Sudbury’s Caruso Club was filled to the brim with Sudbury’s best athletes on June 14, as the Sudbury Sports Hall of Fame welcomed its first new slate of inductees since the pandemic began.
With 15 new members feted, the groups from both 2020 and 2022 joined their loved ones and other star athletes to receive their awards and celebrate their achievements.
One such athlete was Christine Jaworski, a champion arm-wrestler who not only conquered the world championships, she’s now conquering forest fires, too. She began at 30 and is still going today, 30 years later.
“I had to take today off for this induction or else I'd be working right now, we have so many forest fires going on now,” she said. Now a dispatcher and radio operator, she dispatches helicopters, water bombers, fire crews. “I'm monitoring them in and out on a constant basis, making sure people are safe.”
From Kinsman Athlete of the Year in 1986 to a cameo in the Sylvester Stallone classic(?) Over the Top, Jaworski said that being an athlete means much more than physical skill.
“It teaches you discipline, it teaches you respect for your own body, it teaches you endurance; not just physical, but mental too.”
She said that part of her success as a firefighter is what she learned growing up. “It’s a high-pressure job, but I'm used to pressure because I was an athlete,” she said.
Other inductees into the Sudbury Hall of Fame include: Gary Trevisol, a founding member of the Sudbury Cycling Club who went on to national and Olympic titles; Brent Hatton, longtime member of the Lively Golf Club and holder of 55 tournament titles; Terry Crisp, NHL player, coach and holder of three Stanley Cup titles, and; as Robert Esmie, who won track titles at Lasalle Secondary School before leading the Canadian Olympic 4x100 relay team to gold in Atlanta in 1996.
Another Olympian, Jim Logan competed in the 1956 Winter Olympics in Italy as part of the Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchman and also played on the Sudbury Wolves senior team with coach Peanuts O’Flaherty. He now devotes his time to Special Olympic Curling teams.
Inductee Gary Foy was a skier who also influenced the sport and helped build the Lively Ski Hill.
Hockey player and commentator Tessa Bonhomme was also inducted. She won gold at two world championships and claimed Olympic gold on home soil at the 2010 Vancouver games.
John Beedell became a part of the Sudbury Canoe CLub in the 1950s after moving to Canada from New Zealand and went on to the world championships in Prague 1958 and the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome.
The Fielding Brothers, Clifford, Carman and Cecil, were inducted as boxing's beloved Fighting Fieldings. The Mazzuca family-sponsored fastball teams of the 1970s that went on to win numerous championships earned the family the newly created Norm Mayer Dynasty award.
Karen (Duguay) Bunting, member of the Ringuette Canada Hall of Fame, was inducted after dominating the national and world championships, and Jeffrey Buttle, member of the 2006 Canadian Olympic Winter games in Italy. Buttle won gold at the world championships in Sweden and then silver in Moscow 2005.
Gilles Lafrance, winner of three medals at Paralympic Games and holder of two world records told Sudbury.com that he stills runs, without injury. He’s proud to say he won his first race at 18, and his last at 48, but you won’t see him stopping anytime soon.
As well, former city councillor Fabio Belli received a posthumous honour for his work to bring soccer to Sudbury before his death in 2014.
Joe Drago, a champion of the Sudbury Sports Hall of Fame who was inducted in 1998, told Sudbury.com that athletes receive a great deal of help as young people, and said that in turn, when they retire, they want to say thank you.
“I think a lot of athletes, when they retire, they want to give back. Even before they retire, when they come home in the offseason, they want to do things to help the community,” he said. “I've never had an athlete turn me down on a request to help with something in the community.”
He also noted that Sudbury is quite the Olympic city.
“We were wondering how many, so we checked: 60 people have participated in the Olympics from Sudbury,” he said. “They bring so much to our community and we are happy to honour them in return.”
You can find the full list of inductees and Hall of Fame members here.
Jenny Lamothe is a reporter at Sudbury.com.
