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Tickets available for the 2019 Alberta Sports Hall of Fame Induction banquet May 31, 2019

Published

6 years ago

14 minute read

The Alberta Sports Hall of Fame presents their 2019 Inductees; three athletes, three builders, one team and three Award recipients. These ten Albertans will have their legacies in sports preserved and celebrated by all of Alberta for generations to come. The Inductees will become official Honoured Members of the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame at the Induction Banquet taking place Friday, May 31, 2019.

The inductees include athletes who are Olympians and World Champions, builders who have dedicated endless hours to develop their sports, a team who knows the meaning of teamwork, and a pioneer who has partaken and watched his sport evolve throughout the decades. The celebration of these inductees is a show of appreciation and acknowledgement to the growth of the sports to which they have contributed and to those they continue to inspire.

Kreg Llewellyn – Water Skiing Athlete

Kreg Llewellyn

Kreg began competitive water skiing in the late 1970s. In 1979 he won his first Provincial Junior Boys Overall Title and later that year set his first Canadian Junior Boys Trick Record. In 1984, he became an integral part of the Canadian National Water Ski Team and for the next 20 years competed in the Overall events of Slalom, Trick and Jump. Kreg held 24 Canadian Records and won 7 individual World Championship medals, 3 Gold Team World Championship Medals, and 18 Pan American medals including: 7 Gold, 9 Silver and 2 Bronze. Kreg was an innovator and was willing to try anything, doing “tricks that couldn’t be done to doing them fast”. He also helped design and test the first ever Skurfer, which was a precursor to the evolution of wakeboarding. Kreg won the first ever World Wakeboard Championships in Hawaii. Photo Credit: Outerbridge Photography

Mike Rogers – Hockey Athlete

Mike Rogers

Mike Rogers played professional hockey for a total of 12 years; five years in the World Hockey Association, then seven years in the National Hockey League. Mike has the distinction of being one of only four players in the NHL to achieve 100 points in their first three seasons – the others are Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Peter Stastny. Mike’s first year in the NHL was with the expansion Harford Whalers team in 1979/80. He scored 105 points in both his first and second year. Mid-way through the 1980/81season, he was named captain. Mike joined the New York Rangers for the 1981/82 season and led the team with 103 points. He averaged 67 points in his next three seasons as the team adapted a more defensive style of play. In 484 regular-season NHL games, he had 519 points. In 1974/75, during Mike’s first year in the WHA, he led the Edmonton Oilers rookies in goals and points and was selected the WHA’s Most Gentlemanly Player. He was traded to the New England Whalers in 1975/76 and was their top scorer in 1978/79. In 396 WHA games, he scored 145 goals and had 222 assists for 367 points.

Lyndon Rush – Bobsleigh Athlete

Lyndon Rush

Lyndon Rush has achieved medals at the highest levels of competition during his bobsledding career. He was originally recruited to be a bobsled brakeman. Following a hamstring injury at training camp, he chose to train as a driver instead. He had a breakthrough season in 2009/10 and became the new leader of the Canadian men’s team as he captured his first World Cup gold medals in the two-man and four-man events. He made his Olympic debut at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games and piloted his four-man crew to a bronze medal. Lyndon reached the podium at the 2012 World Championships where he raced to a second place finish with brakeman Jesse Lumsden. He claimed his first World Cup Title when he took top spot in the overall two-man standings during the 2012/13 season. At the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games, he finished ninth in both the four-man and two-man events. Lyndon retired from competition in 2014.

James Donlevy – Football & Hockey Builder

James ‘Jim’ Donlevy

‘Jim’ Donlevy devoted his professional career to more than 50 years of coaching, teaching and administrative leadership. His career in football began in 1954 coaching Bantam and High School Football teams. He joined the Edmonton Huskies from 1961 to 1963 and won two Canadian titles. At the University of Alberta, he led the Golden Bears to four National Championship games and brought home the Vanier Cup in 1972 and 1980. He had the most wins of any Golden Bears football coach with 89 wins, 69 losses and 3 ties. From 1993 to 2015, Jim was the Western Hockey League’s Education Consultant. He built a formal education and scholarship program for the student athletes playing in the league. It is now considered one of the most comprehensive education programs for hockey in the world today.

Dorothy ‘Dot’ Padget – Artistic Swimming Builder

Dorothy ‘Dot’ Padget

Dorothy began her involvement with Synchronized Swimming in Alberta in the early 1970s. Now known as Artistic Swimming (FINA 2017), Dorothy trained, guided, supported, evaluated and mentored many athletes throughout the years. She worked her way up through the judge’s ranks and then became a certified FINA judge and earned her level ‘A’ certification, the highest there is. As a FINA judge, she visited more than 20 countries worldwide enroute to judging over 50 international competitions. Dorothy contributed to the sport as a clinic leader, and served on various committees and Boards at the provincial, national and international level. She wrote training materials, evaluated and assessed other judges, and participated in more than 15 event organizing committees. Her administrative roles included serving on the UANA (continental) and FINA (International Federation) Master committees from 2000 to 2015.

Edward ‘Ted’ Thresher – Wrestling Builder

Edward ‘Ted’ Thresher

Ted has been active with the Alberta Amateur Wrestling Association since 1967 as a coach, an official, administrator and event organizer. He organized and co-chaired the wrestling portion of the 1978 Commonwealth Games. Ted was also instrumental in putting together the successful bid for Edmonton to host the 1982 World Wrestling Championships and then served as Executive Director for the event. Ted became an outstanding national and FILA ranked official, and officiated at Nationals 14 times and officiated at Senior Nationals for 18 years. He also officiated internationally for 13 years: participating in 48 events, five World Championships, three Pan-Am Games and three Commonwealth Games. Ted always took time to return to the roots of the sport, officiating at all levels and conducting clinics for our national team, preparing them for the World stage.

Randy Ferbey Curling Team

The Ferbey Four

‘The Ferbey Four’ curling team, consisted of skip Randy Ferbey, 3 rd Dave Nedohin, 2nd Scott Pfeifer and lead Marcel Rocque. Considered one of the most successful and popular curling teams of all time, they curled together from the 1999/2000 season until the end of 2010. They won five consecutive Provincial men’s titles, four Canadian Brier Championships and three World Curling Championships. The team made a number of innovations within the sport, popularizing the system where the Skip throws the Third’s stones and the Third, Dave Nedohin, threw the final stones. They also promoted the use of the ‘numbered zones’ to communicate the weight (speed) of the curling stones. The four member each brought their own unique and integral skills to form a strong and supportive team structure.

Achievement Award – George Stothart, Multisport Athlete/Builder

George Stothart

George is a multi-sport athlete, coach, and for 64 years, a basketball official. He was born deaf and became a leader in the growth of the deaf sporting community in Alberta. He played football with the Lacombe High School, the University of Alberta, the Edmonton Huskies, and basketball for the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT). George competed at three World Deaf Games, twice on the Canadian Basketball Team in 1965 & 1973, and as a 400m athletics participant in 1969. He attended once again in 1981 as a Team Canada official and chaperone. George was one of the key players on the Edmonton deaf fastball team, ‘The Flying Fingers’ in 1969, and was one of the founders of the Edmonton Tasmanian Devils deaf slo-pitch team in 1980. He was also a leader in the formation of the Edmonton Deaf Basketball team. George was one of the first officers to serve on the board of the Federation of Silent Sports of Alberta (FSSA), the forerunner of the Alberta Deaf Sports Association. He held numerous positions from 1976 to 1982. George refereed basketball at various levels since the age of 15 and in the peak of his career, was officiating 287 games per year.

Bell Memorial Award – Rob Kerr

Rob Kerr

Rob Kerr was a sports play-by-play announcer, a reporter, producer and host for more than two decades. He started his broadcasting career in the 1990s as the television play-by-play voice of the Fort McMurray Oil Barons. He went on to be the voice on the radio for the Estevan Bruins for two seasons. Following a move to Edmonton, he became the host of a sports talk show and a play-by-play announcer for two years. He then went to Calgary where he was the play-byplay announcer for the Calgary Vipers, the Calgary Roughnecks, Calgary Hitmen and the Calgary Flames. He was with Sportsnet from May 2003 to August 2018 and was a long-time radio host on Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Pioneer Award – Herman Dorin, Wrestling Athlete

Herman Dorin

Herman began wrestling in the late 1940s. While attending the University of Alberta in the early 1950s, he wrestled and became an assistant coach in 1950/51, and then head coach from 1952 to 1954. Herman competed in the light-heavyweight and heavyweight categories and was undefeated in provincial competition for 15 years from 1951 to 1966. Herman competed at three national championships: in 1952, 1954 finishing in third place, and 1967 where he placed second. In 1954 he founded the Edmonton Amateur Wrestling Federation. Herman became a school teacher and formed the first school wrestling teams outside of Calgary and Edmonton in the rural communities of Winfield, Bentley, Eckville and Didsbury. Herman also played an early role in the development of Zone 2 wrestling for the Alberta Winter Games as he recruited athletes for the 1980 Games, and acted as zone coach in 1982 and 1984.

The Induction Banquet

The Alberta Sports Hall of Fame and Museum hosts an annual Induction banquet each year in Red Deer, Alberta. More than 600 people from across the provinces and the United States attend this gala event to honour Alberta’s great athletes, sport builders, pioneers, and media personnel.

At this prestigious event, several extraordinary Albertans that have made an impact on sport in our province, country, and around the world are honoured. The event not only honours these great Albertans but it recognizes the importance of sport in our lives and communities.

The Induction Banquet will be May 31, 2019 at the Cambridge Red Deer Hotel.

Since it’s inception in 1957, hundreds of Albertans have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. All are invited to join in this celebration of both new Inductees and returning Honoured Members, and their lasting impact on sport in our province! Click here for tickets.

Click here to watch some great vignettes about last year’s inductees.

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Alberta

Preston Manning: Canada is in a unity crisis

Published on April 30, 2025

By

Preston Manning's avatar Preston Manning

A Canada West Assembly would investigate why

The election of a minority Liberal government on Monday, and the strong showing of the Conservative party under Pierre Poilievre, cannot mask the fact that Canada remains seriously fractured on many fronts. Thus, one of the primary tasks of the Carney government will be to unite us for the sake of our own national well-being — not simply for the sake of presenting a strong front in future dealings with the United States.

But how is that to be done? When parliament meets as scheduled on May 26, will the government’s throne speech acknowledge the main sources of national disunity and propose the immediate adoption of remedial measures? Or will it ignore the problem entirely, which will serve to further alienate Quebec and the West from Ottawa and the rest of Canada, and weaken Canada’s bargaining position vis a vis the United States?

The principal tactic employed by the Liberal party to unite Canadians behind it in the recent election was to employ the politics of fear — fear of U.S. President Donald Trump trying to “break us so that America can own us,” as Liberal Leader Mark Carney has repeatedly said.

But if the only way to unite Canadians is through the promotion of anti-Americanism fostered by fear of some alleged American takeover — if reaction to the erratic musings of an American president is the only way to motivate more Canadians to vote in a federal election — then not only national unity, but Canadian democracy itself, is in critical condition.

We need to pinpoint what actually is fracturing the country, because if we can clearly define that, we can begin the process of removing those divisive elements to the largest extent possible. Carney and the Liberals will of course declare that it is separatist agitations in Quebec and now the West that is dividing us, but these are simply symptoms of the problem, not the cause.

Here, then, is a partial list of what underpins the division and disunity in this country and, more importantly, of some positive, achievable actions we can take to reduce or eliminate them.

First and foremost is the failure to recognize and accommodate the regional character of this country. Canada is the second-largest country by area on the planet and is characterized by huge geographic regions — the Atlantic, Central Canada, the Prairies, the Pacific Coast and the Northern territories.

Each of these regions — not just Quebec — has its own “distinctive” concerns and aspirations, which must be officially recognized and addressed by the federal government if the country is to be truly united. The previous Liberal government consistently failed to do this, particularly with respect to the Prairies, Pacific and Northern regions, which is the root of much of the alienation that even stimulates talk of western separation.

Second is Ottawa’s failure to recognize and treat the natural resources sector as a fundamental building block of our national economy — not as a relic from the past or an environmental liability, as it was regarded by the government of former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

Will the throne speech announce another 180-degree turn for the Liberal government: the explicit recognition that the great engine of the Canadian economy and our economic recovery is not the federal government, as Carney has implied, but Canada’s agricultural, energy, mining, forestry and fishery sectors, with all the processing, servicing, manufacturing and knowledge sectors that are built upon them?

A third issue we’ve been plagued with is the division of Canadian society based on race, gender, sexual preferences and other identity traits, rather than focusing on the things that unite us as a nation, such as the equality of all under the law. Many private-sector entities are beginning to see the folly of pursuing identity initiatives such as diversity, equity and inclusion that divide rather than unite, but will the Liberal government follow suit and will that intention be made crystal clear in the upcoming throne speech?

A final issue is the federal government’s intrusion into areas of provincial jurisdiction — such as natural resources, health, municipal governance, along with property and civil rights — which is the principal cause of tension and conflict between the federal and provincial governments.

The solution is to pass a federal “act respecting provincial jurisdiction” to repeal or amend the statutes that authorize federal intrusions, so as to eliminate, or at least reduce, their intrusiveness. Coincidentally, this would be a legislative measure that both the Conservatives and the Bloc could unite behind if such a statute were to be one of the first pieces of legislation introduced by the Carney government.

Polling is currently being done to ascertain whether the election of yet another Liberal government has increased the growing estrangement of western Canada from Ottawa and the rest of Canada, notwithstanding Carney’s assurances that his minority government will change its policies on climate change, pipelines, immigration, deficit spending and other distinguishing characteristics of the discredited Trudeau government.

The first test of the truthfulness of those assurances will come via the speech from the throne and the follow-up actions of the federal government.

Meanwhile, consultations are being held on the merits and means of organizing a “Canada West Assembly” to provide a democratic forum for the presentation, analysis and debate of the options facing western Canada (not just Alberta) — from acceptance of a fairer and stronger position within the federation based on guarantees from the federal government, to various independence-oriented proposals, with votes to be taken on the various options and recommendations to be made to the affected provincial governments.

Only time will tell whether the newly elected Carney government chooses to address the root causes of national disunity. But whether it does so or not will influence the direction in which the western provinces and the proposed Canada West Assembly will point.

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Alberta

Premier Danielle Smith hints Alberta may begin ‘path’ toward greater autonomy after Mark Carney’s win

Published on April 30, 2025

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Alberta’s premier said her government will be holding a special caucus meeting on Friday to discuss Alberta’s independence.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith hinted her province could soon consider taking serious steps toward greater autonomy from Canada in light of Mark Carney and the Liberal Party winning yesterday’s federal election.

In a statement posted to her social media channels today, Smith, who is head of Alberta’s governing United Conservative Party, warned that “In the weeks and months ahead, Albertans will have an opportunity to discuss our province’s future, assess various options for strengthening and protecting our province against future hostile acts from Ottawa, and to ultimately choose a path forward.”

“As Premier, I will facilitate and lead this discussion and process with the sincere hope of securing a prosperous future for our province within a united Canada that respects our province’s constitutional rights, facilitates rather than blocks the development and export of our abundant resources, and treats us as a valued and respected partner within confederation,” she noted.

While Smith stopped short of saying that Alberta would consider triggering a referendum on independence from Canada, she did say her government will be holding a “special caucus meeting this Friday to discuss this matter further.”

“I will have more to say after that meeting is concluded,” she noted.

Smith’s warning comes at the same time some pre-election polls have shown Alberta’s independence from Canada sentiment at just over 30 percent.

Monday’s election saw Liberal leader Mark Carney beat out Conservative rival Pierre Poilievre, who also lost his seat. The Conservatives managed to pick up over 20 new seats, however, and Poilievre has vowed to stay on as party leader, for now.

In Alberta, almost all of the seats save two at press time went to conservatives.

Carney, like former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before him, said he is opposed to new pipeline projects that would allow Alberta oil and gas to be unleashed. Also, his green agenda, like Trudeau’s, is at odds with Alberta’s main economic driver, its oil and gas industry.

The Carney government has also pledged to mandate that all new cars and trucks by 2035 be electric, effectively banning the sale of new gasoline- or diesel-only powered vehicles after that year.

The reduction and eventual elimination of the use of so-called “fossil fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) – the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda – an organization in which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved.

Smith: ‘I will not permit the status quo to continue’

In her statement, Smith noted that she invited Carney to “immediately commence working with our government to reset the relationship between Ottawa and Alberta with meaningful action rather than hollow rhetoric.”

She noted that a large majority of Albertans are “deeply frustrated that the same government that overtly attacked our provincial economy almost unabated for the past 10 years has been returned to government.”

Smith then promised that she would “not permit the status quo to continue.”

“Albertans are proud Canadians that want this nation to be strong, prosperous, and united, but we will no longer tolerate having our industries threatened and our resources landlocked by Ottawa,” she said.

Smith praised Poilievre for empowering “Albertans and our energy sector as a cornerstone of his campaign.”

Smith was against forced COVID jabs, and her United Conservative government has in recent months banned men from competing in women’s sports and passed a bill banning so-called “top and bottom” surgeries for minors as well as other extreme forms of transgender ideology.

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