NAUGATUCK — On what would have been borough native Edmund Poscavage’s 96th birthday, a documentary featuring the star high school athlete who went on to play for the team that won the 1942 Canadian Football League championship will be aired at the Naugatuck Senior Center Thursday at 11 a.m.
The story is about more than sports, said Mayoral Aide Ed Carter, who organized the screening after reading a January feature article about Poscavage in The Sunday Republican. Poscavage was an Army Air Corps fighter pilot who died just shy of his 28th birthday when his plane was shot down over Germany during World War II.
“I felt much different after watching it, just to know what some of these people gave up to go overseas like this, and the desire to defend the country,” Carter said.
Poscavage is one of the main characters in “The Photograph,” a 45-minute episode in a series called “Engraved on a Nation,” aired last year by the Canadian network TSN on the history of Canadian football’s Grey Cup. The segment’s title refers to a photograph of Poscavage, an outside wing, and his teammates of the Toronto Royal Canadian Air Force Hurricanes, celebrating their championship win.
Poscavage’s niece, Linda Tortorelli of Stratford, appears in the documentary and will attend the screening Thursday with a scrapbook of articles detailing her uncle’s accomplishments. Poscavage was an All-American swimmer and Naugatuck Greyhounds football star who graduated in 1934 from Naugatuck High School. He died in 1945.
The documentary also discusses the friendship between Poscavage and Jake Gaudaur, the iconic former commissioner of the Canadian Football League. During the segment, Gaudaur’s daughters visit the World War II monument on the borough Green, where Poscavage’s name is engraved.
