A Look At Pete Langelle
Winnipeg's Pete Langelle scored the game winning goal to give the Toronto Maple Leafs the 1942 Stanley Cup.
Pete Langelle was born as Peter Landiak on November 4th, 1917 in Winnipeg. Growing up in East Kildonan, Pete spent most of his childhood with his brother Bill playing hockey out on the Red River.
He attended Polson School on Winterton Avenue and despite the passing of his father early in life, he completed his Grade 11.
While playing junior hockey, Pete was placed at centre on a line with two French-Canadian wingers -- Paul Rheault and Lucien Martel. Pete was convinced to change his name so that it sounded more French-Canadian, so it was altered to Langelle. He hoped to end the discrimination that he and other Ukrainians felt at the time. When he did so well in junior, scouts and hockey writers knew him as "Pete Langelle", so he used that name from then on. But he was always proud of his Ukrainian heritage.
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