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MIKE DEAL \/ FREE PRESS<\/p>\n
Cantafio \u2014 flanked by then city Coun. Mike Pagtakhan (left) and Matthew Duffy of the
\nWinnipeg Soccer Federation \u2014 cuts a soccer net on June 12, 2016, to officially change the name of the Winnipeg Waverley Soccer Complex to the Ralph Cantafio Soccer Complex.<\/p>\n
While all of that might have given others a swollen head, not so with Cantafio. Throughout his life, he displayed an uncanny ability to connect with others, regardless of their status or stature.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe always gave you that courage to say, they\u2019re not better than you. You\u2019re a human being, too. Just go and be who you\u2019re gonna be and be the best at it, be honest about it. That was probably the best lesson that I took from Ralph,\u201d says Tony Nocita, who first got to know Cantafio during his youth soccer days and later played for Cantafio-owned Winnipeg Fury of the Canadian Soccer League.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnywhere he went, it didn\u2019t matter who it was \u2014 people would come to shake his hand. It wasn\u2019t the other way around. That\u2019s why I hold him so dear. He was such a great man because he never thought he was bigger or better than anybody. He just wanted to be trusted and respected.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cantafio was born June 22, 1928, in Amato, a town located in the Calabria region of southern Italy. He grew up there during the Second World War with his parents, Domenico and Maria, and siblings Guido, Tony and Giovanino.<\/p>\n
After his father died in battle, he moved to Rome in 1948, where he apprenticed as a tailor. Two years later, at his mother\u2019s urging, he decided to join his sister in Canada. There was a catch: Canada was looking for farm workers at the time, not tailors, which meant he had to get a little creative when it came time to meet with Canadian immigration officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me this story about how he had to rough up his hands because he had the hands of a tailor, but he had to show them he was a farmer,\u201d recalls his son Raff. \u201cHe ended up falsifying (his documents) and using sandpaper on his hands to build up calluses so they would believe he was farming.\u201d<\/p>\n
The strategy worked and a few days later he boarded a ship destined for Canada. Nine days later he arrived in Halifax and hopped on a train bound for Montreal, where his sister was living. It was during that train trip that he was struck by the enormity of his new home.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t ZACHARY PRONG \/ FREE PRESS<\/p>\n Ralph Cantafio, seen here at his well-known tailor shop, Ralph\u2019s, in 2016, is recognized as the father of modern soccer in Winnipeg.<\/p>\n After a brief stopover to visit his sister in Montreal, he continued on to his final destination of Winnipeg where he arrived just in time for the 1950 Red River flood that destroyed thousands of homes and buildings.<\/p>\n \u201cHe spent all this time on a boat and all this time on a train, and he gets here and Winnipeg\u2019s underwater, and he\u2019s thinking, \u2018Oh my god, I just left Rome, the centre of civilization, to come to this\u2019?\u201d Raff says, chuckling.<\/p>\n Despite the inauspicious start, Cantafio quickly came to love his new home.<\/p>\n It\u2019s where he soon met the love of his life, Elvira, whom he married July 19, 1952, and remained with until his death on March 9 of this year. They raised three kids together: Raff and his two sisters, Caroline and Mary.<\/p>\n It was about the same time he started his own business, Ralph\u2019s Custom Tailors, on the corner of Corydon Avenue and Wilton Street.<\/p>\n Cantafio quickly earned a reputation for his artistry with a bolt of fabric. But the shop was more than just a business. It became a community hub where people from all walks of life would gather to discuss the day\u2019s events, and Cantafio was its congenial host.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Supplied<\/p>\n Ralph Cantafio and his wife, Elvira, were married in 1952.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a place of friendship and camaraderie. It was kind of like a coffee shop. You weren\u2019t just going there to get something done. You were also there for a visit,\u201d recalls Raff, who often helped out at the shop as a kid.<\/p>\n The list of visitors to Cantafio\u2019s shop was legendary. Former Winnipeg Jets GM John Ferguson lived nearby and often popped in. So did many prominent doctors, lawyers and judges. Former Manitoba premier Gary Filmon was a frequent guest.<\/p>\n Nocita still remembers the time he paid the man he calls his \u201cdear friend\u201d a visit and a black limousine pulled up outside his shop. Who should step out but former prime minister Jean Chr\u00e9tien, who was in town and wanted to stop in and say hello to his friend Ralph.<\/p>\n \u201cRalph commanded the respect of all those people. He proved that you just have to be a good human being, be honest and truthful, and you can speak to anybody and they\u2019ll respect you,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n While there was nothing more important to Cantafio than family and friends, his life\u2019s passion was soccer. It was a love affair that was ignited growing up in Italy where he was an ardent supporter of Inter Milan and it continued to burn brightly after he landed in Canada.<\/p>\n In 1953, he founded Ital-Inter, an Italian-Canadian team that would become a powerhouse on the local senior men\u2019s amateur soccer scene for decades. The success he enjoyed as the team\u2019s owner led to him being invited to attend a meeting with the CSL\u2019s board of governors when they were looking to add a franchise in Winnipeg in the mid-1980s.<\/p>\n Although many in the soccer community thought Winnipeg wasn\u2019t a good fit for pro soccer, Cantafio believed otherwise. He founded the Winnipeg Fury and served as team president for the squad that would go on to play six seasons in the CSL beginning in 1987 and another in the Canadian National Soccer League in 1993.<\/p>\n
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