On this day in 1952, the Edmonton Mercurys were rowdily representing Canada at the 1952 Olympic Games in Oslo.
The team had an unlikely road to the Olympics. It was created and sponsored by an Edmonton car dealership, Waterloo Mercury, in 1949, and many of its players were employees. The team immediately started getting attention. Within months, the Mercurys had won the Western Canada Intermediate Championship. The next year, the team travelled to London to win gold at the 1950 Ice Hockey World Championships, where they outscored their opponents 42-3 in the tournament.
As a result, the Mercurys were chosen over six other amateur teams to represent Canada in the 1952 Olympics. It also helped that the talented players were unquestionably amateur athletes, which was a perennial dispute when it came to Olympic hockey. (One of the players had to ask permission from Mayor William Hawrelak to take time off from his job as a firefighter to play.)
The aggressive North American style of play did not go over well in Europe. A Canadian Press story from the time quotes a Swiss newspaper correspondent who called the Canadian and U.S. players "rowdies drilled in circus business" on the ice, going as far as to call for an end to "the pollution of European hockey by overseas teams." One of the rowdies' unlikely defenders was Norwegian Prime Minister Oscar Torp. "Penalties make hockey a human game," he said.
Despite the penalties, the Mercurys dominated the tournament. They won seven of their eight matches and tied with the United States 3-3 in the final game. As the team with the better record, Canada was awarded the gold medal. At the time, no one knew that it would be the last Olympic gold in men's hockey that Canada would win for the next half-century.
After the Olympics, the Mercurys returned to Edmonton to enthusiastic fans. But the team would not last much longer. Jim Christianson, the owner of the car dealership that financed the team, died of pneumonia soon after the Olympic win. Six of the Mercury players teamed up and purchased the dealership after his death, while others moved on from Olympic hockey to work as firefighters, mechanics, and in other everyday jobs.
While they might not be as well-known as others in the city's hockey history, the Edmonton Mercurys' short, successful record has been recognized. The 1952 team was inducted into the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame, as well as Canada's Olympic Hall of Fame. And four surviving members of the Mercurys were invited to Salt Lake City to watch the men's hockey finals in the 2002 Olympic Games, where Canada ended its gold medal drought with a 5-2 win over the United States, 50 years to the day after the 1952 win.
This week has seen Canada's Olympic hockey teams continue to battle for that gold. The Canadian women fell just short, losing 2-1 in overtime to the U.S. and settling for silver on Feb. 19. The men's team faces Finland in a semi-final game on Feb. 20, following an overtime victory over Czechia.
This clipping was found on Vintage Edmonton, a daily look at Edmonton's history from armchair archivist Rev Recluse of Vintage Edmonton.