Living up to the Olympic ideals
The Olympic Winter of 1959
Jack McKenzie and Don Rope did not grow up expecting the Olympic Games to come looking for them.
They were Prairie boys who learned early that dreams were a luxury and winters were not. McKenzie grew up in Brandon. Rope was raised in Winnipeg, where he once sold peanuts at Osborne Stadium and watched Jesse Owens—the Berlin Olympian, the man who seemed to run on a different set of laws—race a horse. The Games were a story you read about from a long way off, something that belonged to Europe and headlines and people who had money for trains.
And yet here they were, in Kitchener, called to serve on Canada's national hockey team: the Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmen, bound for Cortina. On departure morning, half the city was outside the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium (the Aud) to see them off, some even ready to follow in a convoy all the way to Malton Airport.
The team bus sat outside the Aud, its engine running, coughing blue exhaust into the dark, early January morning. Voices cut through the sharp cold; every word and breath was visible in the air.
Only one problem: the team’s roll call had a hole in it.
On the morning they were supposed to leave for the Olympics, Don Rope didn’t show.
But Rope wasn’t the kind of guy who didn’t show. He was a gifted athlete who savoured being in the arena, going head-to-head against worthy adversaries. He was the guy who gave his all, played long and hard, and did the unglamorous work that made a line hold together.
He was also, earlier that morning, a young man doing laundry in the wee hours when sensible people sleep, because he was leaving for three weeks and he wanted to be ready. He washed and rinsed and wrung out his life into neat piles—clean, folded, prepared as if cleanliness might count as readiness for his trip across the ocean. When he shut his eyes, it wasn’t laziness that pulled him under, but exhaustion—the honest kind you earn.
He’d just played his heart out that night at the Aud—they all did—before a packed house that saw them skate to a 5–2 victory over Windsor. He’d had a busy week at the high school, where he taught and coached. By the time he lay down, it was almost time to get up and drive back to Kitchener to catch the bus.
But the body doesn’t negotiate with destiny. It simply takes what it needs. Rope fell fast asleep, and while he slept, the world kept its appointment without him—the team, the bus, the road to Malton.
Hours earlier, the players had showered after their game, then packed their duffel bags. They wouldn’t see their hometown rink for three weeks.
KW Dutchmen were Canada's Team
The Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmen, Canada's Olympic hockey team, board their plane in Malton for the Cortina Winter Olympics in January 1956.
Don Rope with the Toronto Marlboros
He Slept In
After a long week and a late game, and doing laundry, Don Rope slept through his alarm clock on the morning he was to leave for the Olympics.
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Board of Education have already granted members of the Dutchmen Hockey Club leave of absence to participate.”
As a young teacher on staff at Galt Collegiate Institute, Rope knew being granted a leave was no certainty. In his letter he inferred that the Preston Board had already approved a paid leave of absence for McKenzie, though he didn’t come out and say that.
Rope waited for a reply. November came to a close, and still he had not heard back. He expected an answer in early December, but it wasn’t until December 14—one full month after his request, and only a month before the team was to leave for Italy—that McGrigor responded.
“Dear Mr. Rope, I am pleased to advise that…the following motion was passed at the meeting of our Board last evening: That Mr. S. Donald Rope be granted Leave of Absence without salary from January 16th to February 8th, 1956, provided that a suitable substitute teacher is available from the Ontario College of Education.”
It was the most eagerly awaited letter Rope had ever received—and even though Preston was sending off McKenzie, whose wife was expecting, with full salary, and the Galt Board was not sending him with salary, Rope was over the moon. Now it was official: he was going to the Olympics.
For McKenzie, the team captain, the excitement of the Olympics was tempered by the knowledge that his wife Joyce was expecting their first child in early February. The two expectant parents spoke at length about the timing of the Games and the possibility that Jack might miss the birth. Joyce had a plan if he did. They both hoped he’d be back in time, but they were reassured that if he wasn’t, everything would still be okay.
They had met several years earlier—she was also from Manitoba—and although she went to the University of Manitoba and he went east to the University of Toronto, their courtship unfolded on the Prairies, and they were married there. Joyce, too, was a teacher. She taught in Elmira for a year before they married, while Jack taught in Preston. She was fully behind his hockey dream. Although he had embarked on his life’s work, he was also in the prime of his life, and she knew he owed it to himself and his teammates to seize this moment before they began a family.
Balancing family life with the demands of an Allan Cup–calibre team—while starting out in the teaching profession and coaching high school students along the way—was not easy. There were times it felt overwhelming. But children had not yet arrived, and he was young. It wasn’t sustainable forever, but it was the life he had chosen, and he wouldn’t change it for the world.
That Sunday morning, the couple decided to drive their own car to the airport, but first they would meet the bus at the Aud, and then follow along in the caravan. So early on January 15, 1956—just hours after their convincing win in their final league game before the Olympics—the McKenzies set out.
As they left their apartment across the road from Preston High School, Joyce knew she would return in a few hours alone. But she also knew her husband had a job to do, and that Kitchener-Waterloo, Preston, and Galt—and indeed, all of Canada—would be cheering him on.
They chose education of pro hockey
Both Jack McKenzie and Don Rope were star Jr. A players with the Toronto Maple Leaf organization. They loved hockey, but they both had a higher calling: to become teachers.
jack and joyce mckenzie: they lived across the road from Pre
The Road to Malton
The game ran late into Saturday night, and immediately afterward Rope had driven home to his downtown Galt apartment—about 40 minutes away at the southern end of Waterloo County. There was packing still to do. And laundry. Coupled with an early rise to catch the team bus, it meant he would get very little sleep.
Rope, single and living alone, slept through his alarm clock. His neighbour rushed over and pounded on the door, waking the sleepy teacher. By the time the team was frantically making calls from Kitchener, Rope had already left home and was speeding toward the Aud—unknowingly passing McKenzie, who was driving the other way.
Rope arrived about 15 minutes after the bus had left. The only person still there was John Decker, the Aud assistant manager, who took matters into his own hands and drove Rope in hot pursuit of the caravan. Decker overtook the bus just outside Breslau. Rope climbed aboard—with some explaining to do.
Meanwhile, where was McKenzie?
Now Rope was safely on board, but the captain was missing. The bus had no choice but to continue to Malton. McKenzie was captain for a reason: level-headed, immensely talented, respected by everyone. If anyone could adjust on the fly and still make the airport in time, it was McKenzie.
The caravan behind the bus was long and included several busloads of fans, sportswriters, and many of the Who’s Who of K-W. Not surprisingly, news of Rope’s “sleep-in” made the front page of the Kitchener-Waterloo Record the next day, along with photographs showing more than 1,000 well-wishers lining the observation deck at the airport.
The McKenzies failed to find Rope in Galt, but after speaking with his neighbour, had no option but to drive to Malton and catch up with the team. McKenzie hoped Rope would be among them. An hour and a half later, as their bus pulled into the airport, so too did a caravan of boosters. McKenzie was not far behind.
Record reporter Sandy Baird wrote that “…the Malton TCA terminal may be weeks recovering. (The terminal) was jolted and jarred…as nearly 1,000 Dutchmen well-wishers turned it into a three-ring circus of music, cheers, handshakes and backslapping.”
This was the stuff communities are made of.
The airport had never seen anything like it—nor would it until September 1964, when the Beatles arrived.
On that January morning in 1956, the terminal was bedlam for 40 minutes until the plane taxied off at 11:30 a.m.
“We’ve just never had anything like it,” said a harassed airport worker.
Baird called it a “tornado of humanity,” a whirlwind that descended on Malton in more than 125 cars and three busloads of people, with an added surge of Toronto fans. “There were toddlers, grandmothers, roaring enthusiasts, and quietly dignified well-wishers. Many wore booster headbands, Dutchmen colours, and corsages—“including a stylish matron with a sleek orchid.”
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On to Scotland
With Montreal behind them, Canada's Olympic hockey team was finally on its way to Europe, where they were scheduled to land in Scotland that morning and play an exhibition game in Paisley that night.
After Paisley, they would fly from Prestwick, Scotland, to Prague, behind the Iron Curtain, on Monday, where two exhibition games were scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday. Then they were off to Cortina, where their first Olympic contest was scheduled for January 26 against Germany.
Back at Preston High, McKenzie was on everyone’s mind. He embodied the hopes and dreams of his students—those he taught and coached, and everyone watching from the sidelines. At 6’3”, he towered over his students and over many of his opponents. That alone made him a little intimidating, but on the ice, there were no dirty tricks. He was well-liked as a teacher and coach. He could be tough, no doubt, but his students and players thought the world of him. Preston High was a small, intimate school with only about 300 students, and everyone knew one another. The small community where he and his wife began their family was the same.
“We’d see him on Monday mornings after weekend games,” said student Tom Conaway, “and he’d have gashes on his nose and face, and we were in awe.”
For the 15-year-old Conaway, “there was no greater thrill than heading to the Aud on a Saturday night…where my favourite player was a tall, smooth-skating right winger named Jack McKenzie, who had a shot that must have made the maskless goaltenders of that era quake.”
The magic of a Saturday night game at the Aud was shared equally by McKenzie, who thought highly of the Kitchener organization and the support fans gave the team. “There was a certain feeling when I played here (Kitchener)—a Saturday night hockey fever that seemed to grip both the fans and the players,” he told sportswriter John Herbert in a 1966 K-W Record story.
“Many a Monday morning, Jack would stride into class with an ugly welt over one eye or a slice out of his nose. Of course, we thought it was great—a true badge of honour.”
McKenzie would sometimes drive members of his Preston hockey team to games, telling hockey stories along the way. His players loved it. Bill Bartels, his high school goalie, was one of them. He kept in touch with his teacher and coach the rest of his life. Like Conaway, he loved McKenzie’s stories.
“Jack didn’t talk much about his own exploits,” Conaway wrote years later. “He was much too modest for that. But he could keep you spellbound talking about Don Rope, Ken Laufman, Gerry Theberge, Howie Lee, and the rest of his teammates.”
McKenzie thought the world of them, but it was Rope he counted as his best friend.
In the days after McKenzie’s departure for Cortina, the buzz around school—just as it was at Rope’s Galt Collegiate—was the Olympics. The excitement was palpable in the hallways. At Preston, student captain Bill Bartells organized a hockey tournament. There was a contest to vote for the Hockey Queen, with each class nominating one candidate.
Dolores Baldrey (later Shackleton), who grew up at 1413 King Street, an athletic young girl—and the school’s athletic captain, was named Hockey Queen.
She later married her high school sweetheart, Bob Shackleton, who thought the world of his teacher, McKenzie.
“Bob (Shackleton) was a tremendous help to me in my first years at Preston,” McKenzie recalled years later. Shackleton chose a career in teaching, like his idol. It was McKenzie’s reference that paved the way with the local school board.
“He always claimed that it was Jack’s reference that got him the job,” Dolores said.
Shackleton, a member of the Preston Scout House Band in the 1950s, taught in the K-W area, then at Hamilton Teachers’ College, and later worked with the London Board of Education. He was only 49 when he died.
That week at Preston, when Dolores was chosen Hockey Queen, her prize was the lucky floral stick Joyce had brought home from the airport—the stick that couldn’t go on the plane. It no longer had green and white flowers; instead, it was wrapped in tinfoil and decorated in Preston High colours. Dolores was told the story of the stick. The stick is still with her in London, on the eve of the 2026 Cortina Games.
“My mom hung it on my bedroom wall, where it stayed for years.”
When Dolores later had two young boys of her own, and they visited her mother in the old family home, her boys would plead with their grandmother to let them use it. They became lifelong hockey fans early on. “The whole family, except for me, became hockey fans.”
“Grandma,” they would beg, “please take that goalie stick off the wall so we can play with it.”
She never did.
“Eventually, I got the hockey stick when I moved to London.”
When the Humboldt hockey tragedy took place in Saskatchewan in 2018, Dolores brought the stick out and made a small memorial at home to remember the players. “It was my tribute to the kids, with my old Preston High School sweater.”
KITCHENER-WATERLOO DUTCHMEN 1952-53 ALLAN CUP CHAMPIONS
The Lucky Stick
When Dolores went off to Toronto to train as a nurse, she returned home after an exhausting week on the night shift. She went straight to the train station after getting off work and arrived back in Preston dead tired.
“Bob had gotten tickets to the Dutchmen game that night, and I can’t remember all that transpired, but I fell asleep at one of Jack McKenzie’s games—in the middle of the first period—and didn’t wake up until almost the end of the third. Bob vowed he would never take me to another game.”
He never did. She was not a big hockey fan anyway.
“Jack was well respected and well liked by all the students,” Dolores said, “and the fact that he played hockey was a big thing with all the boys.”
It was much the same for students at Rope’s high school in Galt. He was a no-nonsense teacher and coach, but students and athletes respected him. Year after year his teams were tops, and in Rope the boys knew they had a gifted athlete—still playing hockey, tennis, and almost everything else that took his fancy—who could teach them to play properly and excel. Hockey and baseball players like Ron Smith, and CFL all-stars like Doug Smith, came through his programs.
Once, when Jesse Owens stopped by the school and spoke to his gym class, Rope was incensed that a couple of students chose not to listen when he called them in. Students learned to listen to Rope when he gave instructions—or suffer the consequences, which might mean having a football or basketball drilled at them.
But Owens told Rope he was fine with the two boys who continued shooting hoops at the far end of the gym. “Let them shoot,” he said. “They don’t want to hear an old guy talk. I understand where they’re coming from.”
Meeting Owens was a highlight for Rope in a lifetime of highlights. As Don Thompson, a Cambridge lawyer who co-chaired the 1976 Canada Games for the Physically Disabled with David Ridsdale, recalled, Owens was rare and humble.
“I was asked to take him around to different events,” Thompson said, tears welling up at the memory.
First they went to Glenview Park Secondary School, where Rope was head of the boys’ physical education department. “I was that high off the ground when I was with Jesse,” Thompson said. “He was such a gentleman. We took him to the wheelchair basketball game, and he asked me if he could speak to the audience at halftime, which he did.”
Owens and Thompson saw wheelchair basketball, blind runners sprinting, and a one-legged high jumper who set a world record at those Games. As they drove across Cambridge to the track and field events at Southwood Secondary School, Owens said, “Mr. Thompson, they think I did marvellous things in Berlin. I did nothing compared to what those kids are doing out there today.”
That stuck with Thompson the rest of his life.
It was the same for Rope. Meeting Owens—and hearing his words—was something he never forgot.
But the same could be said of Rope by his athletes. Over the years, legions of former students would recall his influence on their lives. But what many of his student-athletes didn’t see was his innate sense of humour. It was a quality they came to appreciate later, after high school, as their friendships with their former teacher matured.
That sense of humour, coupled with his lifelong love of sport and health, endeared him to countless people over the years. His influence was wide.
At Althouse Teacher’s College at the University of Western Ontario, where teachers were trained to become educators, the physical education professors used Rope’s teaching methods in a variety of sports for years.
Rope was going to enjoy talking about his Olympic experience to his students once he returned from Cortina. But first, he was looking forward to the trip to Scotland, where his father’s relatives lived.
It was a long flight over the Atlantic from Montreal. They arrived in the morning—having gone back in time—and played that night. As Rope recalled, they ate seven meals on that one day alone. Though tired, they beat Paisley 6–5, then boarded a KLM flight for Amsterdam and on to Prague.
Upon their arrival at Prestwick, they were greeted by representatives of the Scottish Ice Hockey Association, the Paisley Pirates, and Crawford Burns of Vancouver, the Trans-Canada Air Lines official in Prestwick.
The story that reached fans back home underscored how tired the team was upon arrival: “Dog-tired after a hectic weekend, Canada's Olympic hockey players today spent their first hours in Scotland in bed. The team, flanked by 17 supporters, arrived early this morning from Montreal and immediately drove four miles to the Marine Hotel in Troon, overlooking the Firth of Clyde.”
Troon and its Marine Hotel have appeared in film and TV productions, including the 1940s-themed film Turning Tide.
The Canadians were keen to see the old country, even though it was early morning and the light was low. Still, what they saw was impressive by their standards: double-decker buses, and everyone driving on the “wrong” side of the road.
Seeing cars on the other side of the road startled Bob White, 20, and one of the youngest members of the team, who yelled, “Hey, get over!” as a car passed their bus on the wrong side.
White may have been young, but he had lots of talent; he was hoping for an athletic scholarship to pursue his studies at the University of Michigan. Having the Olympic Games on his resume wouldn’t hurt. He had won a Memorial Cup with the Barrie Flyers in 1953 and an Allan Cup with Kitchener in 1955. He later got his chance to play at Michigan in the 1957–58 season, when the Michigan captain was Preston’s Neil McDonald.
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Rope's Scottish Ancestry
Thankfully, given the players were exhausted, it was manager Ernie Goman who was doing the lion’s share of the administrative work. No sooner had they reached the hotel than Goman sorted out rooms, then checked and handled hundreds of pounds of luggage, including 240 hockey sticks. He was dead tired too, but didn’t mind the chores. He still found time to tell Canadian Press reporter Ken Metheral that the Dutchmen were there to win.
“We didn’t come over here to lose,” he said.
Accompanying the team were Kitchener mayor Fred Dreger and Winnipeg mayor James Dunn, a fellow townsman of Rope’s and president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association. Rope and McKenzie, of course, were the pride of Manitoba. Both mayors were proud of all the young men on Canada's team. “They are not only fine hockey players but also first-class citizens.”
With a game scheduled in a few hours, no sooner had the players arrived at the Marine Hotel than they were fast asleep, grabbing a catnap before their game and the reception.
Back in Kitchener fans relied on newspaper updates about the team’s arrival and their exhibition game. For good measure, there was another note about Rope. The paper mentioned that Rope had corresponded with a cousin in Scotland for 17 years without ever seeing her.
In 1934 Rope and his family visited his father’s relatives in Blofield, Scotland, which led to correspondence with his cousin Glenna.
His father’s brother Bert played Premier League soccer, while Glenna played high-level tennis.
“She was supposed to meet him in Paisley, but couldn’t make it. Don almost didn’t make it himself. He slept in…” They weren’t going to let Rope forget that one.
His Scottish relatives were athletes in many sports. His uncle George—his father’s youngest brother—held the Norwich high jump record. Rope didn’t see Glenna on the way over, but he did manage to see her for a two-hour visit following the Olympics. “Keeping in touch” made that visit, and future visits on his 1992 and 1994 cycling and backpacking trips so special.
After their 6–5 win in Paisley, the players returned to their rooms for a few hours of shuteye. Their sleep deprivation would have to continue; they had to get up at 4 a.m. to catch a plane to Prague, Czechoslovakia, where two more exhibition games and another reception awaited. But first there was a post-game reception in Paisley. Most of the players hadn’t had a decent night of sleep since the previous Friday.
“All Scotland is pulling for you,” said the provost of Paisley, Allan Maclean, at the reception. He gave each player a wool scarf in the famous Paisley pattern.
And although 4,500 fans had been loudly critical of the Canadians during the game, afterward hundreds—“including white-haired grandmothers and youngsters not yet in their teens”—surrounded the team seeking autographs.
“Many of the fans who booed loudest at what they thought were rough Canadian tactics were the first to wish the players good luck at Prague and Cortina,” wrote Record sports editor Len Taylor, who was accompanying the team.
Among the well-wishers was a group of Canadian Navy personnel from the submarine training depot at Rothesay, Isle of Bute, where 200 Canadians were stationed. They travelled more than 30 miles to take in the game and cheer on their countrymen.
The Paisley game was an important first taste of European hockey. Canada drew 25 minutes of penalties to Paisley’s 10. Rope and McKenzie were singled out in newspaper reports as Canada's best players, though most of the roster looked visibly tired. Playing on the bigger ice surface didn’t help.
Their opponents seemed to get away with holding and hooking. “In our league at home (the OHA Senior A group), we would have been off the ice for the entire game for holding like that,” Bauer said. “But we’re not going with the holding and hooking style, which we feel spoils the game.”
The Canadians had heard this before. The previous year, when the Penticton Vee’s won the world title in Germany, they were the most penalized team in the tournament. Paisley—and then Prague—would be a much-needed introduction to the European style and officiating.
But Bauer wasn’t worried. “I will be disappointed if these boys are not the sensation of the Games,” he said.
He had reason to feel confident. The famed member of the Boston Bruins’ Kraut Line had handpicked a number of the “Dutchmen” with the Olympic trip in mind. The trick was finding players who could handle Olympic-style hockey without getting killed in their own league.
“The little ex-Bruin probably will conceal from the Czechs what he regards as his hidden ace until the shooting at Cortina begins. This is his line of Jack McKenzie at centre, with Paul Knox and Jim Logan on the wings. Bauer is confident this threesome will make sitting ducks of European goalies.”
Kitchener-waterloo dutchmen 1956 Olympic team
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It was an impressive line, fully capable of putting the puck in the net. But there was much to do before Cortina.
The schedule was tight. They were to depart for Cortina by air on January 20. One objective of the exhibition games was to “give the boys a taste of playing on outdoor rinks,” as Bauer said. At Cortina, all their games would be outdoors; some would be in the blinding daytime sun, and others at night under the lights.
Sleep came easily on their lone night in Paisley, but the wake-up call came too soon. As they boarded their KLM flight to communist Czechoslovakia—with a stop in Amsterdam—they looked forward to playing against the Czechs. Two games were scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.
Prague
In Prague, they were even more the centre of attention than in Paisley. On arrival they endured a three-hour security inspection. Aside from that, Rope noted, “It was a wonderful experience.”
On the eve of the Olympics, Canada's hockey players were treated like heroes. If Canada was known for anything—aside from its reputation in war and its otherwise peaceful nature—it was dominance in hockey.
“The people there were wonderful,” Rope wrote. “We had an excellent reception, with tours of historic sites such as Prague Castle (Pražský hrad)…” He described the crowds, the dark clothing, and how warm and happy people seemed to be to see them. They toured the outdoor rink, walked cobblestone streets, and made their “first adjustment to strange food.”
They played two games against the Czech Olympic B team and won both. The main Czech team was in Davos for an exhibition. They would see them in Cortina. Everywhere they went, there were lineups for autographs.
More importantly, the Canadians were getting used to the larger European ice surfaces, even as the refereeing remained vastly different. All told, Prague was a good trip—except for injuries. They lost their scoring star, Ken Laufman, to a concussion. That was the second injury suffered in exhibition play; Charlie Brooker had hurt his left knee in Paisley. Two key players were out, for how long no one knew.
To make matters worse, it was becoming clear that heavy body checking was frowned upon in European hockey, while hooking and holding were common. The Canadians were frustrated that holding infractions weren’t being called.
“The games taught us a good lesson and one we won’t forget,” Bauer said after the two games behind the Iron Curtain. A rule prohibiting most checking beyond the opponent’s blue line “really threw us off our stride.”
In Prague, every time the Canadians left their hotel wearing their Canadian jackets, they were mobbed by fans, mostly teenagers.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said 21-year-old Beryl Klink of Elmira. “As our bus pulled out in front of the hotel, the street filled with smiling and waving kids yelling ‘CANADA,’ and holding aloft pencils and paper for autographs. It took me about five minutes to worm my way to the door, although it was only a few steps away. Then the kids poured right into the hotel after us, and only quick action by the hotel staff prevented them from going into our rooms.”
McKenzie was happy to oblige, but frustrated by the language barrier. “It seems a crime to have all those grand youngsters out there and to only be able to sign autographs and smile instead of talking to them. There was certainly no iron curtain as far as they were concerned.”
That night, Bauer put the players through a light workout on the open-air rink and then sent them to bed. They were so sleep-deprived that no one argued. The practice—attended by 2,500 fans—helped “get rid of the kinks” and mitigate the overeating the team had done so far at all the obligatory receptions.
But three players—Paul Knox, Buddy O’Home, and Billy Colvin—were so weary they slept through the workout. “Dutchmen have had little sleep since they left Malton,” one reporter explained.
Their trip behind the Iron Curtain was revelatory in many ways. As welcome as they were made to feel by the Czechs, the Canadians had competition for attention. The vice president of Red China, Gen. Chu Teh, and his entourage arrived by train from Hungary shortly after the Canadians. Reports noted that the Canadians still seemed to win the popularity poll, even as the streets were decorated with banners proclaiming friendship between China and Czechoslovakia. The General was among the 14,000 fans who attended that first exhibition game.
The visit of the Chinese dignitary was a big deal. Factory workers and thousands of schoolchildren were released early to greet the visiting leader in typical communist fashion. Crowds waved flags and chanted slogans as the dignitaries drove in an open car down main streets, welcomed by Premier William Siroky and Antonin Novotny, first secretary of the Communist Party.
But the Canadians didn’t go unnoticed anywhere they went. When they attended the Czechoslovakia–Hungary table tennis matches at the Spartak Kohinoor club, they drew a big round of applause from the gallery.
Their first game against the Czech Olympic B team had been sold out—14,000 seats—for a week. Some in Prague said they could have sold 100,000 tickets for the Canadian matches.
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