Five sporting legends are set to join elite company as members of the the North Shore Sports Hall of Fame.
NHL goal-scoring superstar Brett Hull, dominant mountain bike pioneer Alison Sydor, towering NBA player Robert Sacré, local football powerhouse Larry Reda, and North Shore coach and builder Fen Burdett will be inducted into the Hall of Fame during the North Shore Sport Awards ceremony March 11 at West Vancouver Community Centre.
The new Hall of Fame class spans generations in a wide variety of sports. Here’s a look at this year’s inductees.
Brett Hull
The “Golden Brett” is one of the best hockey players to ever skate out of the North Shore Winter Club. The son of NHL legend Bobby Hull was born a dual citizen in Ontario and spent several of his formative teen years going to school and playing hockey in North Vancouver.
In his illustrious NHL career, Hull recorded a staggering 741 goals and 650 assists for 1,391 points in 1,269 games.
In international play, Hull made his debut with Team USA in the 1986 International Ice Hockey Federation Men’s World Championship. He also helped Team USA win the inaugural World Cup of Hockey in 1996, and in 2002 led the Americans to an Olympic silver medal.
Alison Sydor
Mountain biker Alison Sydor is a true giant of the sport. Sydor got her start in road cycling, donning the red and white for Team Canada at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, where she placed 12th in the road race.
But in 1991, Sydor found her true love on two wheels: mountain biking. What followed was a storied career of athletic dominance and trailblazing – in a burgeoning sport that grew alongside her.
In more than a decade of racing, she won 17 World Cup races, including three consecutive World Championship titles in 1994, 1995 and 1996. When she started mountain biking, it wasn’t even included in the Olympics. But Sydor would go on to compete for Canada in four Games. In 1996, Sydor won silver in Atlanta. She placed fifth in Sydney in 2000 and fourth in Athens in 2004.
Larry Reda
Football in British Columbia wouldn’t be where it is today without Larry Reda.
In 1956, as he was hired as a local firefighter, Reda was also beginning his coaching career in minor football with the Gordon Strutridge Football League (which later became the GLS/North Shore Football League). As head coach of the North Shore Wildcats, he won provincial championships in 1969, 1961 and 1963. Then Reda went on to coach for Delbrook High School and the North Shore Cougars. In 1969 he became director of the Big 4 Junior Football Conference, and later was made president.
Today, Reda has been involved in amateur football for more than six decades. That’s involved being president of the BC Amateur Football Association (now Football BC), and executive director for the BC High School Football Association for more than 20 years.
For his outstanding efforts, Reda was inducted into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame in 2011, and the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2015.
Robert Sacré
While he’s gone on to play ball professionally around the globe, Robert Sacré has always brought the game home. In 2006 as a Grade 11 student, Sacré helped lead North Vancouver’s Handsworth Royals to the B.C. senior boys AAA title. In the final, he was named MVP with 17 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks in the final.
The seven-foot-tall giant would then go on to star for Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, where he is still second all-time in career blocks for the Bulldogs.
But Sacré was bound for greater things. In 2012, he was the 60th overall pick in the NBA draft, entering the LA Lakers training camp on a non-guaranteed contact. However, the 23-year-old shined during the preseason and quickly cemented himself a spot on the team, playing alongside basketball legend Kobe Bryant.
Widely known for his charisma and winning smile, Sacré has been called a Canadian basketball icon and a major role model for players from Western Canada.
Fen Burdett
Many North Shore athletes now know Fen Burdett as a beloved sports facility in North Vancouver. But there are many reasons that stadium now bears that name.
Burdett’s story of coaching a minor league team to win the Babe Ruth World Series in 1965 remains legendary among North Vancouver baseball enthusiasts.
After helping found the Babe Ruth League in 1954 – for young athletes age 13 to 15 – he would coach teams to win three BC Babe Ruth League championships in 1958, 1964 and 1965. Those provincial tournaments were held on the field he’s named after today.
The 1965 team would win the Pacific Northwest Babe Ruth regionals, before becoming the first Canadian team to take the World Series title later that year.
Burdett was also a successful soccer coach, taking his Burdett Beavers squads to the provincial Tournament of Champions 10 times, and winning the division three times in 1959, 1972 and 1977.
The late Burdett’s many accolades include North Vancouver’s Sportsman of the Year 1974, as well as being named to the Baseball BC Hall of Fame in 1982 and the BC Babe Ruth Hall of Fame in 1991.
The North Shore Sport Awards ceremony, including Hall of fame inductions, will be held Tuesday, March 11 starting at 7 p.m. in the atrium of the West Vancouver Community Centre.
