Deadline for nominations is October 15, with inductees being announced in August 2022
The Fort Frances Sports Hall of Fame is making a final call for nominations to its 2022 induction class.
Co-chair of the Hall of Fame committee, Scott Fawcett, says they are looking for nominees in all three categories: teams; athletes; and builders.
“Those nominations always come from the general public,” Fawcett said. “It’s up to the general public to pick candidates that they think would be worthy people who have excelled either at local, provincial or national levels in any particular category.”
While hockey is popular in Fort Frances and the area, all sports are eligible for induction into the Hall of Fame.
“We’ve got a number of sports that are represented in the Hall of Fame right now,” Fawcett said. “We’ve got women’s basketball, we’ve got racket sports. We’ve got a full spectrum of athletes and we’re really hopeful that there will be nominations that will come in from sports where people have had a lot of success in the Fort Frances area, but that we don’t have a nominee or an inductee yet.”
Nomination forms can be found at various locations throughout the area. Including Taggs Source for Sports, La Place Rendezvous, Sunset Ford, the New Gold office in Emo, West End Motors, C.C. Complex, and the Fort Frances Times. Forms can also be downloaded from the Hall of Fame’s Facebook page.
To nominate a person or team, you can fill out a form with biographical information about the nominee, what’s on their resume, what did they do to deserve induction into the Hall of Fame? When did they do it? The committee would also appreciate any newspaper articles or documentation which can help for older nominees from before the internet era. The committee appreciates as much documentation as possible as the nominations are competitive.
“We’ve had eight to 10 new nominations in the last four or five months, and they will go into the pool of nominees that also includes some very strong candidates who didn’t make it into the 2019 Hall of Fame induction class,” Fawcett said.
Submissions can be dropped off at the Memorial Sports Complex, mailed to the Complex, to the attention of the Hall of Fame, or emailed to FortFrancesSportsHOF@hotmail.com.
The deadline for submissions is Oct. 15. The selection committee marks submissions using a scoring system they have adapted from the Northwestern Ontario Hall of Fame in Thunder Bay. Once the scores are tallied up, they will choose the seven or eight of the best submissions to be inducted at the 2022 Hall of Fame Induction ceremony on Saturday, Aug. 13, 2022.
The committee is also looking for sponsors.
“There’s opportunities for local organizations and businesses to associate themselves with the rich sports history of the town of Fort Frances,” Fawcett said. “Those sponsorships go to directly pay for the customized plaques that the inductees receive and are publicly displayed.”
“We’re really excited about this year’s induction class,” Fawcett said. “I think it’s going to be as good or maybe even more exciting than some of the previous induction classes.”
