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G-flk\lELLE, Or you I OrvalJRed' Gravelle served his country not with a gun, but on the ice with a stick in his hand. Gravelle, now of Trenton, played on Canada's gold- medal team in the 1948 Olym- pics. He was the youngest player on the podium receiving a medal for hockey in St. Moritz, Switzerland, that year. Gravelle grew up in Aylmer, Quebec, in a family with a long tradition of serving their coun- try. Both his grandfathers were injured in the First World War, and his father was gassed in that conflict and hit with shrapnel in the Second World War. Gravelle's childhood was anything but easy. With a wife, nine children and only a disability pension, Gravelle's father was unable to provide for his family. "There was nobody silver- spooning me. ...At 13 I was out in the workforce." After shovelling snow, field- ing golf balls and caddying, Gravelle scored a gold-mine job. "I went as a pageboy at the Chateau Laurier. I was a freckle-faced kid with fiery red hair and I had a smile for ev- erybody. I would make $3 to $7 a day -- that was big money," Gravelle brags. Every free moment he had, Gravelle played hockey. Be- cause he was just a little gaf- fer, his brothers made him play between the posts. But, his pageboy job almost led to another career that would have put hockey on the back- burner. A dead-ringer for a young Mickey Rooney, Gravelle was asked to try for a part in a biography about the movie star. The picture was never made, and another movie offer -- called "Snow Goose," the life story of Jack Miner, Canada's famous bird- lover and naturalist -- fell through as well. So much for life on the silver screen. Gravelle continued to dream of hockey and of follow- ing in his grandfather's foot- steps. From as early as he can re- member, Gravelle wanted to be a machinist just like his grand- pa. "To go into machinist school I had to have Grade 8." However, the French-edu- cated Gravelle left school in Grade 6 to work. For a year, he spent evenings and weekends sharing hockey time with cor- respondence and night school until he had his Grade 8. When he was accepted at a machine shop, Gravelle quit his lucrative job .at the Cha- « Photo by Don Webb Orval 'Red' Graveile still plays hockey today. teau and started learning right away. During the days he stud- ied, and at night he worked for the shop. Hockey was still in his blood. Whenever he could, Gravelle dug through garbage cans looking for corn syrup la- bels which he collected to send away for hockey books. "The only coaching I had was from school teachers." Listening to hockey com- mentator Foster Hewitt on Saturday nights and French broadcaster Kenny Cavaliere taught Gravelle to love the game. Also, his cousin, Leo Gravelle, played for the Mont- real Canadiens. Gravelle started to dream about being a hockev star. Gravelle's hockey career began in Aylmer, Quebec, be- tween the posts. This 1940 picture shows St. Paul Primary School's hockey team -- with Gravelle front and centre. ,