MONTREAL – Sol Tolchinsky, a McGill University graduate (BA '54) who played basketball for Canada at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, has passed away. He was 91.
 
He died on Tuesday morning (Dec. 1) in Montreal, as a result of COVID-19 related complications. At the time of his passing, he was listed as the 12th oldest Canadian Olympian -- the third oldest basketball player -- according to a website that tracks Olympians by age. In 2012, Tolchinsky was ranked among the top 150 Canadian male basketball players of all-time in "Frozen Hoops", a book penned by basketball historian Curtis J. Phillips.
 
Born Jan. 2, 1929 in Montreal, Tolchinsky grew to a height of 6-foot-4 and weighed 174 pounds. By the time he joined the Olympic team, he was a product of Commercial High School and the YMHA in a Montreal region known as Snowdon. At 18, Tolchinsky was the youngest player on the Olympic squad and in his first year of senior basketball.
 
"I was the tallest man on the team and until I came along, they didn't win," joked Tolchinsky to The Montreal Gazette in a 2012 article. "I'm in the Olympic Hall of Fame as the only Olympic centre in history who, when he jumped, couldn't touch the rim."
 
He wore jersey No.9 at the London Games and his top performance was a 10-point effort in Canada's 81-25 consolation round quarter-final victory over Iran on Aug. 7, 1948. Despite a solid 6-2 record overall, Canada missed the medal round on a point-differential tie-breaker and finished ninth of 23 nations.
 
An inductee to the Montreal Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, Tolchinsky represented Canada twice at the Maccabiah Games, in 1950, where his YMHA Blues team won silver, and again in 1953.
 
Tolchinsky enrolled at McGill in 1950, where he played varsity basketball and was an award-winning writer with The McGill Daily student newspaper. He also tried his hand at drama as a member of the Hillel Revue and wrote music and songs for the Red and White Revue, a theatre club on campus best known for producing actor William Shatner.
 
Tolchinsky met his wife Margot Blatt at McGill and aside from her, his true passion was jazz and Broadway musicals. Under his grad photo in the 1954 Old McGill yearbook was the expression: "Happiness can't buy money."
 
He was predecessors by two older siblings, sister Ray and brother Samuel, better known as Mel Tolkin, an Emmy award-winning comedy writer who had a 50-year career in show business before he died in 2007 at the age of 94.
 
Tolchinsky is survived by his wife of 67 years, Margot, daughters Ivy and Leslie, son Neil, and five grandchildren, Vanessa, Alec, Matt, Todd, and Hannah.
 
A private graveside service has taken place and the family indicated that contributions in his memory may be made to the Donald Berman Maimonides Foundation (514) 483-2121 ext. 2207.

Messages of condolence can be left online here.

SOURCE:
Earl Zukerman
Sports Info Office
McGill Athletics & Recreation
earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca
(514) 398-7012