W

ith the Kimberley Dynamiter Hockey Club celebrating their 80th anniversary this season , I would like to start off with a player profile of Rheo Touzin, long time defenseman for the Nitros. Rheo began his hockey journey playing for the Flin Flon Bombers in 1952, before heading to Washington D.C. with his wife Joan, where Rheo suited up for the Washington Lions in the Eastern Pro league during the 1956 57 season.

Rheo came to camp with the Kimberley Dynamiters in the fall of 1962 after playing Senior hockey in Penticton and Ponoka, Alberta.

The very first time I saw Rheo Touzin was my first game at the Kimberley Civic Centre in 1964. The Spokane Jets were in town that Saturday night. John Kenney, a nifty centre ice man for the Jets, was crossing the Dynamiter blueline, when POW, Rheo Touzin laid him out with a thunderous body check.

Kenney crumpled to the ice. After smelling salts were administered, Tom Hodges and Tom Rendall of Spokane carted Kenney off the ice. John Kenney did not play again for a few weeks after Touzins hit. With no helmet on he probably suffered a concussion. The Spokane Jets took exception to that hit and the game turned rough, which is usually the way it goes in hockey.

Tommy Rendall played with local Cranbrook resident Peter Leiman on the Jets during the late 1960s. Rendall was a fantastic centre. Wearing his hockey helmet down over his eyebrows, with a perpetual scowl on his face, Tom always played exciting hockey against the Dynamiters, where he would always seemed to be behind the Dynamiter blueline, usually on the receiving end of a pass from Pete Lei man. Incidentally local hockey coach Colin Patterson who played on the Dynamiters (with Rheo Touzin), played at Michigan Tech with Peter Leiman when they won the N.C.A.A. Hockey Championship in 1964 65.

Rheo always maintained that the Spokane Jets were the toughest team to defend against in the W.I.H.L. Rheo Touzin was a smooth skating defenseman who made an excellent first pass, but his role with the Dynamiters was always a stay at home D-man. The Nitros has Sonny Perkinson, Terry Campeau, and Bill Steenson as rushing defencemen , so somebody had to stay home and Rheo was asked to play that role on the hockey club.

I played in a game with Rheo Touzin in 1969. It was a charity benefit game Frank Sully Sullivan paired up Billy Steenson and Touzin on our defense. Together with Danny Sullivan, our goaltender, the three of them stymied the college - junior team who played us that night. I saw firsthand on the ice how smart a defenceman Rheo Touzin was, and what a smooth skater as well. Rheo got a bit of notoriety during the season of 1964 when he nailed Farmer MacDonald of Spokane with his stick.

In fairness, Touzin was sticking up for a team mate who the Farmer pitch-forked earlier in the game. Farmer MacDonald had the reputation of being the crudest player in the W.I.H.L. probably equaled only by his team mate Tom The Bomb Hodges, a gifted defenceman for the Spokane Jets who was also a stickman. Spears, slashes, fencing, you name it, Tom brought that element to every game that I ever saw him play, like his buddy John Farmer MacDonald.

Rheo Touzin just had enough of Farmer MacDonald that night in Kimberley. I happened to be sitting by the blueline when Farmer took it, a 50 stitch cut. Blood and teeth were everywhere. The Farmer missed three games with his injury. Rheo drew a stiff suspension by the President of the Western International Hockey League, Milo Fabro who was at the game, standing with my dad Tony. Mr Fabro always wore a black topcoat, and always stood behind the net upstairs.

Rheo Touzin was never a dirty hockey player, he played hard, but cleanly, After retiring from Senior Hockey with the Kimberley Dynamiters, Rheo has stayed in Kimberley with wife Joan raising their four children, Kevin (who works for the City of Cranbrook) Jackie Brown of Wycliffe, Trent and their youngest son Barry who is a paramedic here locally with his brother Kevin. Trent lives in Marysville and commutes to Vancouver with his job at Air Canada.

Rheo coached minor hockey in Kimberley for many years and has maintained good health except for a few aches and pains until recently when his ticker began acting up. When you body checked like Touzin did you will always have a few owees later on in life, as it is with most of the old hockey players.

Monsieur Touzin was a trusty foot soldier for the Kimberley Dynamiters Senior Hockey Club in the 1960s. for the record Rheo Touzin was born in St Boniface Manitoba in 1934 , September 27th to be exact. Happy 76th Rheo , you played the game of hockey hard, but fair.