Hall of Fame class led by Stoughton, Daley

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/06/2018 (3026 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame announced its induction class for 2018 at a media conference on June 18 in the Hall of Fame gallery at 145 Pacific Ave.

Seven individuals and one team will be honoured at the 39th annual induction on Nov. 3. What’s most impressive is not only their strong credentials, but the fact that they represent eight different sports.
Five athletes will be inducted. Kirby Cote is a blind Paralympic swimmer who competed in three Paralympic Games, where she set two world records and filled her trophy chest with seven gold medals and six silver.  

During the 1960s and ’70s. Donna (McCannell) Keating was seven-time Canadian speed skating champion from juvenile through senior and skated for Canada in the 1972 Winter Olympics. She will join her sister Doreen, a 1995 inductee, and her late father Donald, who was inducted in 2001, in the HOF.

Three male athletes will join Cote and Keating in the hallowed Hall. Joe Daley won his first hockey championship at Bronx Park Community Club before a long career that saw him play goal from the junior Winnipeg Rangers and then professionally in the NHL and the WHA. He played more WHA games 308, and won more, 167, than any goalie and helped the Jets win three AVCO Cups.

Jeff Stoughton is another honouree who needs little introduction. His resume includes men’s world, Canadian and provincial championships plus a couple of  Canadian mixed titles. No one is likely to question him being labelled our greatest male curler.

Winnipeg native Joey Vickery starred on the basketball court at Brandon University where he was the CIAU most valuable player in 1989. The Manitoba Basketball HOF member has been playing professionally in Europe since 1996. This season he is with the Mattersburg Rocks and living in Austria.

Don Brownell and Nieve Embuldeniya will enter as builders. The first builder inductee from handball, Brownell was the driving force provincially for decades and served as president of the Canadian Handball Association and as a member of the World Handball Council. His induction is long overdue, and it’s unfortunate that it will happen posthumously, as he died in 2015.

Embuldeniya, a builder from boxing, will join her husband Herb in the HOF. She has judged many international amateur boxing tournaments including the 1999 Pan Am Games in Winnipeg and the 2012 Olympics in London. Sadly Herb, who was inducted in 1999, will only be there in spirit, as he died in 2017.

The team being honoured this year is the 1962 Manitoba ladies’ golf team that is the only Manitoba team to win the Canadian ladies’ amateur team championship. The players were a who’s who of provincial golf at the time: Marg Homenuik from Rossmere, Heather Lawrence and Merlene Netterfield of Niakwa and Ann Tachan of Elmhurst. Manitoba beat B.C. by 10 strokes in the 36-hole inter-provincial competition played at Southwood.

☐ ☐ ☐

On June 9 at Optimist Park, the St. James Assiniboia Minor Baseball Association dedicated memorials to six members of their baseball family for contributions to the sport. Don Green and Maurice Kohut were builders and Larry Ausman was a director. Coaches Joe Scheiring and Bob Shipley were two more people who made a difference.

Kris Howard was a left-handed pitcher who also played the outfield and was an outstanding hitter. The dedication took place at the Kelman diamond, which is sponsored by the Kelman family. Howard’s teammate, Scott Kelman, described him as one of his all-time favourite teammates in any sport. Their fathers, Les Howard and Craig Kelman, coached them for several seasons.

Memories of Sport appears every second week in the Canstar Community News weeklies. Kent Morgan can be contacted at 204-489-6641 or email: sportsmemories@canstarnews.com