The Class of 2025 for the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame has been announced and a number of Calgarians are among those being honoured.
Here’s a look at the Calgary athletes who will be inducted at a ceremony in Red Deer:
ALEX GOUGH
The two-time Olympic medalist claimed bronze in women’s luge and silver in the mixed team relay at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. She also picked up six medals during world championship competition between 2011 and 2016. Gough was a 2009 recipient of the Calgary Booster Club’s Art Smith endowment grant, which provides assistance to amateur athletes, and she had her name added to the Henry Viney Trophy – given annually by the Calgary Booster Club to the female athlete of the year – in 2019.
BRADY LEMAN
Leman also took home a medal from the 2018 Winter Olympics. The Calgary-born athlete won gold in ski cross at Pyeongchang and followed that up with a silver medal in the same event at the 2019 world championships in Utah. He received the Art Smith endowment grant in 2008.
BRIAN & ROBIN McKEEVER
Brian was Canada’s flagbearer during the opening ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Paralympics, where he won gold in the men’s 20-kilometre cross-country freestyle skiing event. He is Canada’s most decorated Winter Paralympian. His brother, Robin, served as his sighted guide during competition and the two were featured in a 2022 Toyota Super Bowl ad entitled “Brothers” that was part of a larger campaign called “Start Your Impossible.”
ROSS NORTON
Born in Calgary, Norton is a two-time Paralympic gold medalist and a wheelchair basketball world champ. Norton – a multi-sport athlete who also competed in sledge hockey and wheelchair tennis – has been coaching wheelchair basketball since 2010.
LES GRAMANTIK
After coming to Canada from a refugee camp in Romania, Gramantik created the University of Calgary’s track and field program in 1978 and was the head coach of the program from 1987 until 2005. The pole vaulter also coached with the Canadian National Team at six Commonwealth Games, three Pan American Games, eight Olympics/Paralympics and 11 world championships. He was named to the Dinos Hall of Fame this year.
ARNIE JACKSON
The veteran sportscaster started his broadcasting career in the early 1960s as a student at Calgary’s Western Canada High School. He later made a name for himself covering rodeo and chuckwagon races, including the Calgary Stampede’s Rangeland Derby. He is the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame’s Bell Memorial Award winner.
GEORGE HOPKINS
Hopkins and Dwayne Mandrusiak are receiving the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame’s Achievement Award for their decades of work as equipment managers in the Canadian Football League (CFL). Hopkins was with the Calgary Stampeders since 1972, while Mandrusiak started with the Edmonton Eskimos in 1971. The two co-founded the Amateur Football Equipment Inspection Program in 1985.
The Alberta Sports Hall of Fame will celebrate the Class of 2025 at the Red Deer Resort & Casino on June 7, 2025.