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The backyard rink at the Woodcroft home on Cheritan Ave. in north Toronto was one busy locale back in the day.

To mark The Catholic Register’s 125th year, we are digging into our archive to re-publish interesting stories from the pages of our past. As the 2018 Winter Olympics prepares to open Feb. 9 in Pyeongchang, South Korea, we look back at Canada’s hockey entry in the 1964 Games at Innsbruck, a team built and coached by Fr. David Bauer. A controversial scoring system meant Canada finished fourth and out of the medals despite a 5-2 record, but the team’s showing inspired words of comfort from columnist Fr. Tom Raby in The Register, in the Feb. 22, 1964 issue:


COQUITLAM, B.C. – Eleven years ago, a very ill young father received the Christmas gift of a lifetime.
As more people begin to congregate in digital public squares, the Church’s shepherds are looking for more ways to tend to their flock online. Luckily, there is an app for that — actually, many apps.

As The Catholic Register marks its 125th year, we will dig into our archive to unearth interesting stories from the pages of the past. This week, we revisit St. André Bessette, the humble Holy Cross brother who was the prime mover in the building of St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal and is credited with countless healings through his devotion to St. Joseph. He died on Jan. 6, 1937 (his feast day is Jan. 7) at the age of 91 and was made a saint in 2010. The following article appeared in The Catholic Register on Aug. 25, 1927, shortly after Br. André turned 83 years old.

It does not get more Canadian, or Catholic, than a hockey team made up of priests. Throw in a good comeback story and you have the makings of a Canadian classic.

OTTAWA – Children participating in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program across Canada are taught to use all their senses in order to enter deeply into the Christmas story.

Homegrown Canadian Christmas carols go way beyond SCTV’s Bob and Doug McKenzie’s interpretation of “The 12 Days of Christmas,” the Rovers’ “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” and, for some of a certain vintage, the novelty song “Honky the Christmas Goose” sung by Toronto Maple Leafs legend Johnny Bower.

Francesco Ferrigno sums up his first winter in Canada in two words: Cold and lonely.
Br. Philip Adamo has a very clear memory of the first Christmas of his life as a Franciscan. He was a late vocation when he entered the Order of Friars Minor novitiate in Wappingers Falls, N.Y., at the advanced age of 27 in 1957. He had simply never imagined anything like the life he encountered among 60 young men discerning a vocation.