Canada's 1948 Olympic hockey was given poor odds to recapture gold in the first Olympics after a 12-year gap caused by the Second World War, but they proved the pundits wrong.

They left without fanfare and came back to a modest reception compared with what awaits Canadian hockey champions these days.

They weren't the most impressive hockey players, either, but their stats were more meaningful than goals and assists — one escaped POW, one Distinguished Flying Cross, one Military Cross and several more distinguished military turns.

Feb. 8 marks the 60th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air Force Flyers winning the Olympic gold medal at St. Moritz, Switzerland. It was an unexpected men's hockey triumph, and the next-to-last in the Olympics for Canada until a five-decade drought ended in 2002.

The Flyers are the subject of a recent book, Gold Medal Misfits, by long-time Sun Media columnist Pat MacAdam.

"They have been ignored and unrecognized for 60 years," MacAdam said.

Olympic Hall beckons

It was announced two weeks ago that the team will be inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in the spring. The surviving players are Murray Dowey, Roy Forbes, Andy Gilpin, Ted Hibberd, Andre Laperrière, Pete Leichnitz and Albert (Ab) Renaud.

"I've been talking to all of them since that announcement, and they're all eager to go," Renaud told CBCSports.ca. "We're spread around the country, but we still keep in touch."

Unlike in other Olympic years, the Flyers were unique because they were not an Allan Cup or senior league champion or a team that had played together for months and years. They were thrown together mere weeks before the Games began.

It all started when the Allan Cup champion Montreal Royals, which team included future Hall of Famer Doug Harvey, opted not to go the Olympics. The reason was related to a problem that would plague the Olympic hockey movement for the next half-century, namely, the blurry line between who was an amateur and who was a professional player.

Sandy Watson, a senior medical officer with the RCAF, decided to act. Watson got approval for a military team from the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association and Defence Minister Brooke Claxton, just two days before the International Ice Hockey Federation's Olympic entry deadline.

Coach Frank Boucher was secured, the nephew of his namesake who won seven Lady Byng Awards in the NHL with the New York Rangers.

Watson and Boucher had a good knowledge of players from the European military leagues during the Second World War, many of whom had risked their lives in bombing missions and combat.

Unfortunately, the best RCAF line of all-time was not eligible — Milt Schmidt, Bobby Bauer and Woody Dumart, who played during the war, were also NHL veterans.

Just 'a bunch of fellas'

Only eight players were retained from initial tryouts after the team was drubbed in December 1947 exhibitions by the McGill University Redmen and an Ottawa army team.

Renaud, who had played in the Ottawa Senior League, was working in the public service. His deputy minister informed him he was wanted to help save the fledgling team. He had previously served in the Medical Corps in the army during the Second World War.

"We were a bunch of fellas put together," Renaud said. "The original team didn't fare too well. Luckily, I was one of the 'recruits,' so to speak."

Canada's top line of Ab Renaud, Ted Hibberd, and Reg Schroeter (left to right) pose in this February 1948 picture from the fifth Winter Olympic Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland. The Canadian team went on to win the gold medal. (Photo by FPG/Getty Images)

Goalie Dowey was a replacement called just before the team left for overseas, and he needed permission for an absence from his job at the Toronto Transit Commission, the green light coming from TTC commissioner and soon-to-be mayor Allan Lamport.

Even with the reinforcements, the team was given poor odds to recapture gold in the first Olympics after a 12-year gap caused by the Second World War. Canada had lost in 1936 to a British team comprising players who learned the game in the Great White North.

The 17 players and coaching staff departed from a modest sendoff at Union Station in Toronto for New York, where they boarded the Queen Elizabeth for the long transatlantic trip.

The Flyers sang for their supper, taking part in a series of exhibitions across Europe to raise money to eat, train and stay in modest accommodations. Playing on patchy outdoor rinks with inconsistent officiating, Boucher wasn't always going to let his team play fire-wagon hockey, sending just one forechecker much of the time.

"I think that today they call my strategy 'the trap,' " he joked to MacAdam.

In the Olympics, Canada and Czechoslovakia played to a 0-0 tie near the end of the tournament, the only blemish for both countries in eight games. There was no playoff to settle matters back then; Dowey's five shutouts helped Canada to a greater goal differential than the Czechs and the gold medal as a result.

One of the team's most vociferous supporters in St. Moritz was the other Canadian gold medal winner in 1948, Barbara Ann Scott, figure-skater and daughter of an army colonel.

Fanfare, recognition delayed

The Olympic media machine was not in existence then. A single Canadian Press reporter travelled to Switzerland, and contemporary newspaper accounts of the hockey victory were about five or six paragraphs in length.

Prime Minister Mackenzie King congratulated the team on its "splendid achievement" in a telegram. While Canadians did come out to greet them on their trip from Union Station to Beaver Barracks in Ottawa, it was nothing like the rapture in 2002.

"As the years moved on, we got more recognition," Renaud said.

MacAdam got wind of the story when he paid a visit to an ophthalmalogist — Sandy Watson. Time was of the essence; five players, as well as Boucher and Watson, died before the book was completed.

Canada's men's gold medal win in 2002 also spurred the author on, in a roundabout way.

"I'm sitting here during the Salt Lake City Olympics watching, and all I hear is [1952 gold winners] Edmonton Mercurys," MacAdam said.

Linked by their leadership of the unique 1948 team, Taylor and Boucher died mere weeks apart in 2003.

Renaud returned to working in the public service and playing senior hockey before retiring.

The 1948 RCAF Flyers will be inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in Calgary on April 12.