and gloves through the Eaton's catalogue. "The stuff then had to
come all the way from Toronto," remembered George Anzai.
           Or they might obtain some equipment from sports stores in nearby towns. All that was
often augmented by stuffing magazines or anything they could find, under their pants to serve as shin pads.
            How good did the JCs get in their hockey-playing ability?  According to a CBC
movie produced a few years back, a team made up solely of JCs in their teens and early
20s beat a local town team. 
            Efforts to find out more about hockey in the camps have been mostly fruitless, largely
because the sport was not organized like baseball, which was very popular in the camps.
Baseball teams and leagues were organized in most of the camps.  A championship of
sorts was played between them.  Baseball was helped because it was
mostly organized by ex-Asahi players, who were scattered throughout the interior
camps. The Asahi team, which became famous in the Vancouver area, played home games
out of the Powell Street ball field from the 1920s to 1941.
            Hockey didn't have that advantage.  JCs didn't play the game when they lived
in Vancouver, largely because ther were few rinks in BC and Vancouver at the time,
and the mild weather on the west coast wasn't conducive to natural, outdoor ice rinks.
            Information about JCs and hockey in Vancouver and the internment camps was
difficult to find.  If anybody has first-hand information or pictures on the subjects, please contact
me.   (Mel Tsuji)

Word Spreading About CJHL's 50th Anniversary
       
It ain't sophisticated, but it sure still works.  Flyers that is.  Proof of that came recently when
Trevor Tsuji, left, and Bob Fukumoto held up a flyer that publicizes the Canadian Japanese Hockey
League's 50th anniversary celebration.  A representative from the anniversary's organizing committee visited the league
recently to invite players to the event.  Games are played every Sunday at 7pm and
8pm at George Bell Arena.   Distributing the information the old fashioned way, rather
than the modern way through the internet, became a necessity because email addresses of
all the players weren't readily available.   News of the celebration was greeted with interest and enthusiasm, despite the fact
most of the players weren't born when the league started on Oct 22, 1961. Arrangements for
the anniversary have not yet been finalized, but details will be released as they become available.
 (Mel Tsuji)

CJHL Founders Organizing 50th Anniversary Celebration

   A special anniversary dinner event is being organized to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Canadian Japanese Hockey League.  Organizers say details on time, date and locations are still being worked out, but that they are working to time the tribute for around the fall of 2011.

Hundreds of players (including a few females) have gone through the league, ever since the first games were played on Oct 22, 1961.

   Word of the anniversary celebration is being spread by word of mouth and phone calls.  Further exposure is being planned through various social media, such as Facebook and the internet, as well

as through publications like Nikkei Voice, the national, monthly newspaper of the JC community, and the Bulletin and website of the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre.  So far, reception has been very enthusiastic.  Many former players say they plan to attend, bringing along family members and friends.

   The league started playing its games at George Bell Arena, in Toronto's west end.  Any and all players in the JC community were invited to play in the league.  While the range of abilities of the players varied widely, the league's calibre was surprisingly good.  It was also tough and chippy at times, primarily because players didn't know each other and exerted their individualities.  Body checking was also allowed in those early days.  By comparison, the league today is tame affair because of non-contact rules.

   The CJHL also made up all-star congregations to play charity exhibitions against the NHL Oldtimers and the Italian Canadian league.  The league also organized hockey tours to Japan in 1971 and 1982.

(Mel Tsuji)    

First Champions of the Canadian Japanese Hockey League

            First Champions of the Toronto Nisei Hockey League

The first team to win the championship of the TNHL was the high-flying Main Auto Body sextet.

That came about in the inaugural 1961-62 season when the league started out on Oct 22 with six teams.

Star players on the team icluded Gen Hamada and Roy Kobayashi.   Hamada, 3rd from left, front row, played Jr. B hockey with the Brampton 7Ups, then later went on to play university hockey with Waterloo-Lutheran University and McMaster University.  It was while playing for McMaster that Hamada reaped honours.  Not only did the team win the Canadian Intercollegiate Hockey Championship, Hamada was voted the All-Canadian, All-Star winger for the championships.  Kobayashi, extreme right, back row, was captain of the Double S. Tile team that won the East Toronto Hockey Championship in 1956.  The team was made up predominantly of Japanese Canadian nisei (second generation JCs), who played in the strong senior loop at East York Arena.  At the time, the East York league was probably the strongest for senior calibre players in the area.   Two years before, in 1954, Canada's representative at the World Hockey Championships, came out of that league.  They were the East York Lyndhurst Motors team.  But the world soon discovered that the senior B team was woefully weak for a new power on the world hockey scene --- the Russians.  But the young nisei on the Double S team had made a powerful statement.  They represented a Japanese Canadian community that had settled in the Toronto and Southern Ontario area, just 11 years after being released from World War Two internment camps.  A note about the league's name.  It was originally called the "Nisei" league because most of its players and organizers were second generation nisei.  Not many people gave it much thought, probably because there weren't many third generation sansei playing in the league at the time, or if they were they were probably in a minority.  Since its inception, the league's name has gone through a few changes. The original was changed to "Japanese Canadian Hockey League" a few years after, probably because younger sansei wanted to reflect changes in the community.  That was later changed to "Canadian Japanese Hockey League" (which it is today) because league managers wanted to make a statement on the "Canadianess" if its players. (Mel Tsuji)