Leo & Jenny Part 2. Read part 1 below first.

Francis Leo Bishop was born in Ontario in 1881. Not much is known about his life as a child, but when he was older he moved to Battleford, Saskatchewan. He and his brother Hub, were huge hockey fans and Hub was a scout for men's hockey as well as for woman's baseball. The Regina Pats still give the "Hub Bishop" award to the most sportsmanlike player. In 1934 Leo and Hub took the first Canadian Hockey Team, The Battleford Millers, to Japan, to play exhibition games. They played 8 games, the last one before the Emperor of Japan, who presented Hub and Leo each with a "Yokohama" Doll, a samurai warrior in a glass case. I am lucky enough to have Leo's, however Hub's has vanished into the mists of time.

A young Japanese man by the name of Toshihiko Shoji saw the games being played and while he had never seen hockey before, he was enthralled by the sport and fashioned himself a stick from a bent tree branch. He encouraged other locals to play as well and he started local teams. In the 1935-36 Olympics he was on the Japanese Hockey Team...exhibition only as hockey wasn't an Olympic sport back then. He eventually went to Manchurian College and became a Doctor. Where did Leo and Hub get the money that it would have cost to take this trip to Japan? Especially in the 1930's...a time of horrendous poverty?