Canadian Curling Association announces Hall of Fame Inductees, Volunteer of the Year and Ray Kingsmith Award winners

OTTAWA, April 28, 2009…The Canadian Curling Association (CCA) today announced three inductees to the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame, as well as the recipients of the 2008 Volunteer of the Year and 2009 Ray Kingsmith Executive of the Year Awards. The Hall of Fame inductees are Maymar Gemmell, now of Blind River, Ontario, along with Manitoba’s Toro Suzuki and Albert Olson, both of Winnipeg. Ed Haggerty of Fredericton, New Brunswick is the Volunteer of the Year, while Georgina Anderson of Glenboro, Manitoba has been selected to receive the Ray Kingsmith Award.
Maymar Gemmell

Maymar Gemmell

The Toronto-born Gemmell is inducted into the Hall of Fame in the curler/builder category.  As a curler, she won two Canadian senior women’s championships, in 1990 and 1993, as second and lead, respectively, for Ontario skip Jill Greenwood.   She also skipped British Columbia and Northern Ontario in other years at the Canadian Seniors and, in addition, skipped the United States at the 1991 world curling championships in Winnipeg. As a builder, she was a catalyst and one of the driving forces behind the birth of the new Northern Ontario Curling Association (NOCA), an amalgamation of various regional curling associations, borne out of the Northwestern Ontario Curling Association (NWOCA), the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Curling Association (TNOCA), the Northern Ontario Ladies Curling Association (NOLCA) and the original Northern Ontario Curling Association.
Toro Suzuki and Albert Olson

Toro Suzuki and Albert Olson

Toro Suzuki and Albert Olson played third and second, respectively, for the late Manitoba skip Lloyd ‘Gunner’ Gunnlaugson, when the team won a record three consecutive Canadian senior men’s titles from 1982-84.  The team’s won-lost record while winning the three titles was an astounding 30-4, capped by an undefeated 11-0 mark in 1984 in St. John’s.  Gunnlaugson, who died in 1988, was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame in 1989.
Ed Haggerty

Ed Haggerty

The Volunteer of the Year Award, which was first presented in 2001, recognizes extraordinary dedication and service by a curling club volunteer, whose efforts contributed to the livelihood and overall success of the club.   Ed Haggerty provided countless hours as a volunteer administrator during the 2007-08 curling season. When members of the Fredericton Curling Club, the oldest curling club in the province, had to vacate the facility, Haggerty not only secured a former hockey arena as the replacement venue, but also oversaw all of the details, legal and otherwise, which were necessary in order to transform it into a permanent curling club. The Ray Kingsmith Executive of the Year Award, named for the popular former president (1983-84) of the Canadian Curling Association who died in May of 1988, was established in 1991.  It is presented to the volunteer who best exhibits a life-long dedication to all aspects of the sport of curling, which so aptly described Calgarian Kingsmith.
Georgina Anderson

Georgina Anderson

Georgina Anderson joined the Glenboro Curling Club in 1980 and a little over a decade later was the club president.  She was elected to the Manitoba Ladies Curling Association in 1992 and subsequently chaired or co-chaired a number of provincial events during the 1990’s. She then became the first female president of the amalgamated Manitoba Curling Association (MCA) for the 2001-02 season. In June of 2003, Anderson was elected to the Board of Directors of the Canadian Curling Association and during her five-year term became involved with a number of initiatives.  In her final year, she chaired the Governance Committee, playing a significant role in developing the framework for the Policy Governance Structure, which the current CCA Board of Governors uses to manage the affairs of the Association. All of the Hall of Fame inductees and Award winners will be recognized at their respective provincial/territorial Annual General Meetings. -30-