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'Toots' Meretsky and the Windsor Ford V-8s

Broadcast Date: May 19, 2006

Only one Canadian basketball team has ever won a medal at the Olympics. Irving (Toots) Meretsky was a player on that team: the Windsor Ford V-8s. The squad earned a silver medal at the 1936 Games in Berlin, losing to the U.S. in the final. In this 2006 CBC-TV report, Meretsky is shown in 1999 reflecting on the playing conditions at the Games, 63 years later. "The basketball games were played on the outside on something like a tennis court. And on a bright day it was perfect but if you had a little rain it was very bad to dribble. The ball would hit the water and stop dead," he says.

'Toots' Meretsky and the Windsor Ford V-8s

• Meretsky was born April 27, 1912 in Windsor, Ont. He played basketball at Assumption College in Windsor and was a member of the Five Fighting Freshman team that won a Michigan-Ontario title and an Ontario senior title. After the Olympics, he moved to B.C. in 1938 and was a player-coach for Port Alberni, leading the team to the finals of the B.C. championships in 1940 and 1941. He returned to Windsor in 1941 to manage the Meretsky Furniture Store.

• He has been inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame and the Windsor/Essex County Sports Hall of Fame.

• Although this clip states that Canada was undefeated at the 1936 Games, a game-by-game rundown in Wikipedia shows that Canada actually lost its first match-up, 24-17 to Brazil. They had to win in the first consolation round in order to return to the main competition. Canada beat Hungary by a forfeit in that consolation round. Canada then defeated Latvia 34-23. In the third round, Canada blasted Switzerland 27-9. In the fourth round, they trounced Uruguay 41-21. The semifinals were next and Canada drubbed Poland 42-15. They then lost to the Americans in the final, 19-8. Mexico beat Poland 26-12 in the bronze medal game.

• The 10 members of the Canadian team, in addition to Meretsky, were Gordon Aitchison, Ian Allison, Art Chapman, Chuck Chapman, Edward Dawson, Doug Peden, James Stewart, Malcolm Wiseman and Stanley Nantais.

• According to a brief biography of Meretsky on sports-reference.com, he didn't receive his Olympic medal for 63 years. He said that only eight medals were available for the Canadians. Reportedly, his family contacted the International Olympic Committee in 1996, on the 60th anniversary of the 1936 Games, and the IOC had a silver medal cast from the original mould.

• When he died in April 2006, one day after his 94th birthday, Meretsky was the last living member of the V-8s team.

'Toots' Meretsky and the Windsor Ford V-8s

Medium: Television

Program: CBC Television News

Broadcast Date: May 19, 2006

Guest(s): Irving Meretsky

Reporter: Cory McCrindle

Duration: 1:45

Last updated:
Nov. 13, 2009