| The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Flyers began training to represent Canada at the 1948 Winter Olympics in October of 1947. However just 10 days before sailing for Europe on January 8, 1947 George Mara and Wally Halder of the Barker's Hockey Club in Toronto were added to the team, and the two were key contributor's to Canada's gold medal victory.
Halder scored the go-ahead goal in Canada's 3-1 win over Sweden to open the Olympics and went on to collect 21 goals and eight assists in eight games as the RCAF Flyers went 7-0-1 through the round robin tournament. He had five goals in a 21-1 rout of Italy and five more in a 12-3 romp over the United States. Halder later scored the opening goal in a 3-0 win over host Switzerland that clinched the gold medal. Only a scoreless tie with Czechoslovakia blemished Canada's otherwise perfect record at the Olympics. The Czechs were also 7-0-1, but Canada claimed the gold medal thanks to a better goal average of 69 for and only five against to Czechoslovakia's 80 and 18. |
