From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Croats/Anthony W. Rasporich
In the first wave of settlement to 1914 Croats were spread across thirty or so small communities, half of them in British Columbia and the rest in Saskatchewan and northern Ontario. They set up a few lodges of the National Croatian Society and imported from the United States such Croatian-language newspapers as Hrvatski svijet (Croatian World) and Domovina (Homeland). Religious practice was confined to English- and French-language parishes such as the Sacred Heart Church, which served Croatian fishing families on the Fraser estuary at Ladner, British Columbia.
Single male migrants had even fewer landmarks beyond boarding-houses and companionship of friends from their home village or region in their workplace. They displayed perhaps more cultural resistance than the small and dispersed settled communities. Only when a sojourner brought a wife or betrothed from Croatia did he face the pervasive social forces of assimilation.
Inter-war immigration allowed the creation of clubs, organizations, and mutual-benefit societies. Members of the Croatian Fraternal Union based in Pittsburgh could receive its newspaper, Zajedničar (Unity). Members of the nationalistic Croatian Peasant Party had access to Hrvatski glas (Croatian Voice), originally founded as Kanadski glas (Canadian Voice; Winnipeg, 1929–77) by Petar Stankovic. Radicals or Communists would often read Borba (The Struggle; Toronto, 1930–36), edited by Petar Žapkar and Edvard Jardas. The 1930s also witnessed construction of “national homes” (community centres) and establishment of a lodge of the Croatian Fraternal Union or a branch of the Croatian Peasant Party in nearly every community.
Some communities such as those in Sudbury and Windsor supported Croatian choirs, tamburitsa string orchestras, women’s clubs, amateur theatrical groups, literary societies, and sports and gymnastic groups. Language instruction was often frustrated by immigration officials’ reluctance to allow language teachers into the country. Croats were still susceptible to the forces of assimilation.
The most notable post-1945 additions to community life were in sports, leisure, and popular culture. Croats have enjoyed some success at provincial and national chess competitions. Soccer fostered group identity, allowed male players access to Canadian society outside their workplace, and gave the Croatian community a symbol of community pride. The Adria Club emerged in Sudbury in 1950, the Croatian National Soccer Club of Toronto in 1956, and a similar one in Hamilton in 1957. Others followed in Montreal, Port Arthur, Welland, and Windsor. The Toronto Croatia team won the city title in 1959, the Ontario title in 1970, and the national title in 1971–74; membership rose to 600 and the budget to $100,000 a year. It merged with the Toronto Metros in 1974, and the new Toronto Metros-Croatia took the North American Soccer League championship in 1976. The team was sold by 1979 to Global Communications for $2.6 million.
Canadian-born Croats have also been active in Canadian professional sports, prominent examples including Frank and Peter Mahovlich and Joe Sakic in hockey and George Chuvalo in boxing.
