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Sunday, September 24, 2023
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P10729 - Fogolar Furlan Club women’s Bocciofila team, once played outdoors, the games are now enjoyed in the Udine Complex. Courtesy Fogolar Furlan
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P10731 - Fogolar Furlan boy’s soccer team. Courtesy of Fogolar Furlan
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| (Source: Walter Temelini,
Sports and Ethnicity, Polyphony, Vol.7, No.1)
Sports do not merely reflect or enhance the manliness of the individual,
the sturdiness of a group or race, or the role of a nation; they
are activities that can encourage understanding among all human beings
and nations.
Prior to the 1920s, sports activities
in Windsor (at least according to the records) were mainly the
domain of the Anglo-Saxons, the Sons of England and the Sons of
Scotland. Prior to the athletic association and curling, card playing
(euchre)
seemed to be the most popular pastime. By the end of World War
I, lawn bowling, basketball, soccer, and later golf, and rifle
shooting
clubs were initiated in the city.
It was soccer, however, that soon became the most attractive collective
sport among the British and other ethnic groups. Change came in the
1930s. Several ethnocultural clubs had been formed in the late l920s
including the Caboto Club, the first Italian club in the city.
The Caboto team, defined in 1954, as the “stylish Italian eleven,” won
the Ontario Cup in 1961. By the mid-1970s, Windsor had
a soccer team which included international stars in the National
Soccer League. In 1980, the AC Roma under sixteen
all-star soccer team won the gold medal at the southwestern Ontario
regional games tournament.
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P10788
- Bocce Champs, Caboto Club. Courtesy of the Caboto Club
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P10805 - Windsor’s first indoor bocce
courts at the Caboto Club, September 19th, 1972. From left: Ron
Moro, club manager, Domenic Cantagallo, president, and Sergio
Schincariol, building committee chairman.
Courtesy of the Windsor
Star |
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The AC Roma, though bearing an Italian name, was truly an international
team, reflecting the multicultural and multiethnic composition
of the community. The president, Pat Marrocco, was of Italian background;
the coach, Gus Moffat, was of Scottish origin. Two Italians, Mike
Gatti and Bruno Capitanio, were part of the Teutonia Team. |
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P10657 - Sterling Construction soccer team. Courtesy of Richard Merlo
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As early as 1936, a Windsor Daily Star article reported, “Italians
scored their |
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| seventh Border Cities
International Baseball League win of the season.” In 1947, the
Caboto created the first bowling team, followed a few years later by
the Caboto Italian Women’s Club bowling league and bocce team.
By the 1960s, and through 1970s and 1980s, the sport activities of
Italians continued to expand: hunting,
fishing, bocce, tug-of-war, hockey (Fogolar was champion of the Civic
League), floor hockey, shuffle-board, golf.
Several ethnocultural communities expanded their sporting facilities
in the 1980s. The most ambitious project being the Ciociaro Club
sports complex, consisting of three tennis courts, a basketball and
a volleyball court, a miniature golf course, 5 baseball diamonds,
2 soccer fields, 12 bocce courts, a trap-shooting range, a children’s
playground, and a bicycle track.
Individuals of Italian background have, through the decades, participated
in various sports and gained provincial, national and international
recognition. They are listed among those most likely to be placed
in the proposed Windsor Sports Hall of Fame: |
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| 1. |
Reno Bertoia played in 612 major league baseball
games. |
| 2. |
Hank Biasutti, basketball and baseball stand-out who played
with the Toronto Huskies of the NBA in 1946-47, and the Philadelphia
A’s of the American League in 1949. |
| 3. |
Tony Chibi of Leamington won three Canadian bowling titles in
four years — Calgary, 1960; Montreal, 1961; Vancouver, 1963.
(Windsor Star, July 20th,1982). |
| 4. |
Gino Fracas - twice college scoring champion at the University
of Western Ontario - played with the Edmonton Eskimos from 1955-62.
(Windsor This Month, June 1980) |
| 5. |
Siro (Sedo) Martinello, founder and president of the Minor Hockey
Association and Windsor Arena manager. |
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| Italian participation and success in a
variety of athletic activities and sports, initially foreign to them,
are the
true index of their rapid growth as ethnocultural communities, of their
continuous interaction and of their integration within the larger multicultural
Canadian society. |
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The
opinions and interpretations in this publication are those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of the Government of Canada. |
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