Gerwing, Ray

BORN IN 1939 AT LAKE LENORE in Saskatchewan, Canada, he learned to skate at the age of two on a frozen pond near his hometown of Saskatoon. Beginning hockey at seven, he won a hockey scholarship, played A-grade for the University of Saskatchewan and semi-professionally to help with fees. In 1965 he married an Australian girl named Cynthia Plymin and moved to Melbourne where their two children, Rebecca and Stephen, were born. He played baseball for the Essendon baseball club and, after retiring as a player, he worked as an umpire.

In the 1970s, the Monarchs of the Victorian league had more expats than local players. A 1970 newspaper article noted the boost ex-patriate Canadians were giving to hockey in Australia, citing his contributions. He credited Australians’ affinity for sports for their ability to adapt to hockey. He played A-grade with the Monarchs and Pirates for thirteen years and won Goodall Cups with Victoria in 1968 and 1972. He led the state in scoring in 1968, the year after the Monarch's Rod Joslin, and was Captain of Victoria in 1972. An intermediate-B player in Canada, Gerwing was a standout here and represented Australia against West Germany at Iceland Ringwood on June 9th 1977, losing 15-1.

"In Australia, many Monarchs players didn’t see skates or ice until they were into their teens," Gerwing said. "The other thing is that you don’t get enough ice time here. During the season we’ve been getting 45 minutes' practice a week. In Canada, we’d fit in a couple of hours a day." He was Nite Owls goalie in the 1980s working as a regional training and development manager at Hewlett Packard. Raymond Joseph (Raymy) Gerwing died in Melbourne on May 6th 2014.