In 1942 the Second World War brought hockey to a standstill in the Kootenays, and there would be no BCAHA-sanctioned competition for nearly three years. At 12:01 a.m. on May 8, 1945, Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) was declared, and three months later Imperial Japan surrendered to the Allied forces. For six long years Canadians had been preoccupied with the conflict, and hockey was used primarily as a vehicle to promote recreation and keep domestic morale high. But by the fall of 1945 the troops were coming home to help rebuild the country, and hockey in Trail was returning to normal.
Along with the losses - Trail Smoke Eaters World Champion Buck Buchanan (Trail Smoke Eaters 1937 - 1940) and Sammy Saprunoff (Trail Smoke Eaters 1940 - 1942) were killed in action. There were some inspiring homecomings for members of the Smoke Eaters' extended family. Perhaps the most amazing was by Sammy's brother Steve Saprunoff.

    "I had been the club's mascot and stick boy for a couple of years before they won the Allan Cup and went on to win the world championship," Saprunoff recalled in a 1997 interview. "I looked up to those guys and they all treated me really well. At the end of the season one of my favorite players, Mickey Brennen , gave me his sweater - number 5 - and it became my most prized possession. I wore it everywhere.
"I enlisted in the Air Force a few years later and in 1944, on my crew's eighteenth bombing mission over Berlin, we got shot down. As usual I was wearing my Smoke Eaters sweater underneeth my flight jacket that day. I was on the run for a couple of days until the Germans caught me, and then I was taken to a little holding cell in a compound with thirty or forty other POWs. I was scared, because by that time the Germans were losing the war and they didn't exactly have a lot of sympathy for the guys who were bombing their country.
"Anyways, for the first couple of days in that cell I wasn't given anything to eat. I also had a couple of broken ribs, so I was in pretty bad shape. Then on the third or forth day this old guard comes to the cell and tells me to take off my jacket. When he saw that Smoke Eaters sweater he got all excited and started going on and on in German about how he'd seen Trail play in Berlin in 1938 and how he was a big hockey fan and loved the Canadian players, that sort of thing. He even mentioned Jimmy Morris, who was one of his favorite players. You can't imagine how shocked I was to hear this old guy going on and on about the Trail Smoke Eaters!
"Later that same day he came back to my cell with a package of bread and sausage. He actually smuggled it in for me. It was the first food I'd had in days, so I was very grateful for that. The same thing happened the next day and the day after that. He'd come to my cell all smiles and talking about the Smoke Eaters, and then he'd give me a little bundle of food.
"Well, let me tell you, that was really something, I couldn't believe it ... and it was all because of Mickey Brennen's hockey sweater! After four or five days the Germans moved the whole gang of us by train to a camp outside Berlin, but before we left my old guard came in one last time and gave me some apples and sausage and bread to tuck under my hockey sweater. On the train I saw some of the guys from my own unit and they were really starving. When I took 'em aside and pulled out the food, they just about fainted.
"The whole thing was because of the sweater. I never saw that guard again, but to this day I remember his face and how he smiled when he saw the Smoke Eaters crest. We were liberated on VE Day, and when I got back to Trail I still had the sweater. I wore it until it was falling apart, then I cut the crest off and gave it to Jimmy Morris. I think my old guard would have liked that ..."

 
Excerpt from the book "Trail on Ice"
by Murray Greig