For Country and For Sport

For Country and For Sport is a collaborative exhibit between the Royal United Services Institute of Regina and the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame representing Saskatchewan athletes who were also members of the Canadian Armed Forces. Military service and sports have been intertwined for many years. During the Second World War, many regiments organized sports for recreation, and they often carried on with their sports overseas. For example, the South Saskatchewan Regiment had sports teams. When the Regiment trained in Weyburn, their boxing shows were the talk of the south and the boxers were the pride of the regiment. Fans from nearby towns also enjoyed watching the regimental hockey team. In addition, Tom “Scotty” Melville, the Regina Leader-Post Sports Editor, was a prisoner of war and wrote Barbed Wire Ballads, a book of poetry.

Edward “Ed” Staniowski, Phyllis Dewar, Tom Settee, Hector “Hec” Jones, Alexander “Alex” Decoteau and David Greyeyes, are represented in the exhibit as a small sampling of the athletes who had careers in the military. Their careers, both in sports and the military, span from 1912 to 2015 and cover soccer, football, boxing, hockey and swimming. They represent a small percentage of those who served their country and made a difference in Saskatchewan sport in the 103 years represented here.

Over the course of those 103 years, these veterans saw multiple conflicts like the First World War, the Second World War and Afghanistan, including specific battles like Passchendaele, Ypres and D-Day. Settee and Dewar saw two different sides of the same war, Settee landed on Juno Beach on D-Day with the Regina Rifle Regiment (now known as the Royal Regina Rifles) and Dewar served with the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service operating in Halifax, Nova Scotia.