Canadian soldiers cheer on Oilers while racking up assists in Ukraine
In a tent pitched at a former Soviet military base on the far western edge of Ukraine sit a small group of Canadian hockey fans.
It’s just before 6 a.m. Thursday. Outside, the sun is breaking through the tops of the trees surrounding the International Peacekeeping and Security Centre at Starychi, about 40 kilometres from the city of Lviv and around the same distance from Ukraine’s border with Poland in the west. The air is brisk.
Much like the playoff series between the Edmonton Oilers and Anaheim Ducks, the weather in this part of the world is unpredictable.
Inside the tent on the far end of the drab, military-green structure, mounted to a plywood wall, is a matte projection screen showing the Oilers in their Game 7 playoff tilt against the Anaheim Ducks.
Even though the 10 soldiers are from the Edmonton-based 3rd Canadian Division, not everyone in the tent is supporting the Oilers.
Capt. Mike Timms is ... Well, sort of.
“I’m a Canucks fan first,” an Oilers-jersey-wearing Timms admits over the phone from Ukraine during the first period break.
He is a B.C. boy after all, who moved to Edmonton when he was a teenager.
For him, it’s been 15 years of “going between the two whenever it’s convenient.”
“There’s hockey fans from all across Canada here,” he said.
“Some are disappointed their teams haven’t quite made it this far yet.”
He can now be added to that list after the Oilers were dumped out of the playoffs with a 2-1 loss against the Ducks on Wednesday night in Anaheim.
Almost halfway through a sixmonth deployment of Operation Unifier, Canada’s commitment to help train Ukrainian armed forces in the face of Russian aggression in the west, Timms, a veteran of Afghanistan, says being able to watch hockey back home is a nice treat.
“We’ve been on different missions where you don’t necessarily have the luxury of watching the hockey or things like that,” he said.
“It definitely makes things a lot more civilized and makes you feel a lot more comfortable and connected.”
If he was home he’d probably watch the game with his family, or maybe, at this stage of the series, he’s be at a bar watching it with some friends.
Instead, he is in Ukraine with around 200 Canadian personnel at a base that two years ago became a military training centre aimed at helping to modernize and upgrade the skills of Ukrainian soldiers battling Moscowbacked separatists in the far east of the country in the Donbass region.
As of April this year, they’d helped train more than 3,400 Ukrainian soldiers.
It’s a mission that is now scheduled to last until May 2019.
When asked if hockey makes him homesick, Timms said: “We are very lucky to be living in the digital age and be on the type of training mission where we can call home frequently.”
He added what he really misses is family.
As for the loss: Well, it’s just hockey.