Gerry Penner, one of the last surviving members of the Trail Smoke Eaters team that won the World Hockey Championship for Canada in 1961, has died at 89.
A standout left-winger, Penner played a year of junior hockey in Medicine Hat before becoming a mainstay of the senior Smoke Eaters in the WIHL from 1954 to 1967, scoring a minimum of 181 goals and 234 assists (his stats are unavailable for a couple of seasons).
“I could skate. I was the fastest player in the league,” he recalled in the documentary Trophy Town.
He also played 10 games professionally in the WHL for Seattle and New Westminster. But he is best remembered as a key cog of the 1961 team that overcame domestic naysayers and a powerful Soviet team to claim victory.
“When we landed in Russia, we had all the spotlights on us,” he said of the barnstorming tour that led up to the tournament in Geneva. “You’d go to the hotel and you’d think somebody’s watching you.”
At the tournament, Trail needed to beat the Soviets by at least four goals in their final match to clinch victory on a tiebreaker.
“It was a very fast game,” Penner said in the documentary. “Seemed once we got up on the Russians, the game got easier.”
With two minutes left, and the residents of Trail holding their collective breath, Norm Lenardon scored a goal for the ages.
“I remember [goaltender] Seth [Martin] throwing his stick up in the air and everybody throwing their gloves off,” Penner said. “It was a big moment.”
According to his obituary, Penner was born in Hague, Sask. on June 20, 1934 to Ben and Mary Penner and moved to Trail in 1942 where he “discovered his love of hockey, fishing, and the outdoors.”
He held down multiple jobs at once and was variously a firefighter at Cominco, ambulance attendant, member of the Red Mountain ski patrol, roofer, and carpet cleaner rep.
Penner is survived by his wife Marianne, whom he married in 1956, as well as four children, 19 grandchildren, and 15 great-grandchildren.
Penner died Oct. 19. A service commemorating his life will be held Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. at Holy Trinity Catholic Church on Third Avenue in Trail and will be livestreamed at https://fweb.tv/110871.
Penner’s passing comes just a few months after Lenardon, and leaves just three members of the ’61 team: Ed Cristofoli, Mike Legace, and Dave Rusnell. Six others have died since 2019 in addition to Penner and Lenardon.
