The Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame has announced the ten (10) inductees who will become the newest members to be enshrined as part of the Class of 2014. The inductees, including four in the athlete category, two in the category of builder and four in the team category will be officially inducted at the 48^th Annual Induction Ceremony to be held at the Delta Regina on Friday, June 13, 2014.

The 2014 inductees are:

IN THE ATHLETE CATEGORY:

Cpt. Edward Lyman Abbott, MC/Bar (Deceased) – Hockey

Bob Bourne (Kindersley) – Hockey

Jacqueline Lavallee (Saskatoon) – Basketball

Keith Magnuson (Deceased) – Hockey

IN THE BUILDER CATEGORY:

Brian Clark (Saskatoon) – Athletics

Claude Petit, C.M., S.O.M. (Duck Lake) – Boxing

IN THE TEAM CATEGORY:

1996 Randy Bryden Mixed Curling Team – 1996 National Mixed Curling Champions

2001 Saskatoon Hilltop Football Club – 2001 Canadian Junior Football Champions

2002 Saskatoon Hilltop Football Club – 2002 Canadian Junior Football Champions

2003 Saskatoon Hilltop Football Club – 2003 Canadian Junior Football Champions

“2014 is another exciting year for the Saskatchewan Sport Hall of Fame,” said Linda Burnham, Co-Chair of the Induction Weekend. “We have a strong slate of new inductees who have achieved success and recognition in their chosen sports as either athletes or builders. We look forward to enshrining them during our Induction Weekend events.  Their accomplishments will also be featured in our Dedication to Sport exhibit as we share with the people of Saskatchewan the great sport history of our province.”

Tickets to the 48^th Annual Induction Dinner & Ceremony are $100/person and are available directly from the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame.

For further information contact:

Sheila Kelly, Executive Director, (306) 780-9232
Linda Burnham, Co-Chair Induction Weekend, (306) 584-8944

The NASCAR Hall of Fame is pleased to welcome new team member Mike Laheta as manager, corporate partnerships. Laheta will be responsible for developing corporate partnerships, sponsorship sales and activation opportunities for the NASCAR Hall of Fame with current and prospective partners.

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Laheta earned his Bachelor of Business with a concentration in motorsports management from Belmont Abbey College. Laheta most recently served as director, marketing and business affairs for Front Row Motorsports (FRM), which fields the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams for drivers David Ragan and David Gilliland. Partnerships Laheta developed for FRM include CSX Transportation, Love’s Travel Stops and Country Stores, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Farm Rich, Dish Network and McCall Farms through their Glory Foods and Peanut Patch brands among others. Laheta also has experience with Bulldawg Marketing, the NASCAR Kinetics Marketing in Motion College program, and worked on Lionel’s “Where’s Waldo” 25th anniversary celebration.

The Georgia Sports Hall of Fame’s newest exhibit, The Big Dance: Georgia Basketball Teams in the NCAA Tournament, is now on display in the museum’s rotunda.  From the 1960 Georgia Tech men’s basketball team to the 2014 Mercer University men’s basketball team, the exhibit traces the history of both men’s and women’s college basketball teams from Georgia who have played in the NCAA’s annual “March Madness” tournament.  Featuring jerseys, basketballs, trophies, and images from such schools as the University of Georgia, Georgia Southern University, and Georgia State University, the exhibit highlights some of the greatest players and coaches in college basketball history including University of Georgia guard Teresa Edwards, Georgia Tech men’s basketball coach Bobby Cremins, and University of Georgia women’s basketball coach Andy Landers.  Opening just in time for the Final Four, The Big Dance: Georgia Basketball Teams in the NCAA Tournament will remain on display through the spring.

The Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame & Museum is honoring more than 100 native Cincinnatians in the new exhibition Hometown Reds: Local Boys Who Played for the Cincinnati Reds.  Hometown Reds features jerseys, game-used equipment and memorabilia dating back 145 years to 1869 when Charlie Gould became the first Cincinnatian to play for the hometown team.

“If you are from the Cincinnati area and played baseball at any age, you probably dreamed of playing for the Reds,” said Rick Walls, executive director of the Reds Hall of Fame & Museum. “Our new exhibit honors the 104 players whose dreams became a reality.” The exhibit includes a player mural along with a graphic map highlighting the towns in southwest Ohio, northern Kentucky and southeastern Indiana from which the Hometown Reds hailed. Visitors to the exhibit will enjoy personal recollections from some of the Hometown Reds through new video interviews that run continuously in the exhibit space.

We are excited to announce that the 5 star British Golf Museum has recently received approval from the local council to build an 80 seater café on top of our iconic building.  The café will have stunning views over the Old Course and West Sands beach and will be a great place to relax.  The museum itself will undergo major refurbishment during this period and, when we reopen, will have a fresh, contemporary feel with new and exciting exhibits.

The British Golf Museum will close to the public at the end of June 2014 with a planned reopening in early May 2015.

TORONTO (March 26, 2014) – Pat Quinn, Chairman of the Hockey Hall of Fame, announced today that Columbus Blue Jackets President of Hockey Operations and recipient of the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award (2009), John Davidson, has been appointed to succeed Jim Gregory (HHOF Class of 2007) as Chairman of the Selection Committee, effective April 1, 2014.  Davidson’s extended term appointment was confirmed along with three new members of the Selection Committee at the Directors’ meeting held earlier today in Toronto.

Philadelphia Flyers Senior Vice-President, Bob Clarke (HHOF Class of 1987), Nashville Predators President of Hockey Operations and General Manager, David Poile, and Los Angeles Kings President of Business Operations, Luc Robitaille (HHOF Class of 2009), will join the Selection Committee replacing Quinn (who stepped down last July to become Chairman of the Board), Gregory and Serge Savard (HHOF Class of 1986), the latter two having reached the stipulated limit for length of service.

“John has been a dedicated member of the Selection Committee since 1999 and the Board’s appointment to the Chairman’s role recognizes his expertise and long-time contribution to the game as a player, media representative and hockey executive along with the fact that he is still very active in the game,” said Quinn.  “I am also very pleased to welcome Bob, David and Luc, all three accomplished and knowledgeable hockey people, with the utmost confidence that the Selection Committee will continue its integral work honouring excellence in the game of hockey.”

After serving twenty-one years on the Selection Committee, including seventeen as Chairman, Gregory will continue to lend his vast knowledge and support in a non-voting capacity as Chairman Emeritus, while Savard’s tenure expires with twenty years of distinguished service.

“The Hockey Hall of Fame owes Jim and Serge a debt of gratitude for their outstanding contributions to the Selection Committee”, said Quinn. “Having the privilege of serving on the Committee with these gentlemen for the past fifteen years, I have the highest regard for Jim’s integrity and leadership, and for the consistently candid and intelligent perspective that Serge has brought to the deliberations in all categories of Honoured Membership.”     

In other corporate matters, Cam Neely (HHOF Class of 2005) was elected as a new member of the Board of Directors in replacement of Bob Gainey (HHOF Class of 1992) who served for ten years as one of seven NHL nominees, and Colin Campbell and Igor Larionov (HHOF Class of 2008) were re-appointed to the Selection Committee each for a further three-year term expiring March 31, 2017.

The Selection Committee will meet on June 23 & 24, 2014 to consider duly nominated candidates for election into Honoured Membership. The announcement of the new inductees will be made on June 24^th and the 2014 Induction Celebration will be held on Monday, November 10^th.

The Hockey Hall of Fame (“HHOF”) was established in 1943 to honour and memorialize individuals who have brought special distinction to the game of hockey and those who made outstanding contributions to the development and advancement of hockey anywhere in the world, and to collect, research, preserve, exhibit and promote objects, images and other historical materials connected with the game at all levels. As a not-for-profit corporation and registered charity, HHOF owns and operates a museum and place of entertainment offering state-of-the-art exhibits, multimedia presentations and educational programming from its premises at Brookfield Place, Toronto, Canada.