He was a stand-up kid at seventeen.
BERNIE GUINDON on Oshawa Satan’s Choice member Lorne Campbell
The first time Cecil Kirby saw Wolodumyr Walter (Nurget) Stadnick of Hamilton was in the summer of 1977 at Wasaga Beach. Stadnick had just graduated from a local teen motorcycle club called the Cossacks to the Wild Ones, who were making a name for themselves at the time with their mob ties. They had helped Mafia families undertake a flurry of bombings of bakeries and other small businesses, which earned Hamilton the nickname “Bomb City.”
Kirby thought Stadnick was trying too hard to look like a badass biker. “I didn’t like him,” Kirby said. “I thought he was sort of a poser.” It wasn’t until later that Kirby realized his initial impression was wrong. Stadnick was the real deal, from head to toe.
Somewhere along the line, Stadnick picked up the nickname “Nurget.” Usually, there’s no mystery to biker nicknames. It’s easy to imagine what inspired the likes of Pigpen, Tiny, Crash, Slash, Boxer and Skid Mark. But no one beyond Stadnick himself had a clue what “Nurget” meant, and he refused to tell. What is known is that Stadnick is the five-foot-four son of a tree cutter who worked for the City of Hamilton. Born on August 3, 1952, he had two older brothers, but neither was a hardcore biker. By the time he crossed paths with Cecil Kirby, Stadnick had settled into a solid home on East Hamilton Mountain, not far from where he grew up. He kept rock star hours, seldom rising before noon. He worked out regularly and was fit if not physically imposing. He abstained altogether from smoking and narcotics, and drank only in moderation. His icy stare rarely devolved into anger, and never into the psychotic flashes displayed by some outlaw bikers. Even to an enemy, Stadnick seldom raised his voice or even said anything memorable. Years later, a police officer was asked how Stadnick could function in Quebec when he didn’t really speak French. The officer replied that Stadnick didn’t speak much English either.
Stadnick preferred to listen and watch rather than talk over others. He was able to draw advice from a wide range of people, from drug dealers to professionals, without appearing threatened. He was clearly a man much bigger than the sum of his parts. As Guindon weathered his second prison stretch, Stadnick quietly set off a chain of events that would one day make the Choice leader’s world nearly unrecognizable.
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On the night of October 18, 1978, Bill Matiyek of the tiny Golden Hawks biker club was shot dead in a bar in Port Hope, east of Oshawa. Authorities called it a cold-blooded execution, but Satan’s Choice members called it self-defence and a defining moment for their club, especially its Oshawa and Kitchener chapters. Lorne Campbell of the Satan’s Choice said he shot Matiyek that day to protect his biker brothers, that Matiyek was about to open fire, and Campbell and others left the bar alive only because he was faster on the trigger.
After a sloppy police investigation and trial based on questionable testimony, a half-dozen bikers went to prison for the killing, but not Campbell, despite his confession. Guindon had known Campbell since he was a seventeen-year-old and was impressed but not surprised that Campbell stepped up and said he pulled the trigger. “He was a stand-up kid at seventeen…That took a lot of balls. That’s why Oshawa had such a good name.”
One of the men convicted for the Matiyek killing was David (Tee Hee) Hoffman of the Kitchener Choice. He served a couple years for the shooting before police wiretaps surfaced that revealed he was far from Port Hope the day Matiyek was shot. Even though Hoffman was serving time for a crime he didn’t commit, he didn’t say a word against Campbell or anyone else.
Guindon was impressed by everything he heard about Hoffman, whom he considered quiet, extremely strong, popular and well mannered. Hoffman didn’t use his status in a biker club to bully anyone either—something that was big in Guindon’s books. “He was a helluva guy. Never bothered nobody. I don’t think he used his patch.” It was also a point of pride for Guindon that no one ratted on any other club member, and that Hoffman stayed quiet, even when he was wrongfully sent to prison. “How many guys would do that? I was very proud of them.” They reminded Guindon of why he became a biker in the first place.
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The year 1979 was shaping up to be a particularly tense one. On Saturday, June 23, 1979, police in Hamilton swooped in on the Outlaws, Wild Ones and Red Devils, seizing LSD, marijuana, speed, shotguns and rifles. Meanwhile, the Outlaws and Hells Angels continued to jockey for power in Canada. Staff Superintendent Bruno Dorigo, head of the OPP’s criminal intelligence branch, didn’t see peace on the horizon. “Our sources and undercover agents tell us these two clubs are battling for supremacy in the province,” Dorigo told the press. “There have been several killings in Quebec [from biker rivalry] and now it’s spilling into Ontario.”
Tensions played out on both sides of the international border, as guns were sent north and drugs went south. Perhaps that explained why at least one hitman entered a small house on Allen Road South in Charlotte, North Carolina, sometime between two and five in the morning on July 4, 1979. The shotgun-wielding intruder managed to kill a guard who had been posted outside on a chair, and then made it inside to where three men and a woman connected to the local Outlaws were resting.
When the chapter president arrived later that morning, he found no signs of struggle on the lifeless body of the guard. He had clearly been caught by surprise. There were also no signs of resistance on the other four bodies inside the clubhouse, where they lay face down. They had been shot several times, and one of the men had also been tortured. The massacre was never solved.
Guindon read the news reports and wondered. He’d fought many a David and Goliath–type battle, but this time he was stuck in prison and his club was finding itself caught between a pair of giants. Two hundred members was still a serious club, but nothing compared to the forces now bearing down on the territory of the Satan’s Choice.
A new visitor was shining some light on Guindon’s time at Collins Bay: his daughter Shanan Dionne, who was born in January 1975 to a girlfriend named Wendy. Jack would drive the child down to Kingston so she could connect with her father.
In retrospect, Shanan resented being watched over by a guard, but she was impressed at how respectful the other inmates were toward her father. She had particularly fond memories of a huge Native inmate named Tom, who gave her a handmade suede vest. Tom clearly respected her father, as did the other inmates in the visiting room. As her dad walked over to see her, they would stop him to ask, “Hey Bernie, is that your daughter?”
“He’s a showstopper when he comes into the room,” said Shanan.
She didn’t like being told their visiting time was up. But when she got back in the car for the drive home, she couldn’t help but feel like a member of a very special family. What she couldn’t have known was that everything that made her father seem like royalty was crashing down around him, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.