DAVE CHIDLEY
For the inaugural year of Canada's new Sports Hall of Fame at Calgary's Canada Olympic Park, more than 80 athletes and builders were nominated, but a slim half-dozen - five athletes and one builder - were named to the class of 2011.
For a change, the builder's name stands even with the sport performers. Dick Pound, the former International Olympic Committee vice-president and former head of the Canadian Olympic Association, arguably kept the Olympic movement afloat when it was in danger of collapse from a lack of funds and corruption.
He goes into the new Canadian pantheon in November along with top pro hockey defenceman Ray Bourque; the top scorer in Canadian Football League history, B.C. Lions' kicker Lui Passaglia; soccer pioneer Andrea Neil, who was capped 132 times and paved the way for a Canadian team at this year's women's World Cup; Peter Reid, a winner of 10 Ironman triathlon events including three world championships; and Lauren Woolstencroft, the Paralympic skier who won five gold medals at Whistler (eight in her career) and eight world championships .
"I believe that sport is a fundamental contributor to any great society, any in Canada we are second to none," said Pound.
Pound was an Olympic finalist as a swimmer in 1960; but his most crucial contributions to sports were in developing the billion-dollar sales of TV rights and an overall marketing plan at a time when the Olympics seemed destined to bleed to death financially in the 1980s. In the 1990s, he took the unpopular but necessary jobs of cleaning up IOC corruption when more than a million dollars in freebies were doled out by bidders for the Salt Lake City Olympics; and he also founded the World Anti-Doping Association and harmonized sanctions against drug use among sports to move the athletic world a step closer to clean competition.
Pound, a tax expert and partner at the Montreal-based law firm of Stikeman Elliott, has also been chancellor of McGill University, former president of the COA (pre-dating the Canadian Olympic Committee) and past vice-president of the IOC. In his anti-drug battles, the St. Catharines, Ont., native has been strident in his adamant skepticism of claims of clean competition by seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and the past of the International Cycling Union,
Some who enter the hall may have been overlooked because of the position they played, like Passaglia, a 25-year kicker with the B.C. Lions who set the Canadian Football League points scoring record (3,391 points) with his talented toe. In 2000, at the age of 46, Passaglia set the record for the longest CFL playoff punt, 89 yards, in Calgary.
"To be included with these 514 great Canadian athletes and builders is truly humbling and gratifying," he said.
Others are so dominant they couldn't be overlooked. Bourque the longest-serving captain in Boston Bruins history, won the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche in 2001. He won five Norris Trophies as the NHL's best defencemen, played in 19 all-star games, in three Canada Cups and at the Nagano Olympics for Canada.
Reid, now a pilot with Harbour Air Seaplanes, was an Ironman in every sense of the word. When he won the Ironman crown in 2003, he became one of only three men -- and the only Canadian -- to have won it three times. Known for his work ethic, consistency and intensity, he's shared his knowledge with the likes of Simon Whitfield. He has the fastest Ironman marathon ever -- 2 hours 35 minutes 21 seconds; and the third-fastest Ironman competition overall, 7:51:56. He said he borrowed motivation from the likes of Olympic swimmer Victor Davis, cyclist Steve Bauer, speed skater Gaetan Boucher and amputee runner Terry Fox "to get me out the door to train" on unpleasant days. "We can win on the world stage if we believe we can get it done," he said.
Neil was the predecessor of Christine Sinclair as a leader in the national women's soccer team. She played 18 years with the nationals and six years as a pro for the Vancouver Whitecaps. Neil retired two seasons ago with 132 international caps, played in four World Cups and scored 24 times for Canada in the days when there were fewer games and training camps.
Woolstencroft goes into the hall not only as a multiple winner of Paralympic medals and world championships, but as a woman of personal and academic accomplishments. Not only did she cross the finish line first at a number of Whistler Paralympic races, but she is an electrical engineer with B.C. Hydro who helped create the lighting in the finish area.