Honouring The Best

If there's one thing that fills me with pride, it's seeing Manitobans honoured for their long careers in their chosen discipline, and it was exciting to see the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame announce their 2024 inductees today. While there were some other notable inclusions today, two hockey stars will have their names added to the already-impressive Hall of Fames in November. Those two hockey stars are who I'm focusing on here as the hockey wing of the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame gets a little better with these two players as part of it.

The first player being inducted likely needs no introduction if you watched women's hockey at the start of the millennium, but Jennifer Botterill will take her spot among Manitoba's most celebrated athletes in November! Botterill retired from hockey in 2011 at the age of 31, but she still holds the record for most points in an NCAA hockey career by anyone - male or female. She's a three-time Olympic gold medalist (2002, 2006 and 2010) and a silver medalist (1998), a five-time IIHF Women's World Championship gold medalist, and led the CWHL in scoring in 2007-08. She has since become a hockey analyst, most notably on Sportsnet, and she's still the only two-time winner of the Patty Kazmaier Award as top female college hockey player in the US.

The fact that she's being inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame before she has been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame is a serious crime. This is a woman whose college career puts to shame most players, and she went on to be one of Canada's most effective players through the first decade of the 2000s. The Hockey Hall of Fame better get its act together and put Botterill into the Hall on the next opportunity, but it's nice seeing her home province honouring her with a Hall of Fame induction.

The other inductee who had a solid hockey career before moving on to other things is former New York Rangers forward Ted Irvine! Irvine had an outstanding start to his hockey career while playing in Winnipeg with the St. Boniface Canadiens and Winnipeg Braves where he was a point-per-game player or better. Signed by Boston, he would be selected by the Los Angeles Kings in the 1967 expansion draft after four seasons in the minor leagues, and it seemed that Irvine was ready for the bright lights of the NHL after winning a pair of CPHL championships with the Oklahoma City Blazers where his scoring and his tenacious play would earn him his first professional hockey nickname!

The press in Los Angeles nicknamed him the "baby faced assassin" thanks to his thunderous checks and in-your-face play, and it served him and his teammates well as he finished fourth on the Kings in scoring in both 1967-68 and 1968-69. However, a shoulder injury slowed him down in 1969-70, and it wasn't long before one general manager had made a trade for the forward.

"I've been trying to get Irvine for two years," Emile Francis, the general manager‐coach of the Rangers, told the New York Times, "and we were finally able to swing it. I'm sorry we had to give up Lemieux and Widing, but that was the deal."

His run with the Rangers lasted six seasons where he was a fan favorite for his work on and off the ice. He won the "Conacher Award" for his work with handicapped children in 1975, something that he'd bring back with him to Manitoba where he was was instrumental in bringing the Special Olympics to Manitoba. When all was said and done on his NHL career, Irvine had scored 154 goals, 177 assists, and 657 PIMs in 724 games, but his work off the ice certainly helped his cause when it came to landing in the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame.

The other inductees include Brita Hall who has six gold and eight silver Special Olympics Games medals in cross-country skiing and track and field; Russ Horbal who founded the Sport Physiotherapy Centre and its predecessor, the Institute for Sports Medicine; Dr. Sandra Kirby who is a founder and coach of the University of Winnipeg Rowing Team; the 1999-2003 University of Manitoba Bisons men's volleyball team who captured three national championships and placing third in four years; and, Randy Turner who spent 26 years writing about Manitoba sports for the Winnipeg Free Press before passing away in 2019.

The Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame annual induction ceremony will take place on Thursday, November 7, 2024, at 7:30pm CT at the Victoria Inn in Winnipeg. Seats always fill up fast, so here's hoping you can get yours if you plan on going. It should be a great night of honouring some of Manitoba's best athletes and teams, and we should be proud of producing these incredible atheletes here in our province!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!