1939 Smoke Eaters

By winning the 1938 Allan Cup the Trail Smoke Eaters also won the right to represent Canada at the 1939 world championship tournament in Basil and Zurich, Switzerland. On Dec. 10 / 38, following a cross-Canada fundraising tour, the Smoke Eaters boarded a steamer in Halifax, and one week later made their first European appearance in Glasgow, Scotland, skating to a 4 - 2 victory. It was the beginning of a gruelling 55-game European tour that saw them lose only one game and tie another. As recorded in the 1939 edition of theWest Kootenay Hockey Review:

"The progress of the Smoke Eaters European tour was recorded in a continuous flow of highly-enthusiastic reports to Canada. Continental sporting pages were packed in paens of praise for the "Mountain Magicians" from Trail. Amusing cartoons depicted the Smokies in their acts of hockey wizardry, juggling a puck or exhaling billows of smoke. Pictures showed the boys arriving in new cities surrounded by label-plastered baggage, or talking to a female skating star at the Berlin Sportsplatz.
"With scintillating help from goalies Duke Scodellaro and Buck Buchanan, the Smoke Eaters scored a total of 21 shutout victories. The team's short checker-board passing attack enabled them to pile up a total of 301 goals while opposing teams nicked them for only 61.

"The champions appeared in nine countries, blazing a meteoric hockey trail that saw them score an average of 5.5 goals per game. The average score against them was 1.1. These figures include all games played in Europe, as well as the exhibition and world's championship games in Switzerland. From the time the Allan Cup Champions left Trail until their return with the world's title, they played a total of 71 games, won 62, lost seven and tied two. They scored a total of 374 goals and were scored against just 107 times."

source: www.TrailSmokeeaters.com