Chawla joins select company in badminton hall

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/02/2016 (3851 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Badminton Canada Hall of Fame is a very exclusive group. Only two coaches and four builders have been inducted plus Wayne Macdonnell from Vancouver, who was honoured as both a player and builder.

On Feb. 6, the group will welcome another member in Winnipeg’s Pal Chawla. The induction ceremony will take place at the Winnipeg Winter Club during the closing banquet for the 2016 Canadian badminton championships. The national finals are scheduled for that afternoon at the Winter Club, where Chawla served as the badminton pro for nearly four decades.
When Chawla’s induction was announced in mid-January, Badminton Canada president Anil Kaul said

“Pal Chawla has made an important contribution to the development of our sport. Whether as a coach, volunteer or event director, Pal has demonstrated the leadership in growing our sport that our organization deeply values.”

Chawla joins the late Jack MacDonald in the builder category. MacDonald, who was inducted in 2008, served three different terms as president of Badminton Canada as well as heading the Winnipeg Badminton Club and the provincial association.

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The Manitoba Softball Hall of Fame will induct eight individuals and three teams at its 15th annual banquet on May 7. The class of 2016 was announced Jan. 19 at a media conference at the Canad Inns Regent Casino where the induction ceremony will take place.  

Between 1996 and 2003, catcher Melissa Winning helped Smitty’s teams win six gold medals and three silver at Softball Canada national championships. Infielder Judy Cochrane from Portage la Prairie starred for 11 seasons with CUAC Blues during a period when the team dominated provincially and won the first national senior women’s championship in 1965.

Clara (Krampetz) Amell and Eleanor (Knudsen) Callow will be inducted posthumously. Amell was a four-time Greater Winnipeg Senior Girls League all-star with St. Boniface Athletics between 1939 and 1946. Also a senior girls all-star, Callow took her talents to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in 1947. During her eight seasons, she led the AAGPBL in triples four times and was a four-time all-star.

Rob Giesbrecht has to rate near the top of any list of Manitoba’s best male fast pitch players. Between 1989, when he was 16, and 2011, he appeared in 25 Western Canada, national and world championships and won gold with Canada’s national team at the 2003 Pan Am Games. The late Ted Lanyon captained the Molson Canadians team that won five senior A fastball league titles between 1965 and 1970 and the province’s only Canadian men’s championship in 1967. In the winter, Lanyon played pro hockey for 14 seasons, primarily in the AHL and EHL.  

Bryan McDonald and Mike Pyle will be inducted in the all-around category. Both served as president of Softball Manitoba and have lengthy resumes as coaches and administrators that would fill most of this column.

In the team category, the 1991-1994 SNAFU co-ed slo-pitch teams, the 1994 and 1995 Manitoba Alliance junior men’s fast pitch teams, and the 2004 and 2008 Carefree Getaway Flashbacks senior men’s slo-pitch teams will be inducted.  

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