Murray Wood: Saskatchewan NDP might be better off with a new name
While Carla Beck has been trying to bring the Saskatchewan NDP closer to the centre, Murray Wood says the federal NDP ha...
Five athletes, one builder and two championship-winning teams are getting their calls to the hall in Saskatchewan.
The Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame announced its class of 2021 on Thursday.
The five athletes going in are Kaylyn Kyle (soccer), Justin Abdou (wrestling), Colette Bourgonje (track and cross-country skiing), the late Rod Boll (trapshooting), and Lyndon Rush (bobsleigh).
Shannon Miller, who coached the Canadian women’s hockey team from 1995 to 1998, is going in as a builder.
The 2013 Saskatchewan Roughriders and the 2000-01 University of Regina Cougars women’s basketball squad are going in as teams.
The 2013 Roughriders won the fourth Grey Cup in team history, defeating the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 45-23 at Mosaic Stadium. It was the final Grey Cup to be played at old Mosaic Stadium and was the first time the Roughriders had played in one at home.
The 2000-01 Cougars won the first Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union basketball title in the school’s history, beating the University of Alberta Pandas 94-85 in the final in Edmonton. The 94 points are still the most ever scored in a women’s national final.
Kyle, who was born in Saskatoon, played one season at the University of Saskatchewan before joining the senior women’s national team. The midfielder appeared in more than 100 games for the national team, becoming only the 14th player in team history to reach that mark.
Kyle was also a part of the 2012 bronze medal-winning Canadian team at the Olympics in London.
Abdou competed at the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics, placing 13th in the 85-kilogram category. The Moose Jaw wrestler won nine Canadian championships between 1990 and 2001.
Boll appeared at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games, finishing 19th. He was a member of the Canadian National ‘A’ team from 1993 to 2005.
Originally from Fillmore, he won 23 major Canadian Trapshooting Association championships and was one of only two shooters to win the “big five” (singles, doubles, handicap, high all around and high overall).
Bourgonje participated in seven Winter Paralympic Games and three Summer Paralympic Games. The Porcupine Plain product won 10 medals over those games, with three silvers and seven bronze.
Rush has appeared in two Olympics. In 2010 in Vancouver, his four-man bobsleigh team finished with a bronze medal and in 2014 in Sochi, his team finished ninth in both the two-man and four-man races.
The Humboldt product won the 2012-13 World Cup tour overall two-man bobsleight title as pilot with Jesse Lumsden. He also won 21 medals on the International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation World Cup tour — eight gold, four silver and nine bronze.
Miller, who is from Tisdale, won a silver medal as coach of the national women’s hockey team at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. She was the only female head coach at the Games.
She was the University of Minnesota-Duluth women’s hockey head coach from 1998 to 2015. During her time there, she won five NCAA titles (2001, 2002, 2003, 2008 and 2010) — the most among NCAA Division I head coaches.
The Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame said the class was originally selected for 2020 but the induction was postponed due to COVID.
The official enshrinement ceremony will take place when it is safe to do so.
