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When Penticton ruled the world

PENTICTON, Canada – It?s not just the IIHF that?s celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2008. The small British Columbia city of Penticton was founded in 1908, and it enjoys a great hockey legacy.

 The biggest moment in civic history occurred on March 6, 1955. That afternoon in Krefeld, West Germany, the Penticton Vees, representing Canada as the defending Allan Cup senior hockey champions, defeated the Soviet Union 5-0 and won the IIHF World Championship. Bill Warwick led the way with two goals for this memorably physical squad, and Ivan McLelland earned the shutout.

 Wander through Penticton?s 1951-built, soon-to-be-supplanted Memorial Arena, and the community?s passionate approach toward the Canada-Russia Rivalry can?t help but impress you. All around the wooden-floored concourse, British Columbia Hockey Hall of Fame (BCHHF) exhibits and other other paraphernalia are displayed.

 Here?s a montage of black-and-white photos with the 1955 victory parade on Main Street. Here?s a shot of Penticton-trained referee Lloyd Gilmour overseeing the 1976 Philadelphia Flyers? 4-1 exhibition win over Central Army. What?s this? Oh, a well-worn bubble hockey game, naturally pitting Canada versus Russia. And here?s a photo of McLelland with Canada?s 2006 World Junior goalie, Justin Pogge, a Penticton native who also beat Russia 5-0 for gold.

 As a Vees ambassador, McLelland is as much a part of Penticton?s fabric and history as the Tuscany-like wineries and orchards that carpet the hills surrounding Okanagan Lake, the old S.S. Sicamous passenger boat, or the abandoned Kettle Valley Railway trail where mountain bikers snake their way through city and wilderness alike. (See tourismpenticton.com or hellobc.com for more information about visiting Penticton.)

 On July 24, the night before this year?s BCHHF inductions, IIHF.com caught up with the talkative local legend at an outdoor reception.

IIHF.com: When you look back at 1955, what stands out?

Ivan McLelland: There are so many things. One of them is that we were not favoured. We were not supposed to win. Russia was considered the new world power. But as it turned out, we were able to handle them fairly easily.

IIHF.com: What was the atmosphere like in Germany?

McLelland: It was a tremendously political climate. At that time, Russia controlled most of Eastern

Europe. In the eyes of many, they were hard taskmasters, and very much disliked throughout Europe. They had won the Worlds the previous year by beating Canada 7-2, and they had told the whole world about it all winter long and the next year. They?d also said they were planning to beat the team coming over in 1955. They were actually boasting about their win, and they were now the new champions of the world. The way most of the press in Canada and Europe saw it was, how could a little team from a town of 10,000 at that time go up against a country of 200 million who had all their best players there? How could it possibly work? We were all amateurs, too; we weren?t professionals. A lot of people thought we weren?t suitable to be there.

IIHF.com: But you still ended up beating Russia 5-0 in the big game.

McLelland: We ended up winning eight straight games, and we allowed only six goals in eight games. I was talking to Hockey Canada?s Bob Nicholson about this recently, and he said that while he?s not sure, he thinks that still stands as a record. We came away with a goals-against-average of 0.75 for eight games. We had four shutouts in eight games. We had an outstanding tournament.

IIHF.com: There?s an old interview with Grant Warwick posted in Memorial Arena, it sounds like the keys for Canada to beat the Russians back then were very similar to what they are today: going after them on the forecheck, taking away the stretch pass, not giving them room to dance with the puck.

McLelland: I?ll tell you what happened in that game. They?d won seven and we?d won seven and everything was coming to a head that Sunday afternoon in Krefeld. In the first 10 or 12 minutes of that game, we were pretty tentative, a little tight. Not our usual sel