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A replica jersey from a 1930s Jewish boys club in Winnipeg evokes fond memories for one of the members of that club
By BERNIE BELLAN In September 2020 I wrote a story about a long-ago Jewish club that went by the name “The Rollickers”. That story was prompted by my reading the minute book of the club, which had been in the hands of Rona Perlov, whose father, Eli Weinberg, was a founding member of the club. (By the way you can read that story on this website. Simply enter the name “The Rollickers” in our search engine.)
While reading that minute book certainly evinced a few laughs – those young guys spent more time debating about who should be punished for violating arcane rules about what constituted unacceptable behavior than anything else, I noted in my story that there was never any reference in the minutes to sports.
I wondered about that. While the YMHA on Albert Street didn’t open until 1936, there have been many stories written about great Jewish athletes from Winnipeg in the early part of the 20th century. Were they organized, I wondered? Did they have clubs?
My questions were partly answered a few weeks ago when I received a call from someone by the name of Murray Atnikov. It turned out that Atnikov was a former Winnipegger, now living in Vancouver, who had a story he wanted to share with me, but which he wanted to tell me in person. He would be coming to Winnipeg in August, he told me, and asked whether we could meet when he got here.
“Sure,” I told him. I was intrigued to find out what his story was.
Subsequently, Atnikov (who I learned, after talking to him on the phone when he called me again) is better known as Dr. Murray Atnikov, an anaesthesiologist who had left Winnipeg many years ago, came over to my house one beautiful summer day, complete with a folder which he didn’t open until we were well into our conversation.
When he was a teen in the 1930s, Atnikov told me, he belonged to a north end Jewish sports club known as “The Demons”. There was only one other surviving member of that club: Nathan Isaacs (née Isaacovitch), now a resident of Toronto (and a longtime subscriber to this paper, I might add.)
There was at least one other Jewish sports club of that era, Atnikov recalled, known as “The Eagles”. Members of both clubs played hockey, softball, and football, and their competition came from non-Jewish clubs in the area. When I asked Atnikov whether any of the boys curled, he said that was something older men did, but interestingly he told me that there was actually a football field located behind what was the Maple Leaf Curling Club on Machray, which was where the Demons and the Eagles played their games.
But why did Atnikov want to see me in person, I wondered? It turns out that in his folder he had some photographs, including one of him and Nathan Isaacs when they both served in the Royal Canadian Air Force, but also one of the two of them wearing replica sweaters emblazoned with the letter “D” for Demons.
As Atnikov explained to me, a son of one of their late colleagues had been going through his father’s belongings after his father had passed away when he came across an original “Demons” sweater from the 1930s.
Knowing that Atnikov and Isaacs were the two surviving members of the Demons, this fellow had the replica sweaters made up and shipped to Atnikov and Isaacs. Recently the two old friends had a chance to visit with one another – thus the photo you at the beginning of this story.
So, where did Murray Atnikov end up after the war, I wondered? As he sat with me on my front step, regaling me with one fascinating story after another, he explained how he ended up in Vancouver.
In 1945 Atnikov was one of a group of three friends who had applied to enter medical school here in Winnipeg. Although the quota on Jewish students had just been lifted, thanks to a legal battle entered into by such individuals as Percy Barsky and Hyman Sokolov (which has been well documented both in this paper and numerous other sources), it was still no easy matter for Jewish students to get into medicine here.
As a result, Atnikov said, he and his two friends boarded a train for Chicago, where they intended to apply to the University of Chicago’s medical school. While all three were accepted, Atnikov explained, they were told that there were two different streams within the medical school. In one stream, once you graduated, you would be allowed to practice medicine anywhere in the U.S. Within the other stream, however, you would be allowed to practice medicine only in Illinois. (For how long you’d have to remain in Illinois I’m not sure. I also didn’t ask Atnikov whether he knew the answer.)
Not wanting to be forced to remain in Illinois, however, Atnikov said he decided to return to Winnipeg and see whether there was any chance he might still be able to get into medical school here. Upon returning home and contacting the medical school yet again though, he was disappointed to learn that his name was still not on the list of entrants to the new year of school.
Although disappointed, you can imagine Atnikov’s elation when he received a follow-up call from the same person who told him his name was not on the list of medical school entrants to say that a mistake had been made. Apparently when the three young men had gone to Chicago and had all been accepted into medical school there, one of the other two guys phoned the medical school here to say that they could remove their names from the list of applicants to school in Winnipeg because they had all been accepted in Chicago.
It turns out that, while Atnikov was not immediately accepted into medical school, he was number two on the wait list and, pending two other students dropping out of school, he would get in – which he did.
Upon graduating from medicine in 1950, however, Atnikov left Winnipeg to advance his medical education at the University of Minnesota. One of his colleagues there was Norman Shumway, he told me, who later became an early pioneer of heart transplant surgery. (According to Atnikov, Christian Barnaard, who performed the first-ever heart transplant on a human, learned his technique from Shumway when they were both colleagues at the University of Minnesota in the 1950s.)
Atnikov went on to have an illustrious career as an anesthesiologist, in New York, California, and ultimately, Vancouver, which is where he eventually retired from practicing.
Still, after all these years, with all that he has accomplished, Murray Atnikov was most interested in talking about the Demons and what great times they had together.
Those boyhood memories – and girlhood ones too: They never cease to fade and reliving some of those experiences is what keeps so many of us going.
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Musings from Dizengoff Street – by Bruce Brown
(August 8, 2026)
Outside Basimta Café in Central Jerusalem. Love the red shirt against a tiny sea of black. Not sure I am shrugging because of the ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat or the lack of an ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat. For the last six weeks Israeli headlines shouted about the cafe chaos. With the ultra-religious blocking entrances and storming the café. While shouting ‘Shabbos! Shabbos!’ Upsetting the secular amongst us just wanting to enjoy our Saturday iced matchas. So the wife and I thought we would check it out. And. Yes. Buy something to support the business. Uproar. Not. Blocked entrances. Not. Storming the café. Not. Albeit there were police barriers separating the devout protesters from the coffee drinkers. The protesters being just a few dozen black clad, pious Jews. Mostly teenagers. And yes. Shouting ‘Shabbos! Shabbos!’ Certainly underwhelming in its reported mayhem. Reminds me of the famous saying misattributed to Mark Twain – “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do, you’re misinformed.” But I did enjoy my iced matcha.
(August 6, 2026)
Here we go again. Another round of forever negotiations. As someone who negotiates for a living. The way things are going in the straits. If I had to recommend a book on the subject to a new hire. Between The Art of the Deal, A Presidential Edition by Donald J. Trump or The Real Art of the Deal by the Mullahs of Iran with a special forward by the IRGC. Well. I would choose the latter.
(August 3)
Bravo Yoav Segalovitz, Liberal Yesh Atid MK and Monsour Abbas, United Arab Ra’am MK and party head. For breaking a glass ceiling where a Jewish lawmaker joins an Arab political party. No less a political earthquake in my little shtetl. Which can significantly impact coalition block arithmetic and posturing and strategy in the upcoming elections. Now Ra’am can be considered a legitimate ‘Zionist’ partner when forming coalition blocks and potentially pushing the ‘center left/right’ party over the 60 seat majority threshold. In our crazy parliamentary democracy defined by a multi-party (about fourteen!!), proportional representation system. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Israel’s proportional representation model of governance is the best parliamentary democracy system except for all other forms of working democracies. Stay tuned for more amateurish political musings as we move towards Israel’s 26th national election – five of them held since 2019.
(August 1)
Although both sides say they are open to diplomacy. Neither really trusts the other. And American military action, or its threat, continues. I read headlines in the middle of the night -it’s a nervous habit lately– that the Dynamic Duo of Trump and Netanyahu may again strike in unison. Possibly this weekend. Yikes! Prompting me, at 2:30 AM, to dash around the house stocking my safe room. Bottled water. Canned food. Medicines. Documents. The beat goes on….
If it’s crazy here. It’s insane in Italy. With a recent online ‘Jew Hunt’ in the Milan area. Before being removed, the digital forms urged reportings of Israelis and Italian Jews staying in local hotels. The infamous Global Sumud Movement -yes, the one coordinating ‘peace and humanitarian’ flotillas to Gaza- was somehow connected. Although they deny involvement?! This deranged decree was looking to identify Zionist tourism and Zionist neo-colonization in Italy. I’ll stick with stocking the saferoom.
Then there’s New York Mayor Mamdani, a Global Sumud Movement supporter, threatening to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu if he comes to New York. But since discovered he has no legal right for such a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic antic. Maybe Mandami should be arrested! Or at least impeached. For being a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic mayor.
Here’s a post Bruce sent us Friday, July 31:
WARTIME MUSINGS
Should credible threats against FLOTUS and ‘FSOTUS’ (first son..) not be justification to attack first.
As for yesterday’s summit. Netanyahu really can’t win. Explainer. If Trump now attacks without victory its ’cause of Netanyahu. If Trump now attacks with victory its ’cause of Trump. And, in Israel, if Trump doesn’t attack -victory or not- Netanyahu failed in his eighth meeting with Trump. And if Trump does attack -victory or not- half the country will vilify Bibi anyway. Missing a permutation?
Ya. I know. Kinda’ need a definition of victory for that musing to work.
And here in my little shtetle. We go to sleep unsure if there will be a code red in the middle of the night. And if not. We wake up thinking it will be tonight. How do you define stress?
Seemed like an appropriate way to end this musing.
Bruce Brown is a former Winnipegger who made aliyah to Israel over 35 years ago. Bruce first began writing for us – in his own inimitable style, in 2012, during what was known as “Operation Pillar of Defense.” His occasional musings on aspects of life in Israel that were far from what you’d typically read in other reports from Israel were hugely popular – both in the print Jewish Post & News and on this website.
We’re now glad to report that Bruce is back writing for us – this time on a regular basis. We will post Bruce’s reports as they arrive – with the date of each post at the beginning of that post.
Here’s some information about Bruce – and awards he’s received for his writing:
Bruce Brown. Canadian born. Now living in Israel (for a long time). Bruce works in Israel’s hi-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night. He received the American Jewish Press Association’s award for writing excellence in 2019 and 2025. And wrote the 1998 satire, “An Israeli is….” Bruce’s musings are political, social, economic and personal. With lots of biting, contrarian, sardonic and irreverent insight.
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