Hockey Night in Kandahar

If the Stanley Cup is headed to Edmonton for a victory parade this week, could one of the storied trophy's next stops be 10,500 kilometres away in this baking dust bowl in the Afghan desert?

The universal wish of the Edmonton-based Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry battle group is that their Oilers win Lord Stanley of Preston's silver chalice when they play Game 7 against the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh, N.C., tonight. If the Oilers are victorious, the troops are optimistic the team will add another chapter to the Cup's colourful 113-year history by bringing it - and a few of their favourite players - to their heavily defended base on the outskirts of Kandahar.

"It would be huge to have the Cup here," said Sgt. Mark Pharoah, who normally works at the garrison in Edmonton. "It would be darn good for morale."

During the Oilers' 4-0 triumph in Game 6 of the final - shown here live before dawn yesterday - Pharoah said, the cheering was so loud from fans watching in Canada House that "there wasn't a sleeping soldier in the entire Canadian tent lines."

And why not despatch the Stanley Cup to Afghanistan? After all, the venerable trophy has been thrown on to the frozen Rideau Canal in Ottawa and into the swimming pools of Mario Lemieux and Patrick Roy, has visited a strip club with Mark Messier, spent time in an igloo in the High Arctic and been to the White House to meet three U.S. presidents. It has even been to Moscow's Red Square several times, and only two months ago it was returned to its original home in England, where it was hoisted by Lord Stanley's great-great grandson, the 19th earl of Derby.

"It should come to Kandahar because there are no bigger hockey fans in the world than there are here," said Tammy Howard, who works as a civilian cashier for the Canadian Forces Personnel Support Agency.

Bombardier Bill Hill, a 26-year-old reservist from the Kenora, Ont.-based 116th Independent Field Battery, not only wants the Cup to come to Kandahar, he wants it to be escorted here by Chris Pronger, the Oilers towering defenceman who is from Hill's hometown, Dryden, Ont. He also wants the NHLers to play a ball-hockey tournament with some of the troops.

"With so many of the guys being from Edmonton, the Oilers have tons of support here," Hill said. "But we are all cheering for the Oilers because they are a Canadian team."

The NHL already has an Afghan connection. Former Toronto Maple Leaf and Vancouver Canuck Tiger Williams visited the old Canadian base in Kabul two years ago, and Canadiens great Guy Lafleur played ball hockey at Canada's Provincial Reconstruction base in Kandahar last year.

Thinking about hockey in a windblown moonscape where daytime temperatures can touch 50 degrees Celsius is not so easy. One of the difficulties is that the games from North America are usually shown before breakfast. Another complication is that many of the front-line warriors are in the middle of spearheading the biggest coalition offensive against the Taliban since it was ousted from power not long after terrorists attacked the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in September 2001.

Game 7 of the Stanley Cup series will be telecast live in Afghanistan at Canada House tomorrow morning at 4:30 local time (it's on at 8 p.m. tonight in Montreal).

But Canada House, which is a relatively small, tube-shaped army tent with some flags and hockey memorabilia on the walls, can accommodate only about 100 soldiers at a time. Officials were looking for a way more of the 2,200 troops deployed here could catch the game.

With the base being dry, the beverage of choice for watching hockey is bottled water.

Back in Edmonton, though, those who chose to worship their beloved team with alcohol and rowdy behaviour on the Alberta capital's trendy Whyte Ave. kept police busy.

Officers arrested 394 of the more than 30,000 triumphant fans who congregated in the area Saturday night, high-fiving and chanting "We want the Cup!"

Most of the arrests were for liquor-related offences. Of those, only six people were charged - for assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, mischief under $5,000 and outstanding warrants.

Edmonton police have launched an internal investigation into one altercation, where an officer slapped a handcuffed woman in the head, then threw her to the ground, leaving her bloodied.

Edmonton Journal photographer Jimmy Jeong witnessed the incident. The woman was among a group of people who were arrested then shipped off to spend the night in jail.

A police officer came to walk the woman to the bus. Her hands were secured behind her back with plastic cuffs.

At one point the woman turned to say something to the officer. The officer then cranked his arm to strike, Jeong says.

"It seemed unprovoked," Jeong says. "She was in handcuffs. There was no way she was doing anything."

" Actually the Canadian "military" doesn't feature prominently in history books outside of Canada, eh? "

HEADQUARTERS
EIGHTH UNITED STATES ARMY ( KOREA )
Office of the Commanding General

APO 301

GENERAL ORDER
number 453
23rd June 1951

Section 1

AWARD OF DISTINGUISHED UNIT CITATION

BATTLE HONOURS – By direction of the President, under the provisions of Executive Order 9396 (Sec I, WD Bul. 22, 1943) Superseding Executive Order 9075 (Sec III, WD Bul. 16, 1942) and pursuant to authority in AR 260-15, the following units are cited as public evidence of deserved honour and distinction.

3RD BATTALION, ROYAL AUSTRALIAN REGIMENT

2ND BATTALION, PRINCESS PATRICIA'S CANADIAN LIGHT INFANTRY COMPANY A

72ND HEAVY TANK BATTALION (UNITED STATES)

are cited for extraordinary heroism and outstanding performance of combat duties in action against the armed enemy near Kapyong, Korea, on the 24 and 25 April 1951. The enemy had broken through the main line of resistance and penetrated to the area north of Kapyong. The units listed above were deployed to stem the assault. The 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, moved to the right flank of the sector and took up defensive positions north of the Pukham River. The 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, defended in the vicinity of Hill 677 on the left flank. Company A, 72nd Heavy Tank Battalion, supported all units to the full extent of its capacity and, in addition, kept the main roads open and assisted in evacuating the wounded. Troops from a retreating division passed through the sector which enabled enemy troops to infiltrate with the withdrawing forces. The enemy attacked savagely under the clangor of bugles and trumpets. The forward elements were completely surrounded going through the first day and into the second. Again and again the enemy threw waves of troops at the gallant defenders, and many times succeeded in penetrating the outer defences, but each time the courageous, indomitable, and determined soldiers repulsed the fanatical attacks. Ammunition ran low and there was no time for food. Critical supplies were dropped by air to the encircled troops, and they stood their ground in resolute defiance of the enemy. With serene and indefatigable persistence, the gallant soldiers held their defensive positions and took heavy tolls of the enemy. In some instances when the enemy penetrated the defences, the commanders directed friendly artillery fire on their own positions in repelling the thrusts. Toward the close of 25 April, the enemy break-through had been stopped. The seriousness of the break-through on the central front had been changed from defeat to victory by the gallant stand of these heroic and courageous soldiers. The 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment; 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry; and Company A, 72nd Heavy Tank Battalion, displayed such gallantry, determination, and espirit de corps in accomplishing their missions under extremely difficult and hazardous conditions as to set them apart and above other units participating in the campaign, and by their achievements they brought distinguished credit on themselves, their homelands, and all freedom-loving nations

BY COMMAND OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL VAN FLEET:

Leven C. Allen
Major General US Army
Chief of Staff

Source

"But man oh man, who in their right mind would name an infantry division
"Princess" anything? "

Yeah, it doesn't sound right to our ears here south of the border. Especially
when we've grown up hearing about "Screamin' Eagles", "Thunderbirds"
and the like.

But I'd be careful of saying anything about The Patricias.

And be well over 1.5 miles away, if you must say something other than
"those guys are d-mned good shots!".

OK, this is from Wikipedia, but a good condensate:

"In March 2002 during Operation Anaconda, a five-man sniper team from
the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry set two new world records
for farthest combat kill with a rifle. First, Master Cpl. Arron Perry broke
the old record by hitting an al-Qaeda forward observer from a distance
of 2,310 metres (over 1.43 miles). Days later, Perry's sniper teammate
Cpl. Rob Furlong set the current world record by firing a shot from a .50
cal McMillan Tac-50 sniper rifle that killed an al-Qaeda soldier at an
estimated distance of 2,430 metres (over 1.5 miles).[1] Both shots surpassed
the long-standing previous world record of 2,250 metres (over 1.39 miles)
set by U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Carlos Hathcock during the Vietnam War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Patricia%E2%80%99s_Canadian_Light_Infantry

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