It was February in St. John’s. The wind had been howling, piling snow towards windowsills and burying the roads.
Cpl. Brian Bambrick took part in the 1987 Canada Games, winning a silver medal in boxing.
Photo: Rich Blenkinsopp
In Shea Heights, a 16-year-old boy waited and worried.
He was supposed to get on a plane soon, and the roads weren’t yet plowed.
Eventually, as the wind and snow ebbed, Brian Bambrick and his teammates braved the snowbanks to reach a vehicle sent to fetch them.
And they were off to the 1987 Canada Games in Sydney, N.S.
N.L.’s first boxing medals
It was this type of fortitude, and training in all conditions, that helped Newfoundland and Labrador’s boxing contingent earn its first Canada Games medals: one gold, three silver and four bronze.
Cpl. Bambrick, who joined Memorial in 1998 and is now a supervisor with Campus Enforcement and Patrol (CEP) on the St. John’s campus, brought home a silver.
“We expected to do well because of our training regime back then,” he said. “We worked our butts off. It didn’t matter if it was a blizzard — our coach said to get your ski mask on and your boots and you’re running.”
Cpl. Bambrick lost out on the gold by a slim margin.
He faced Ray Downey, Canada’s top light middleweight boxer, in the gold medal fight.
“Me being the Newfoundlander and having no quit in me, we went the distance.” — Cpl. Brian Bambrick
The next year, Mr. Downey went on to win a bronze medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
“The first two guys that fought him quit in the first round,” Cpl. Bambrick said. “Me being the Newfoundlander and having no quit in me, we went the distance.”
He lost the fight on decision after the third and final round.
“I only know one way to go and that’s forward,” he said.
Boxing career
And forward he went.
After the Games, Cpl. Bambrick qualified for Team Canada, the first Newfoundlander to do so in boxing.
He won a bronze medal in a competition in Finland and was 1-1 at the under-19 world championships in Cuba in 1987.
He re-earned a spot on Team Canada again in 1996, returning from a broken femur, but didn’t get to fight due to a lack of competitors in his weight class.
CEP officer Brian Bambrick says boxing taught him to be a good sportsman inside and outside of the ring.
Photo: Rich Blenkinsopp
In 2021, he was inducted into the Boxing N.L. Hall of Fame.
The Canada Games, Cpl. Bambrick says, was not only a “big thrill,” but helped him mature quickly and taught him perseverance.
“I learned a lot of discipline. I got a lot of tolerance, and with this job here, you got to have a lot of tolerance and patience,” he said. “It taught me how to deal with people, to be good to people and listen to people.”
New perspective
These skills, and the fitness earned from years of sport, helped him pull through the biggest fight of his life when he was diagnosed with Burkitt lymphoma, a rare and aggressive cancer, in 2009.
He was declared cancer-free after five years of difficult treatments and the support of his wife, Shelly, and their children Brad, Brandon and Brooklyn.
“We were always taught to be a good sportsperson inside the ring, and you got to have the same character outside the ring.” — Cpl. Brian Bambrick
The life-threatening experience gave him a new perspective on life.
“My outlook now is to be happy and surround yourself with positive people. But also, you got to be nice to other people.”
It’s a philosophy that has its origins in the sport of his youth.
“We were always taught to be a good sportsperson inside the ring, and you got to have the same character outside the ring. Boxing taught me to be a good person.”
Susan White is a communications advisor in the Faculty of Business Administration at Memorial University. She can be reached at susanwhite@mun.ca.