Examining Manitoba’s basketball history

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/08/2019 (2548 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Interest in basketball in Canada may be at its highest level in history as a result of the Toronto Raptors winning the NBA championship in June.

While our province can’t claim huge success in the pro ranks, Manitoba has a rich history on the courts. Visit the Manitoba Basketball Hall of Fame and Museum located on the second floor of the Duckworth Centre at the University of Winnipeg to learn about it.

Winnipeg dominated national junior basketball in the early 1950s, with the Stellars from the North End winning the Canadian championship in 1950 and 1951 and Winnipeg Light Infantry taking the title the next two years. The next season, Paulins won the senior championship.

From 1972 to 1982, local club teams also had national success. The St. Andrews Super Saints won the Canadian title in 1972, 1975 and 1976. The University of Manitoba Bisons took the national university championship in 1976. With several ex-Bisons leading the way, Nicolett Inn won three senior titles in 1979, 1980 and 1982.

Between 1992 and 1995, the University of Winnipeg Wesmen women’s team had an unprecedented run, winning 88 consecutive games and three Canadian university championships. In 2000, the 1995 team was selected as Manitoba Team of the 20th Century for all sports. A three-time winner of collegiate player of the year, U of W star Sandra Carroll is arguably our province’s greatest female player.

Oldtimers would choose King Carl Ridd as our top male, while Todd MacCulloch would be rated the best by the younger crowd. The pair played in much different times. Ridd led Gordon Bell High School to provincial championships in the mid-1940s. MacCulloch’s Shaftesbury High Titans won the provincials in 1993 and 1994. Ridd, who was called the “undisputed monarch of Manitoba basketball” in his 1983 Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame induction biography, had a career that included playing for Canada in the 1952 Olympics and leading Paulins to the 1954 Canadian championship. In 1952, he turned down an NBA contract offer from the Milwaukee Hawks. MacCulloch played NCAA Division I ball at the University of Washington in Seattle, then played four years in the NBA before an injury ended his career. He played for Canada on the international courts many times, including at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

The Basketball HOF will hold its 17th induction dinner at the Victoria Inn on Sept. 28. The class of 2019 includes players Belaineh DeGuefe, a Kelvin High School grad, and Margaret Mulder, both of whom played for the U of W, and Brandon Bobcat Mike Vaira. The builders with long coaching resumes are Irv Hanec and Dennis Wilson of Winnipeg, Larry McDougall of Dauphin, and Bill Moody of Brandon. A unique posthumous induction will see Isobel Thomson honoured twice, once as a player and then again as a builder. School teams from Dauphin and Sprague will be inducted in the team category.

More than 160 players and builders have been inducted into the provincial basketball HOF. The Manitoba Sports HOF has honoured many of them, including Jim Bulloch, Martin Riley, Whitey Carlson, Fred Ingaldson, Dale Bradshaw, Rick Watts, Angela (Johnson) Staub, Bob Town, Lesley (Hamerton) Divers, Ken Galanchuk, Terry Ball, Bill Wedlake, Ken Opalko, Coleen Dufresne and Joey Vickery. Builder Maureen Orchard will join them when she is recognized at the 2019 induction ceremony on Nov. 2.
 
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