New Brunswick Sports Hall of Fame to get 6 new members
New inductees include retired NHL referee, the hall’s first soccer player
Six people will be added to the New Brunswick Sports Hall of Fame this spring.
The list of inductees includes a retired NHL referee, a record-smashing runner and, for the first time, a soccer player.
The new members will be inducted at a ceremony in Shippagan on June 4.
The new hall of fame class is led by Darren Ritchie, the only Maritimer to ever capture the Canadian Amateur Golf Championship.
Ritchie, from Saint John, did so in 1992 despite being diagnosed with skin cancer just three months before the competition.
His Cinderella-esque victory over Mike Weir happened on home soil at the Riverside Golf and Country Club.
1st soccer player to be inducted
Ritchie is one of three Saint Johners to make the cut.
He joins Eldridge Eatman, a sprinter who captured the 120-yard world championship in 1906, and retired professional soccer player David Foley.
Foley, who played for the Winnipeg Fury Soccer Club, is the first soccer player to be inducted into New Brunswick's hall. He was the Fury's leading scorer when he retired in 1991.
Only one woman will be inducted as part of this year's class.
Moncton's Patty Blanchard owns six provincial running records and seven Canadian masters records.
She's already a member of the Run NB Hall of Fame.
Bernard DeGrâce logged nearly 1,000 games
The class is rounded out by a hockey player and a referee.
Bernard DeGrâce became the first New Brunswicker and Acadian to put on zebra stripes in 1989. The Shippagan native spent 12 years refereeing NHL hockey games, finishing with 980 games under his belt.
Dalhousie's Kevin Foran saw much of his on-ice success at Mount Allison University.
That's where he won the Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union's scoring race in 1983.
Foran went on to make the pre-Olympic national team, playing a cross-country tour against a roster of Soviet Union players.
The inductees will join 243 people who are already in the hall, including retired major league slugger Matt Stairs and Willie O'Ree, the first black NHL player.