Photo By Canadian Forces Cpl Bill Gomm | Members of the Winnipeg Rifles football team present an autographed football to...... read more read more
It goes back a number of years, but Canadian football has deep historical connections to the military. We don't just share terminology like tactics, defence and offence, we share common names of heroes and figures that stretch back to the Second World War.
"Well I think it really started from a guy by the name of Denny Whitaker," recalls Cliff Chadderton, chairman of the National Council of Veteran Associations in Canada and CEO of The War Amps. "He was a major with the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry and had been a quarterback for the Hamilton Wildcats as they were called before the war."
Whitaker's story is now a legend. After a chance meeting with an American officer in London in December 1943, he learned they had brought to England, six complete sets of football gear. This led to a unique football challenge between teams of American and Canadian service members stationed in England.
The game was held on February 13, 1944, and mixed the two variations of the game. The first half was American rules and referees followed in the second half with Canadian rules. Although the field dimensions seemed to favour the American game, the Canadians won 16-6, thanks in large part to the team Whitaker had assembled. It looked like an all-star lineup of Canadian football and included Maj. Jeff Nicklin from Winnipeg.
"He was real hero," says Mr. Chadderton, who was Nicklin's second in command, when they were both in the Royal Winnipeg Rifles earlier in the war. "Before the war, Jeff Nicklin was an all-star with the Blue Bombers and was part of the team's Grey Cup victories in '35 and '39, so he was well-known. Every high school student in those days, and I was one of them, knew Nicklin and his whole story as a top Canadian athlete."
The Nicklin name also endures to this day in airborne infantry lore. Nicklin was a company commander when he transferred to the First Canadian Parachute Battalion. He jumped on D-Day and was wounded. Later, while commanding the battalion, Lt. Col. Nicklin was killed in March 1945 during a paradrop during the Battle of the Rhine.
Shortly after the war, members of his unit established the Jeff Nicklin Memorial Trophy to honour their fallen commanding officer. It is awarded annually to the most outstanding player for the CFL West Division. Thanks to the work of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion Association, the CFL and The War Amps, the trophy was rededicated at the Grey Cup in Winnipeg last year. In turn, this effort led to another memorial project on Jeff Nicklin.
"After we got all the footage and what not, it (the story) was so good in my mind ... that we decided to do a documentary on it," says Mr. Chadderton. The documentary entitled "Jeff Nicklin – Hero of the Gridiron and the Battlefield" tells the story of one of Canada's great dual heroes, who made his mark in not just one great national institution, but two.
The documentary was released Nov. 12, prior to the 95th Grey Cup.
| Date Taken: | 11.15.2007 |
| Date Posted: | 11.15.2007 13:36 |
| Story ID: | 13931 |
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| Web Views: | 414 |
| Downloads: | 375 |
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