Legendary Vic Peters going into Hall

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This article was published 06/01/2020 (2342 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You would have had a tough time finding a seat Monday when the Manitoba Curling Hall of Fame announced its 2020 inductees.

The list was revealed at the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and nearly half the seats were filled by family members of the late, great Vic Peters, who will be inducted into the curler category for a remarkable career that spanned more than three decades.

Peters’ highlights include three Manitoba championships, a first-place finish at the 1992 Brier and a bronze medal at the world championship in the same year. His wife of 36 years, Deb, their children Kasandra Leafloor, Daley Peters and Liz Fyfe, and four grandchildren were in attendance for the announcement. Peters died in March 2016 at the age of 61 after a long battle with cancer.

Fyfe said it means a lot to the family to come together to remember something that was a huge part of Peters’ life

“I think he’d be really proud,” said Fyfe, who took up curling thanks to her dad and now plays second on Tracy Fleury’s team. “He wasn’t one who ever really wanted to be recognized for his accomplishments. He didn’t like the attention that much, but I think he’d think it would be pretty special to be a part of this group and be a part of Manitoba curling forever.”

It’s the second nod for Peters, as his 1992-93 team was inducted into the Manitoba Curling Hall of Fame in 2005. The second on that team was Chris Neufeld, who began playing with Peters in 1987. The two were side by side during the prime of their careers and their long list of accomplishments was capped off in 2008 when they won the Manitoba Senior Men’s championship together. Neufeld, who wasn’t in town for Monday’s news conference, also received the call and will head into the 2020 induction class as an individual.

“It’s perfect. It’s the way it should be,” Daley Peters said about the duo being a part of the same class. “It couldn’t have happened without him and they should go in together.”

Jeff Stoughton knows a thing or two about Peters and Neufeld, as he spent several decades battling for Manitoba curling supremacy against them. Stoughton, who is getting inducted with his 2011 team that won the Brier and world championship, was asked to share his favourite moment of playing against Peters.

“He loved nicknames. Everybody had nicknames and he never let it go. He’s probably the only one who could get away with it with me, but he always called me ‘No doubtin’ Stoughton.’ It came from an old article when I was a junior and the headline was ‘No doubtin’ Jeff Stoughton’ so that stuck with me from him. It’s just one of those things where it meant a lot to me to hear that from him. I knew that he respected my game and obviously I looked up to him and he knew I respected him as well.”

With Peters, Stoughton and another big name in Kerry Burtnyk, the 1990s was an incredibly competitive decade for Manitoba men’s curling.

“I think that just made us all better and appreciate it more when you won, as you never knew when you’d get that chance to go back,” Stoughton said. “I mean, we had a good run where Burtnyk won in ‘95, we won in ‘96 and Vic won in ‘97. It was just a battle royale every year to try to get out of your province and then to try to win at the Brier. But it was pretty cool to have three of the best at one time in the same province.”

Stoughton was inducted into the curling hall of fame as an individual in 1998 and has three other teams that have been honoured. The dominant 2011 squad was comprised of lead Steve Gould, second Reid Carruthers and third Jon Mead. The fearsome foursome went 11-2 at the Brier and 12-1 at worlds. Mead was reuniting with Stoughton after a couple years apart and it was Carruthers’ first year playing with the group of veterans. A men’s team from Manitoba hasn’t won a world title since.

“It’s kind of cool to think back nine or 10 years ago when we put this team together and had the year that we did,” said Stoughton. “It’s really an honour to be a part of Manitoba Curling Hall of Fame, so it’s really cool, that’s for sure.”

Karen Purdy rounds out the individual curler inductees. Purdy had an impressive junior career where she won the 1987 provincial crown and a Canada Winter Games gold medal in Nova Scotia. She won the Manitoba Scotties Tournament of Hearts three times, with the first title coming in 1989 as a third for Chris More and again in 1994 and 1995 as third for Connie Laliberte. In ‘95, Purdy broke a leg the day after provincials and watched the team win nationals and a silver medal at the world championship. In a bizarre coincidence, when Purdy got the call that she was getting inducted into this year’s class, she was sitting at home recovering from, you guessed it, a broken leg.

“I think I actually broke it where I broke it in 1995, which was 25 years ago,” said Purdy, who broke her leg the first time after falling on the sidewalk. The second break occurred when she was blindsided by a dog at a park.

Purdy moved to Regina in 1996 to play with Michelle Englot, came back to Winnipeg the next year, then moved to back to Regina in 1998 and has been there ever since. To be remembered by her home province means a lot to Purdy.

“I’m 51 years old, so I hadn’t really been thinking about it too much. But it just couldn’t have come at a better time,” Purdy said. “I was honoured and humbled.”

The induction banquet will be held May 3 at Canad Inns Polo Park. The other inductees are Darcy (Robertson) Kirkness’s Canadian junior women’s championship team from 1984 and builders Ernie Oliver and Resby Coutts.

 

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31