LSHOF announces 2023 inductees

By Lethbridge Herald on March 29, 2023.

Herald photo by JUSTIN SEWARD Blake Tamayose spoke to local media about the 1979 Lethbridge Little League team and the excitement felt for the club to be an inductee into the Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame on Wednesday at Cavendish Farms Centre.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame announced the 2023 inductees at their location inside the Canvendish Farms Centre on Wednesday morning.

The 1979 Lethbridge Little League team will be inducted under the Teams category.

“The 1979 Little League team boasts members still synonymous with baseball in Lethbridge today and the team continued to demonstrate Lethbridge as a baseball hotbed. This team won the Canadian Senior Little League Baseball title and represented Canada at the Senior Little League World Series,” as read in the release.

“Forty-four years after the fact, it’s pretty exciting ,” said former player Blake Tamayose, on the Hall of Fame nod.

“I guess it’s a great honour to be selected to be a part of the Hall of Fame. I mean I follow the sports scene here in Lethbridge. So for myself and my team members, it’s pretty exciting. You know it also gives us an opportunity to reconnect after 44 years. You know to phone up somebody and to mention we’re being inducted is pretty exciting and at the same time, it’s a great dedication to our parents. You know you don’t realize it when you’re young what your parents do, but 44 years after the fact, many have passed. So that’s why it brings the light on the importance of what our parents had done for this team, not only for the team to have success but for what they had done too.”

Tamayose said it was a summer All-Star team at that time.

“You have to go down through a Prairie playdown ….  and back then we (had) to compete against Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta teams to be the best of the Prairies,” recalled Tamayose.

“And we ended up winning that, and then we moved on to nationals in Mississauga, Ontario. And we won the championship there, which allowed us to go to the Senior Little League World Series in Gary, Indiana. And we were lucky enough to play against a couple of soon-to-be MLB (Major League Baseball) guys, Dwight Gooden and Floyd Youmans.”

Lethbridge Amateur Wrestling Association founder Brian Donaldson will be inducted under the Builders Category.

“He was everything,” said Kelsey Pronovost, LAWA secretary.

“He was our father, our mentor, our guide when it came down to it and he fostered the next level of coaches including myself and four or five (or) six others that (now have) children in the program. So we’re actually now looking at the next generation of wrestlers coming from the people that he taught.”

Donaldson passed away in 2021.

Former local empire Mitch Ball will join Donaldson in the Builder’s Category.

Ball passed away in 2021 after a battle with COVID-19.

The Athlete Category will add  2016 Olympic bronze medal rugby player Ashley Patzer and track and field athlete Lanny Tron.

Rufus Goodstriker will be inducted under the Special category for his time in boxing ,rodeo competition and  the training of many winning race horses.

The Kinsmen Sports Persons of the Year are University of Lethbridge Pronghorns track and field weight thrower Jinaye Shomachuk and Ottawa Senators forward and Lethbridge product  Ridly Greig.

The LSHOF induction ceremony is on May 5 beginning at 6 p.m. at the Enmax Centre’s Western Canadian Bank Lounge  and tickets can be purchased up until April 28 at http://www.enmaxcentre.evenue.net.