Giants called to hall

Elmwood

Two giants of the Elmwood baseball world are being recognized for their contributions to the sport.

Ed Kulyk and Al Kinley are among the list of 2026 inductees to the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame. Both have been involved with the Elmwood Giants organization for many years. Kulyk is being inducted as an individual, Kinley as an honorary life member.

“(It’s) pretty shocking. It caught me completely off-guard,” said Kulyk, a longtime coach and manager of the Giants junior baseball team, who has also served on the club’s board of directors. “Going in with Al is pretty special. It’s exciting.”

Kulyk has coached the Elmwood Giants 22U AAA team for over a decade. Between 2016 and 2025, with Kulyk as manager, the Giants were Manitoba Junior Baseball League finalists for 10 consecutive seasons, winning the league championship six times. In 2023, the team won the national 22U championship, and in 2024 the Giants won the Western Canada Baseball Association championship. He has twice been named manager of the year in the Manitoba Junior League and twice named Baseball Manitoba’s high performance coach of the year.

As if that wasn’t enough, he is also the chief administrator of Koskie Field, where the Giants play home games, which means he has been in charge of diamond scheduling, revenue collection, field maintenance, capital projects and upgrades, insurance, and field security.

“I’m still going. Still here,” Kulyk said. “It’s (all about) the kids. Seeing them start at 12 years old and they’re still going at 19, 20 years old and maybe going on to play in college, it’s pretty cool.”

Kulyk began coaching minor baseball when his now 29-year-old son was young and coming up through the Giants system. One team they faced regularly, between 2008 and 2010, was the Winnipeg South AAA Pee Wee/Bantam Chiefs, which was undefeated in league play and is being inducted to the hall of fame as a minor team in 2026.

Al Kinley, meanwhile, has been involved with the Giants even longer than Kulyk.

Since the 1950s, Kinley has been a player, coach, administrator, and supporter of many local sports including football, hockey, lacrosse, and baseball, for which he has already been inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame.

“It just solidifies the long history of the kinds of people we’ve had (in Elmwood),” Kinley said of the news that he and Kulyk would be inductees to the baseball hall. “We’ve been lucky. All kinds of people have put their extra time to making a team successful, and I don’t mean necessarily on the scoreboard, but in the community.”

Apart from his long connection with the Giants, Kinley joined the board of directors of the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame in 2004. Known for his “uniquely thorough knowledge of Winnipeg players and teams past and present,” he was chair of the board from 2011 to 2013.

“I think back to when I joined the board of directors, I was the young guy with all these old geezers,” Kinley said. “Now, at our last meeting, I realized that I’m the oldest. It’s pretty amazing.”

Reflecting on his induction, Kinley said that for him, community involvement is as important as success on the field — if not more so.

“In the position that I’m in, I read a lot of nominations of guys who come in. And they’re all great players, but what did they do after their career was over?” he said. “The difference between who gets in and who doesn’t, is, in my opinion, guys like Eddy, who get involved for another 20 years, and they’re doing it for the sport. If I had a message for young players, it’s to stay involved in the game and to help young players.”

The pair, along with other inductees, will be celebrated on June 13, 2026, at the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame’s 28th annual induction banquet at the Access Events Centre in Morden, Man. For more information, visit mbhof.ca