Terry Fox’s Atlantic Ocean toe-dip? Christine Sinclair’s captaincy and emotional bronze medal at the London Olympic Games? The near impossible feat of winning Olympic gold in the 100- and 200-metre sprints, as Percy Williams did 82 years before Usain Bolt?
Out of these three and 47 others, you decide which moment is the best.
To celebrate its 50th anniversary commemorating and charting athletic heritage and excellence, the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame has created a massive bracket and stocked it with a selection of the greatest moments in sport that either took place within our provincial borders or happened overseas to B.C. athletes and teams.
“We wanted to put a spotlight on how amazing the depth of sport has been for our province,” said the hall of fame’s executive director Allison Mailer. “We wanted the public to dig a little deeper and go back to the ’90s and even the 1890s. It’s a success if people are reminded of all of the achievements and moments they didn’t realise that happened here.”
The Hall started by petitioning the public for their choice for the most important moments and then scaled that down to 50, the oldest dating to 1908, the year when the New West Salmonbellies won B.C.’s first national lacrosse title and Victoria’s Robert Powell reached the semifinals at Wimbledon.
The Hall is emphasizing moments — not people — since it’s not a popularity contest so much as an effort to tap the collective memory for milestones that helped shape the province’s athletic identity and draw future generation together through sport, said Mailer.
“If you look at the high-performing MVPs that are from British Columbia, how do you rank them? Do you rank Larry Walker and Steve Nash and Carey Price? If you’re an MVP, aren’t you just an MVP?”
Nash appears at No. 8 on the Top 50, not explicitly as an individual but rather for his moment in 2005 when he was named the most valuable player in the NBA. Walker is also on the list at No. 14 for his National League MVP honour in 1997.
The Hall already ranked the top 14, which assured those moments a place in the bracket. The rest were seeded Tuesday, April 19 after they were randomly drawn from a large silver bowl that was presented to Karen Magnussen in 1972 by Premier WAC Bennett to commemorate her Olympic silver medal win in figure skating at the 1972 Sapporo Olympic Games.
Mailer’s top choice is Percy Williams winning double gold in the 100- and 200-metre events at the 1928 Summer Games.
“For me, it’s a slam dunk,” she said. I’ve put it into perspective as to what Usain Bolt has meant to the Olympics now. For those of us who love sport, we stop and watch and remember those moments.”
For the 50 Golden Moments of BC Sports History, the public can vote in the first round starting today. Each round will last six days before the winner advances to the next round. The public can vote once in each match-up through all rounds.
“I only get one vote just like everybody else,” said the executive director.
Voting continues through May and the first week of June. The four finalists will be announced at the Hall’s Banquet of Champions on June 9.
To vote, .
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BC Sports Hall of Fame picks its top sixĚý
What says “sports” more than a single-knock out competition, a win-or-go-home tournament that whittles the very best out of the top 50?
The B.C. Hall of Fame picked the top 14 moments, to ensure their place in the bracket. Here are their top five:
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No. 1 In the space of an hour on Aug. 7, 1954, two unforgettable moments on the final day of the British Empire and Commonwealth Games at Empire Stadium combined for perhaps the most thrilling afternoon in B.C. sport history. First, two men ran the mile in under four minutes. Less than an hour later, a runner straggled into the stadium and collapsed before reaching the finish line of the marathon, which only six competitors finished that very hot day.
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No. 2ĚýSidney Crosby’s “Golden Goal” to win Olympic Gold in men’s hockey at the 2010 Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»Winter Games at Canada Hockey Place, which we all know as Rogers Arena.
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No. 3ĚýIn 1980, Coquitlam’s Terry Fox captivates Canadians and eventually the world as the cancer survivor attempted to make his way across the country from east to west in an epic endeavour to run the equivalent of one marathon a day on his prosthetic leg to raise awareness for cancer research and treatment.
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No. 4 In 1928, Vancouver’s Percy Williams ran the 100m in 10.8 to win gold at the Amsterdam Olympics. It was the first individual gold medal captured by a B.C. athlete. A few days later, he doubled up and won the 200m event, a very rare and special feat in athletics.
Ěý - No. 5 Nancy Greene, who grew up skiing at Red Mountain near Rossland, broke European dominance of the slopes when she won the giant slalom gold medal at the 1968 Winter Games in Grenoble. She also won silver in the giant slalom and back-to-back World Cup titles.
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