Manitoba sports legends honoured

Sweat and tears were honoured with glitz and glamour at the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Thursday evening.

Three icons on the rink, track and court, and a team of legends from the gridiron took centre stage at the Victoria Inn Convention Centre for their contributions and accomplishments to their respective sports in the Keystone province.

The induction ceremony was overwhelmingly represented by members of the 1989-90 Winnipeg Blue Bombers team, who captured the franchise’s 10th Grey Cup crown.

They were celebrated alongside volleyball star Michelle Sawatzky-Koop, Paralympic tricycling pioneer Halldor Bjarson and basketball legend Patrick Jebbison. A force in ringette, Andrea Ferguson, also an inductee, was not in attendance, as she coaches the Canadian junior national ringette team which is currently playing in Finland. Winnipeg native Don Baizley was a posthumous inductee as a builder, his selection accepted by his son Gord Baizley.

Even more than 30 years later, head coach Mike Riley gushes and remembers his 1990 Bombers squad like they hoisted the Grey Cup yesterday.

“I’m real excited to be back in Winnipeg and to be reunited with this (1990) team,” Riley told the Free Press before the ceremony. “This was a fun team, a really special group of guys that really impacted my life. It was kind of a culmination of a lot of years to form this team. We won a couple of other Grey Cups and then this ’90 team might’ve been the best team I’ve ever coached.”

“It was kind of a cast of characters, but it was that typical deal that coaches say all the time: it was like a family. But it was really like a family.”

The historic team, which finished 12-6 in the regular season, was backed by the type of stingy defence to which the Big Blue’s current fans have grown accustomed. In a high-flying era of CFL football in which teams averaged more than 30 points per game, the 1990 Bombers defence was in a league of its own, conceding just 22.1 points per outing. The unit also ranked first in yards allowed, pass defence, blocked kicks, takeaways, interceptions and turnover ratio.

Riley, who explained his team was specially built to play in Winnipeg’s harsh elements, especially the wind, credits the innovative “three-four” defensive scheme, that legendary Bombers’ GM Cal Murphy helped put together, as being the key to the unit’s success. The Bombers were the only team in the CFL running the ingenious scheme.

“We presented a whole different problem to other teams, plus we had really good players,” he said. “I mean, we had hall-of-fame linebackers, we had a tough secondary, we had a good defensive front.”

“(Centre) Lyle Bauer and (linebacker) James West were two of the best leaders of a football team I’ve ever been around. With them, when your star players are that engaged, you got a shot.”

Thursday was the third time West had flown into Winnipeg from his home in Atlanta this year.

“To see my friends in person — this is just not about football itself, it’s about how much we loved each other,” West said. “We loved the game but we loved each other more. We definitely tired each other because we wanted to see how we were going to finish our goal. And our goal was to finish playing football.

“Most of the guys, they’ve done significant stuff in their lives, so football is something we do but your passion and your purpose should be done more so outside of the game.”

Jebbison, a sought-after high school recruit out of Toronto in 1984, has been no stranger to Manitoba since his playing days at Brandon University.

“It’s good to be back,” said Jebbison, also an inductee of the Manitoba Basketball Hall of Fame and the Brandon University Sports Wall of Fame. “Friendly Manitoba. It’s nice always coming back.”

“Just really honoured to be here and grateful to be inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame. I have great friends here, lots of great memories, so it’s good coming back. A bit nervous, but it’s good.”

Jebbison, who now resides in the United Kingdom with his wife, was the Bobcats’ co-MVP en route to capturing the school’s first national championship in 1986-87. A winner of three national championships during his time in the Wheat City, he reflected on some of the proudest moments of his career.

“I think my first CIAU championship in Brandon, and we won two after that, which is a great achievement,” Jebbison said. “But I think the first one, it felt really great, especially for some of the guys like John Carson. It was his last year, so for him to go out on a winning note, I think was great.

“I mean, Brandon (University), it was a small university, but a lot of fond memories there.”

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Twitter: @jfreysam