The Prince Albert Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2024. (left to right: Ashley Viklund, Francois Fournier, Melodie Boulet, Jennifer Ferguson, Tyson Fetch, Chris West (representing Brad Fetch), Bruce Vance (representing Al Dyer), Rene Quintal and Dan Lloyd (both representing the 1995 Prince Albert Toppers), and Robin Wildey, Chair of the 2023 Esso Cup Committee. (Logan Lehmann/paNOW Staff)

By Nick Nielsen

Submissions November 30

Deadline for Prince Albert Sports Hall of Fame inductions fast approaching

Nov 16, 2024 | 8:00 AM

While it is still over two months away, the Prince Albert Sports Hall of Fame is closing out their nominations for the Hall of Fame class of 2025. Last year, the Prince Albert Sports Hall of Fame inducted seven new members, builders Melodie Boulet, Jennifer Ferguson, and Brad and Tyson Fetch, athlete Ashley Viklund, athlete and builder Francois Fournier, Al Dyer for meritorious service, and the 1995 Prince Albert Toppers volleyball team.

Nominations for the class of 2025 close out on November 30 according to Barry Mihilewicz, who is a member of the board for the P.A. Sports Hall of Fame. While a specific date has not been set yet, but they plan to stick to form and announce their nominees at a Raider game later this year.

“Normally we do a fall intake for nominations and then usually we’ll assess the nominations and choose a list of inductees sometime in December or early January, and then we have a press conference, usually coincides with a Raider game.”

When it comes to the different people that the Hall is looking to honour, Mihilewicz said that it’s all kinds of people.

“It really runs the gamut of people who have been involved, like Bruce Vance, for example, was inducted through Meritorious Service. Bruce was never an athlete in Prince Albert, but he was so involved in so many different areas of the of the sporting community in terms of behind the scenes management, that type of thing.”

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With Prince Albert being known mostly for sports like hockey, baseball, and softball, you may expect to see most of the names in the Sports Hall of Fame come from those sports. Mihilewicz said that a multitude of sports are well represented, and he shares what sport is represented most outside of those big three.

“Soccer probably. In terms of of some of the very competitive teams that came out of here, that’s one area. Some of the individual sports, things like golf, things like racquetball, I’m not too familiar with tennis if there’s anybody at that level, but there’s a lot of different sort of smaller niche sports that people from Prince Albert have had a lot of success on the provincial and national and possibly international stage.”

Mihilewicz continued to say that it isn’t just the athletes that get recognized, but Prince Albert does a good job of recognizing coaches and even officials who help put youth sports on.

“We have a lot of builders. Anytime that you have somebody who excels in a specific sport, what you’ve got is people behind the scenes who’ve done the work, the coaches, the officials, the people that make it possible for those guys to play at a high level.”

This year will be the first year that Bruce Vance is not a part of the festivities with the P.A. Sports Hall of Fame inductions after his passing earlier this year. Along with being inducted himself, Vance was the Vice President of the Sports Hall of Fame at the time of his death, and Mihilewicz said that not having his presence in setting up this year’s event has been felt.

“There’s definitely going to be a moment of silence for Bruce at the at the next induction banquet. His spirit is with us through the whole process this year and years to come, not to mention Leanne, his wife Leanne is actually on our board as well. Bruce did a lot of work and we’ve had to divy that work up amongst about four other people just to get it all done. So yeah, he had a pretty big impact.”

To make a submission to the Prince Albert Sports Hall of Fame, you can find the forms by clicking this link here. Forms can be submitted by sending them to Mihilewicz at his phone number, 306-961-8034, or they can be sent to the following address.

Community Services Department
c/o Jody Boulet
1084 Central Avenue
Prince Albert, SK
S6V 7P3