Sports fans from across British Columbia nominated 212 different events that were considered by sport historians, media and honoured members of the BC Sports Hall of Fame in the process of selecting the top 50 Golden Moments in BC Sports History.
In the 50-day period from Thursday, April 21st through the 50th Anniversary Banquet of Champions, presented by Canadian Direct Insurance on Thursday, June 9th, British Columbians are invited to help countdown the 50 Golden Moments in BC Sports History by voting for your favorites.
B.C. has a colourful and fascinating sports history,” said Allison Mailer, Executive Director of the BC Sports Hall of Fame. “Our Board of Directors embraced the challenge of narrowing down to 50 from the 211 different moments that were nominated and we cannot wait to see British Columbians vote on the moments and engage in a fascinating debate over the next 50 days. We encourage everyone to visit our website and cast their vote!”
You can join in the action and vote for some of our BC Games and Team BC alumni who feature prominently in the top 50. Here are our favorites.
#8 - Steve Nash, Team BC alummus, 1993 Canada Summer Games
2005 – After a spectacular season with the Phoenix Suns, Victoria’s Steve Nash becomes the first Canadian to win the NBA MVP award for the 2004-‐05 season. Besides leading the Suns to an NBA-‐best 62–20 win-‐loss record and the highest scoring average in a decade, Nash himself averaged 15.5 points per game and 11.5 assists per game. He became only the third point guard ever named MVP, joining Magic Johnson and Bob Cousy, and was awarded the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada’s outstanding athlete of the year for 2005. The following season Nash repeated as NBA MVP becoming one of only ten players in history to win back-‐ to-‐back MVP awards.
#13 - Karina LeBlanc, BC Games alumna, 1993 and 1994 BC Summer Games
2012 – Burnaby’s Christine Sinclair captains the Canadian women’s Olympic soccer team to an historic bronze medal at the 2012 Olympics in London, defeating France in the bronze medal game 1-‐0 on a goal scored with just seconds left in added time. Four other BC players played key roles in Canada’s stirring run through the tournament: Abbotsford midfielder Sophie Schmidt; Coquitlam midfielder Brittany Timko; Crofton defender Emily Zurrer; and Maple Ridge goalkeeper Karina LeBlanc. Sinclair's finest moment of the tournament came in their semi-final match versus the USA at Old Trafford where she scored a hat trick in a heartbreaking 4-3 loss that went to extra time. She finished as the tournament’s top scorer with an Olympic record six goals and later served as Canada’s flag bearer at the Closing Ceremonies.
# 35 Rob Boyd, BC Games alumnus, 1980 BC Winter Games
1989 - Whistler skier Rob Boyd becomes the first Canadian male racer to win a World Cup downhill in his home country, winning in his hometown in 1989. His parents’ home overlooked the finish line area for the race. An estimated 25,000+ were on hand watching that day. Besides three World Cup victories, Boyd finished on the podium six times and accumulated 28 top-‐fifteen results in his twelve years on the national team. Boyd also qualified for six world championships and three Olympics before retiring from World Cup competition in 1997.
#42 Simon Whitfield, BC Games Society Board Member
2000 – Victoria’s Simon Whitfield rebounds from a crash on the bike portion of the first-‐ ever Olympic triathlon with a blistering finishing kick to pass all competitors and win the sport’s inaugural Olympic gold medal in Sydney, Australia. Whitfield’s winning time of 1hr
48:24min would stand as an Olympic record for 12 years. He was selected to carry the Canadian flag at the Games’ Closing Ceremony. Whitfield later added a dramatic triathlon silver medal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing—missing out on gold by just five seconds—and was chosen as Canadian flagbearer at the Opening Ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics in London.
#43 Carol Huynh, BC Games alumna, 1996 BC Summer Games
2008 – The daughter of Vietnamese refugees who built a new life in small-town Hazelton, BC, Carol Huynh (appropriately pronounced “win”) wins an emotional Olympic gold medal in women’s 48-kg freestyle wrestling at the Beijing Olympics. Huynh won her first three matches of the tournament before facing Japan’s reigning world champion, Chiharu Icho, in the gold medal match. Huynh used her relentless attacking style to score points and never allowed Icho the opportunity to gain control. When Huynh’s arm was raised as the winner, she wept. In the years that followed, Huynh won gold medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and the 2011 Pan American Games, while adding a bronze medal at the 2012Olympics in London.
#45 Maelle Ricker, BC Games alumna, 1992 and 1993 BC Summer Games
2010 – West Vancouver’s Maëlle Ricker wins Olympic snowboard cross gold on Cypress Mountain—just twenty minutes from where she grew up—to become the first Canadian woman to win Olympic gold on home snow. Overcoming a disastrous first qualifying run in which she fell, Ricker stormed back in the quarters and semis and led wire-‐to-‐wire in the foggy final. The next night over 20,000 proud Canadians at BC Place Stadium celebrated her gold medal presentation. And if winning Olympic gold at home wasn’t enough, a month later Ricker locked up the World Cup Overall title as the topper on her dream 2010 season.
#49 Brent Hayden, BC Games and Team BC alumnus, 1998 BC Summer Games and 2001 Canada Summer Games
2012 -Mission’s Brent Hayden caps one of the great swimming careers in BC history by winning a bronze medal in the 100m freestyle at the 2012 Olympics in London. It marked Canada’s first-ever medal in possibly swimming’s most hotly contested event and proved one of Canada’s defining moments of the 2012 Olympics. Canada had not even placed an athlete in the Olympic 100m freestyle final since Dick Pound 52 years earlier. Determined to erase the disappointment of previous Games, Hayden, the oldest swimmer in the field by over three years, swam his gutsiest race ever. Despite back spasms and ill-fitting goggles, he pulled off the best start of his career and never stopped pushing to finish in a time of 47.80 seconds.
#50 Denny Morrison, BC Games alumnus, 2000 BC Winter Games
2014 – Fort St. John’s Denny Morrison wins the 1000m speed skating silver medal at the Sochi Olympics to complete one of the most heartwarming stories in recent Olympic history. At the 2013 Canadian trials Morrison had tripped just metres before the 1000m finish line and lost his chance at an Olympic spot in the distance despite being one of the world’s best 1000m skaters. In Sochi, Canadian teammate Gilmore Junio, who had qualified for the 1000m, selflessly offered Morrison his spot, which Morrison graciously accepted. The gesture made international headlines, particularly after Morrison battled to his gutsy silver and just four hundredths of a second from gold. Later in the Games, he added a 1500m bronze medal to bring his career Olympic medal haul to four, matching Canadian Gaetan Boucher as the most decorated male speed skaters in history.
There are six rounds of public voting so go to the link to the voting bracket and check back often. http://www.bcsportshalloffame.com/vote/
Round 1 (18 match-ups): April 21 – May 5
Round 2 (16 match-ups): May 7 – May 12
Round 3 (8 match-ups): May 14 – May 19
Quarterfinal (4 match-ups): May 21 – May 26
Semi-final (2 match-ups): May 28 – June 2
Final: June 4 – June 8