Wally Brown will never quite live it down.
As a downhill skier in the inaugural Canada Winter Games in 1967, Brown was well on his way to a solid slalom run that might have had him heading for the medal podium.
Sporting the flag of New Brunswick, where he attended university as a phys-ed student, the 20-year-old Brown thought he'd conquered the icy slopes of Mont Ste-Anne, Que., when he dug in the metal edges of his skis to put on the brakes. Problem was, he still had one gate left the go through.
"We had to get up there early when they put up the slalom course and in those days it was blue, red and yellow gates, so we sidestepped the course to memorize it and I memorized the last gate as a yellow gate, but they hadn't put up the finishing gate, which was another 20 yards away," said Brown.
"We got news that almost everybody, all the top skiers, had crashed or slid by gates and the radio told me to just ski conservatively, and I did. I really had a good run but I screeched to a halt after I went through the yellow gate and the crowd went crazy. They were pointing, so I had to skate through it. That was my biggest and worst memory. I was so mad."
Created by the federal government as part of Canada's centennial celebration, the Canada Games was a nine-day sporting and cultural event from Feb. 11-19, 1967, involving 1,800 athletes from 10 provinces and two territories competing in 15 sports. By comparison, the 2015 Games which start next weekend in Prince George offer 18 days of competition, 2,400 athletes and 19 sports.
"It was the first Canada Games so there was a lot of pressure on - is it going to happen again?" said Brown. "When they went to light the torch (in the opening ceremonies) they couldn't find it, but they made do with something. They improvised something to light the cauldron."
Unlike the present-day Canada Games, which are like a mini-Olympics, with athletes villages, drug testing and social events that encourage athletes from all the sports to get to know each other, Brown said there was very little interaction with other Games athletes. The skiers, who were lodged in a motel, pretty much stuck to the ski hill for the duration of the Games. Part of the reason for that, Brown said, was the weather.
It was 7 C and raining during the opening ceremonies but by early evening an Arctic front had enveloped Quebec City, plunging the temperature to -33 C and bringing with it a 76-centimetre dump of fresh snow, which delayed the start of the alpine races for two days.
"When we got up there, there was tons of snow and of course, back east the hills are notoriously very icy, so you had to learn to ski on ice," said the 68-year-old Brown. "(In the giant slalom) it was loose snow on top of ice and I wasn't prepared for it and went ass-over-tea-kettle.
"The equipment was rough. I had leather boots, which were very good for that time, and I had (the bindings) cranked right down. A lanyard was attached to one side and you would wrap the lanyard around your ankle and pull it tight just to give yourself more ankle support. Metal edges on skis had only been out five or six years and we had trouble with the bases. Back east you got lots of ice and lots of rocks and you were continually in the fix-it room filling holes."
There were just two alpine skiing competitions in the 1967 Games - slalom and the giant slalom, both one-day events. Brown didn't race against any of the skiers who went on to become the Crazy Canucks who dominated World Cup events in the '70s but did compete against Dave Irwin's brother Dan, and John Ritchie, who became Canada's national team coach.
One of the most prominent athletes at the 1967 Games was figure skater Toller Cranston, a Hamilton native who won gold in singles and helped Ontario win the team points competition. Although the scope of the Games was nothing like it is now, there was still lots to do in Quebec City, which was hosting its annual Winter Carnival at the same time.
"In 1967 it was Canada's centennial and there was a lot of money and they were celebrating like crazy," said Brown. "They put on the first Canada Games and then they sent us out to Banff three weeks after the Games for Second Century week, which was the university games.
"It's a neat parallel because Canada was celebrating its 100th anniversary and this year Prince George is celebrating its 100th birthday and hosting Canada Winter Games in the same year."
Brown was born in Swan River, Man., but grew up in Manitouwadge, Ont., a mining town near the north shore of Lake Superior, where he learned how to ski at the Kiwissa Ski Club. Brown's team at the Canada Games was made of skiers from Quebec and Ontario because the sport was in its infancy in New Brunswick and the skiers at the time were young and not ready for that level of competition.
After their final race, Brown and another member of the New Brunswick ski team went back to the alpine course to pick up some souvenirs and grabbed some of the flags that marked the gates.
"We had just got finished stuffing the flags into our coats and the ski patroller spotted us and starts yelling at us. Well, he wasn't going to catch us," laughed Brown.
Brown got into coaching after the Games and helped organize the alpine events at the first New Brunswick Winter Games in 1968. Some of his skiers went on to compete in the 1971 Canada Winter Games in Saskatoon. He moved to Prince George in 1970 to begin his teaching career in special education at Winton school. He was there for two years before he took a job teaching phys-ed at Kelly Road secondary school, where he coached nearly 70 varsity teams before he retired in 2004. He and his wife Lorna coached a Nancy Greene Ski League team at Tabor Mountain for six years.
Brown originally signed up for the 2015 Games to help out at the curling or hockey venues but will instead be putting his experience driving a school bus to work as a transportation volunteer.
