FP sports scribes elected to honour roll

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This article was published 10/12/2009 (6079 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A pair of Free Press sports writers, one present and one past, will be inducted into the Manitoba Sportswriters and Sportscasters Roll of Honour Jan. 31 at the 54th annual MSSA Athletes of the Year awards dinner at the Delta Winnipeg Hotel.

Ashley Prest will be joined by former Free Press sports writer Jeff Blair when the honours are handed out. Blair covers the Toronto Blue Jays for the Globe and Mail and is currently in Europe covering luge in preparation for the Vancouver Olympics.

"I’m surprised and honoured to receive this kind of special recognition from the MSSA," said Prest, 44. "I’m grateful to the Winnipeg Free Press and former sports editor Hal Sigurdson, who gave me the chance to work as a sports journalist when I was just weeks out of university, and at a time when there still weren’t many women in sports journalism.

"I’ve been given the opportunity here to cover a wide range of sports at all levels, as well as travel to cover both professional and amateur teams. The people I’ve met and the stories I’ve been able to share in our sports pages continue to make this the dream job that I thought it was when I was hired in 1987."

The female Athlete of the Year finalists are Chantal Vanlandeghem, Jennifer Saunders, Lisa Barclay, Stacey Corfield and Olivia Gerula.

Vanlandeghem set a Canadian (13-14) record by winning a gold medal in the 100-metre butterfly with a time of one minute 00.92 seconds at the Australian Olympic Youth Festival in Sydney last January. Her total medal count included four silvers. Saunders is women’s singles and doubles national racquetball champion. Barclay captains provincial AAAA high school volleyball champion Brandon Crocus Plains Plainsmen and led Manitoba to a gold medal at the Canada Summer Games. Corfield is the Manitoba Bisons women’s hockey goaltender and a Canada West first-team all-star, who also anchored Team Canada’s gold-medal victory at the World University Games in China. Gerula is the WBC women’s world super featherweight boxing champion.

Male finalists are Eric Delong, Thomas Hall, Andrew Harris, John Montgomery and Chet Pickard.

Delong, of the Portage Terriers, is the Canadian Junior Hockey League Player of the Year. Hall, of the football Manitoba Bisons, won the CIS Russ Jackson award for athletic achievement, football skills and citizenship. Harris, of the Vancouver Island Raiders, is the Wally Buono Award winner as Canada’s outstanding junior football player. Montgomery finished fourth at the world skeleton championship, missing a bronze medal by a fraction of a second. Pickard, of the Tri-City Americans, won the Del Wilson Award as the WHL Goaltender of the Year.

Three national champions have been nominated for the team award. The back-to-back Canadian curling champion Jennifer Jones rink and the junior championship foursome of Kaitlyn Lawes are two of the five finalists.

Also on the ballot are Canadian senior men’s champions Hellas Soccer Club, the Canada West champion University of Manitoba Bisons women’s hockey team and the Manitoba Moose, who advanced to the AHL’s Calder Cup final last season, losing to Hershey Bears.

Winners will be declared at the Jan. 31 awards dinner.

allan.besson@freepress.mb.ca