Ryan Getzlaf, Hayley Wickenheiser headline 2023 Sask. Sports Hall of Fame class

The Saskatchewan Sports activities Corridor of Fame (SSHF) inducted seven new members on the Conexus Arts Centre in Regina on Saturday night time.

Through the years, the SSHF has inducted 540 members together with 247 athletes, 166 builders, and 127 championship groups.

Every of the seven 2023 inductees obtained a standing ovation from the 300-plus in attendance as they obtained one of many province’s high honours in sports activities.

Ryan Getzlaf was born in Regina the place he performed a lot of his minor hockey. At 16, he started his junior hockey profession with the Calgary Hitmen of the Western Hockey League. Over 4 seasons, Getzlaf would rating 95 targets and 215 factors in 233 video games. He additionally represented Canada twice on the World Junior Hockey Championships successful silver and gold medals. Within the NHL entry draft in June of 2003, Getzlaf was chosen nineteenth general by the Anaheim Geese, a workforce he’d spend his total 17-year profession with. Getzlaf scored 1019 factors in 1157 NHL video games and helped information the Geese to a 2007 Stanley Cup championship.

“It is a good shout out to all of those that helped me alongside the way in which,” Getzlaf mentioned. “It’s a real honour.”

Hayley Wickenheiser is likely one of the most embellished athletes in Saskatchewan and Canadian sports activities historical past. The Shaunavon native gained 4 Olympic golds and a silver in her illustrious profession with the ladies’s nationwide hockey workforce. Wickenheiser is the all-time chief in targets, assists, factors and video games performed for Canada in girls’s hockey and is the Olympic and World Championships scoring chief. Wickenheiser additionally performed for Canada within the 2000 Summer season Olympics in softball. Throughout the induction ceremony, Wickenheiser mentioned in a video, that she’s perhaps most happy with the softball look as a result of she began thus far behind the remainder of the gamers and needed to prepare in hallways of hockey arenas to attempt to sustain. She later went on to have the very best batting common at these video games. Wickenheiser was represented on Saturday night by her mom as she continues her work with the Toronto Maple Leafs the place she holds a entrance workplace job.

Joan McEachern was one among this nation’s high soccer gamers earlier than there ever was a nationwide workforce program. Hailing from Leroy, Saskatchewan, she’d go on to symbolize Canada at 4 nationwide membership championships and was the MVP of the 1985 Canadian nationwide soccer championship. McEachern made 31 appearances (together with 28 begins) for Canada and was on the workforce after they made their girls’s world cup debut in 1995. McEachern was inducted into the Canada Soccer Corridor of Fame in 2009. She gained CONCACAF silver in 1991, bronze in 1993 and silver in 1994. At Saturday’s induction ceremony she informed the gang that she dreamed of taking part in for the nationwide workforce as a younger lady, then discovered there was no such factor. She was thrilled to tug on the maple leaf as soon as there was lastly a workforce, and symbolize everybody in Saskatchewan internationally.

Jamie (Cruikshank) Boyer enters the Corridor of Fame as a multi-sport athlete. The Shellbrook, Sask. product competed in three sports activities for Crew Canada earlier than she turned 20 years previous. She was a gymnast who competed in each energy tumbling and trampoline. A progress spurt led her to a sport change. She picked up observe and subject the place she once more excelled. It was an invitation to a camp that introduced her to bobsleigh. She competed on the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. Boyer’s finest end recreation on the Bobsleigh World Cup when she positioned second within the two-woman occasion at Lake Placid in 2006. Boyer completed fourth within the combined occasion in 2007’s FIBT World Championships. Boyer retired in 2008.

Lorne Lasuita entered the Corridor of Fame within the builder class. He’s been concerned in 52 multi-sport occasions together with the 2004 Summer season Olympic Video games in Athens. Lasuita represented Canada at 18 Summer season video games and all however one of many previous 25 Saskatchewan Summer season Video games. Lasuita credited the individuals who have helped him alongside the way in which together with his spouse. “I had a variety of help from the game neighborhood and my household, permitting me to pursue my passions,” he mentioned.

Benadette McIntyre is one among Regina’s most recognizable residents and is an occasion planning tour de drive. McIntyre was the bid committee chair for the Olympic curling trials, males’s world curling championships, two Briers, two Scotties match of hearts and two grand slams. Her ardour doesn’t start and finish with curling. She served as co-chair of the CP Girls’s Open on the Wascana Nation Membership in 2018 and was a part of the CFL Gray Cup management groups in 2013 and 2022 that helped make these occasions successful. “It’s a thrill of a lifetime to be inducted,” she shared.

Noreen Murphy was on the workers for Canada’s nationwide softball workforce for fourteen years together with the 1996 Olympic Video games in Atlanta. Murphy was coach of the Nationwide workforce for a few years and gained eight provincial titles in eight years as a coach in Saskatoon.

The SSHF has greater than 19,000 artifacts on show at its location on Victoria Avenue. There are 53 sports activities represented within the Corridor.