On Thursday, six Vancouver sports figures and personalities were inducted into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame in each of the five categories: athlete, builder, team, pioneer and media.
Perhaps the most public of them all was Denny Veitch, the late general manager for both the Whitecaps and the Lions. Veitch, who died in 2011 at the age of 80, is credited with coining the name for the city’s professional soccer team when, famously, driving over the Lions Gate Bridge, he spied the white-capped mountain tops and churning white water on Burrard Inlet and came up with Whitecaps for the team he was helping to create for play in the North American Soccer League. He was the team manager from 1973 to ’77 and counted current ‘Caps president Bob Lenarduzzi as a son-in-law.
He was the chairman for the 1973 Canada Summer Games in New Westminster and, before that, had an illustrious run with the B.C. Lions as the club’s assistant manager and general manager from 1961 to ’70, which included a Grey Cup in 1964.
Veitch, incredibly since losing his right arm as a child, had a distinguished rugby career and toured with the national team. He is inducted into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame as a builder.
Another face — or more specifically, voice — associated with the B.C. Lions will also join the Hall located at B.C. Place. J. Paul McConnell will be inducted in the media category.
Last summer, Vancouver Sun columnist Mike Beamish wrote about the sportsman he knew well: “McConnell started doing play-by-play in 1982 at CFUN, moved to CKNW in 1984 and was still at it in 2004, when the ’NW lost the Lions’ broadcast rights to the current holder, The Team 1040. For a 10-year period, from 1979 to 89, McConnell’s “baggy eyes and hangdog face” (in the words of late Vancouver Sun columnist Denny Boyd) were seen regularly as the sports director on Vancouver television station CBUT. He was a straight-to-the-matter, no-frills, hard and accurate deliverer of sports news in the days when substance mattered more than style.
“In 1996, McConnell was named to the media wing of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame during a time when the league was floundering and the Lions’ relevance in the Vancouver sports market was being questioned. And yet, McConnell seemed impervious to it all, registering high on the professional meter, calling a terrific game with his sonorous, big-time voice, even when the team slumped to 3-15 and the attendance at B.C. Place sank along with it.
“Sports is not just about the scores and the stats. It’s about context and back stories. And McConnell could make Lions fans excited about a rogue’s gallery of athletes they scarcely knew, because he had such a love for the CFL, its coaches and players.”
Two wheelchair rugby players will also be inducted, one as an athlete and the other as a pioneer and both extremely influential.
Garett Hickling, a Vancouver resident, was born in Mica Creek north of Revelstoke and for two decades was considered the most physically dominant and respected wheelchair athlete in the world. On the national team for 17 years, Hickling was a five-time Paralympian and led Canada to one gold, four silver and three bronze medals at both the world championship and Paralympics. He was the MVP at the first three world championships in 1995, ’98 and ’02.
Duncan Campbell helped create wheelchair rugby when it was widely called “murderball.” Playing in a Winnipeg gym with four friends in 1976, Campbell influenced thousands of lives around the planet by developing one of the world’s most popular and fastest-growing wheelchair sports. He moved to Vancouver in 1986 and in 2013 received the prestigious Paralympic Order from the International Paralympic Committee. The Campbell Cup, the national wheelchair rugby championship trophy, takes his name. He is in the Hall as a pioneer.
Baseball player and manager John Haar grew up around the sport as the son of the head groundskeeper at Nat Bailey Stadium. He grew up to play outfield for the San Francisco Giants and New York Yankee organizations, topping out at the AA level. According to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, where Haar has also been inducted, the Vancouverite “embarked on a coaching career that has made him one of the most respected managers in Canadian baseball history.”
He managed Team Canada, led the National Baseball Institute for its 14 years and coached the national junior team the program’s only gold medal at the 1991 international gold medal. That year he was named Canada’s coach of the year and International Baseball Federation’s top coach in 1992.
The Canadian women’s soccer team, in 2012, overcame a controversial and unforgettable semi-final loss to the U.S. at the London Summer Games to then win bronze in a 1-0 win over France. It was Canada’s first summer team medal since 1936. The program regularly trains in Vancouver and its B.C. players will be inducted in the team category; they include Karina LeBlanc of Maple Ridge, Sophie Schmidt of Abbotsford, Christine Sinclair of Burnaby, Brittany Timko Baxter of Coquitlam and Emily Zurrer of Crofton. Sinclair was the tournament’s top scorer with six goals.
