“Credit must be given to England,” Albert Pudas wrote, even if, well, Canada had more of the puck, handled it in a wilier way, skated faster, more efficiently, looked better, and generally — let’s be honest — deserved to win.

It was on a Tuesday of this very date in 1936 that disaster befell Canadian hockey, which is to say Canada, i.e. every one of us was diminished that day, 85 years ago, whether we know it or not, despite our (many of us) not having been born at the time. That was the day that for the first time ever, Canada lost an Olympic hockey game, falling 2-1 to the upstart team from (of all places) Great Britain at the 1936 wintry games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Chirp Brenchley scored the winner, late in the game, beating Canadian goaltender Dinty Moore. In the British net, Jimmy Foster contributed just the right amount of heroics to ensure the victory.

The world didn’t end, as it turned out, but Canada did end up having to settle for silver when the Olympic tournament reached its dismal end, with the British taking the gold.

Pudas, the Canadian coach, was filing dispatches from Germany to newspapers at home. His terse review of his team’s defeat at British hands reflected the general Canadian view: it wasn’t so much a loss as a non-win, and really ought to have counted in Canada’s favour, by almost every measure, other than the one used to determine the outcome of competitive team sports.

“The Canadians had easily 80 per cent of the play,” he explained. “The English, although fast-skating, cannot be considered the equal of the Canucks, but because goals win games we are forced to swallow the bitter pill.”