Wrong: in the early 1930s, the work he put in playing with the senior Moncton Hawks earned him a reputation as one of the best goaltenders not in the NHL. That’s according to Rob Jovanovic, author of an exhaustive history of Britain’s 1936 hockey gold, Pride & Glory: The Forgotten Story of Great Britain’s Greatest Olympic Team (2011).įoster broke a leg at some point and was told he’d never play hockey again. When he wasn’t on the ice, he was raising a family of three with his wife while working in PR for a distributor of Orange Crush. He resume from those early years includes stints with the Winnipeg Argonauts, the University of Manitoba, the Winnipeg Winnipegs, and the Elmwood Millionaires. That’s where he took up hockey goaltending, and refined his craft. Foster was a leading character in that - even before Britain took on its hockey-mad colony at the Garmisch-Partenkirchen games.īorn in Glasgow, in Scotland, in 1905, Foster emigrated to Canada when he was six and his family relocated to Winnipeg. That was indeed the year that Canada’s four-tournament, 16-year reign as Olympic champions came to a shocking (and, for Canadians, controversial) end. This much, too, may be safe to say: Foster, who died at the age of 63 on a Saturday of this date in 1969, never had a better night in his long and distinguished puckstopping career than he did disappointing Canada in the winter of ’36. If Jimmy Foster’s stardom didn’t quite end up soaring into eternity, not even in Eastern Canada, he did find his way into a hall of hockey fame: the British one, into which Foster was inducted in 1950.

Baz O’Meara, writing in the Montreal Daily Star on Wednesday, February 12, 1936, after goaltender Jimmy Foster and his teammates on Great Britain’s team handed Canada its first-ever loss at the Olympic Games, going to claim Britain’s first (and only) gold medal.Ĭolumnist Baz O’Meara was mostly on the money.

If he never stops another puck in the Olympics, he has ensured his place in the hockey hall of fame so far as international honours are concerned - while he has probably ensured it forever in the Maritimes. So instead of referring to this game as the triumph of England it could be labelled “The Revenge of Jimmy Foster.” The stirring episodes at Garmisch yesterday could be woven into a movie scenario which would be sure of four-star rating in at least one section of the country. Front, from left: Jimmy Borland, Art Child, Jimmy Foster, Alex Archer. True Brits: Back row, from left: Coach Percy Nicklin, Bob Wyman, Archie Stinchcombe, Carl Erhardt (captain), Jack Kilpatrick, Gordon Dailley, Gerry Davey, Chirp Brenchley, Johnny Coward.

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