Joey Payeur
More Fort Frances residents who climbed to elite status in the local sporting community will take their rightful historical place next summer.
The latest group of inductees into the Fort Frances Sports Hall of Fame was announced this past week, with ceremonies slated to take place Aug. 12.
Three builders, two teams, and one athlete were chosen by the Hall’s organizing committee of Terry Ogden, Dave Egan, and Larry Patrick.
Former Muskie girls’ hockey head coach Scott Clendenning was named in the builders’ category, along with the father-son tandem of Jim and Glenn Witherspoon.
Clendenning was captain of the 1986 Muskie boys’ squad that won the program’s first OFSAA championship.
His greater achievements, though, came as a coach and fervent promoter of girls’ hockey and youth hockey in general.
Clendenning led the Muskie girls to their first two NorWOSSA titles in team history in 2014 and 2015, with the latter squad claiming the squad’s first-ever OFSAA medal by winning silver in Kenora.
He also organized the highly-successful 3-on-3 spring hockey league known as “The Rock,” and ran an extremely popular week-long pre-season training camp for youth players near the end of each summer.
Jim Witherspoon, meanwhile, is known as the father of junior hockey in Fort Frances—spearheading the creation of the Fort Frances Royals in 1958 as well as sponsoring a number of minor hockey teams throughout the years.
His son, Glenn, played on the first two Royals’ squads. Then after leaving to continue his hockey career in the U.S., he returned in 1965 to coach and manage the Royals from 1965-72.
He also was the Thunder Bay Hockey Association’s minor representative for the Canadian Hockey Association and served as president of the Fort Frances Minor Hockey Association for 10 years.
He wound up being named a life member of the FFMHA.
Witherspoon also went on to become the mayor of Fort Frances from 1991-2003, during which time he pushed for the creation of a second ice surface that eventually led to the building of the Ice For Kids Arena.
Getting in via the team category are the 1959 Manitoba schoolboy curling champions and the 1980 NorWOSSA and NWOSSAA champion Muskie senior girls’ basketball squad.
The curling team featured skip Peter McLeod, now a retired doctor living in Montreal, along with third Art Berglund and the front end of Leonard McQuarrie and Bob Gratton.
Berglund will be entering the local hall for the second time after being part of the initial class of 2015 for his contributions with USA Hockey, among other achievements, that already had earned him a place in the Northwestern Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in Thunder Bay.
The hoops squad, coached by Bob Barron, won the 1979 NorWOSSA title but lost the NWOSSAA final to the host team from Terrace Bay.
But the six-player group of Jean Bujold, Tracy Cameron (formerly Roach), Lori Gustafson, Kathy McConnachie (formerly Kolynchuk), Laurie Moxham (formerly Pearson), and Marigold Bishop returned the following season to avenge their loss and did so by beating Terrace Bay 42-36 in the NWOSSAA final at Fort High.
The lone athlete to gain induction this time around was baseball pitcher David Brockie.
Known as “Diamond Dave” in local circles, the right-hander came to Fort Frances from Portage la Prairie, Man. in the 1930s and dominated the local and regional baseball scene for several seasons.
He went on to open Brockie’s Jewellers here, and become an ardent sponsor and supporter of minor baseball locally during the 1950s.
Also on tap to be inducted next summer are former NHL forward Chris Lindberg and CFL all-star kick returner and defensive back Jeff Treftlin.
Lindberg played for the Calgary Flames and Quebec Nordiques, as well as the 1992 Canadian Olympic team, while Treftlin won a Grey Cup ring in 1989 with the Saskatchewan Roughriders during an eight-year career.
Both automatically qualify for the local Hall because of already having become members of the Northwestern Ontario Hall of Fame.
