Of his 23 years of service in the Armed Forces, Chuck Badcock spent 19 years honing his craft as an athletic trainer. Postings included Whitehorse, Churchill, Camp Borden and Korea but it was The Royal Military College in Kingston that a choice changed his life. He took a one year course in Victoria on physiotherapy and the rest, as they say, was history.

Upon receiving his discharge, Badcock got a call from Earl Lunsford in 1970. He was recommended to the GM of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers by Gord Mackie and spent the next decade with the football club. He has many fond memories of the club but his greatest professional disappointment came in 1972 with the last second play-off loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders. A highlight during the ‘70s saw Badcock accompany the Canadian team as their lone athletic therapist at the British Empire (now Commonwealth) Games in Christchurch, NZ in 1974.

He also worked with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. “I’ve never seen any harder working athletes, dedicated, hurt today and wanted to be cured yesterday,” he said “I’ve a lot of respect for those people.”

The next decade saw a new chapter in Badcock’s life. “I walked across the street to the Jets,” he said. With the Winnipeg Jets joining the NHL in 1979, Badcock spent the next decade (1980-91) in pro hockey. He suffered through some highs and lows with the franchise and cites the Jets’ peak years from 1985-87; their first round playoff victory over the Calgary Flames as the highest high, and superstar Dale Hawerchuk’s broken ribs due to a Jamie Macoun cross-check and the team’s subsequent second round sweep by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Edmonton Oilers, as the lowest low. Badcock worked two NHL All-Star Games, one in 1982 in Washington and the other in 1986 in Hartford, “when Gretzky was at his peak,” he recalled. He turned down the chance to go with the team to Phoenix to be with his wife and lifelong companion Jo.

Chuck Badcock was one of five founders of the Canadian Athletic Therapists Association and has been honoured by his peers on numerous occasions. He now joins Billie Hughes, Max Avren and Mackie as builders of sport medicine and as a worthy member of the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame.