H.P. Broughton winner announced

The H.P. Broughton Award was announced on Tuesday night at the Marconi Club and for the first time since 1998, we have a tie.

Soo Greyhounds coach Craig Hartsburg and Mike Hall and the Soo North Stars hockey club were named co-winners of the award on Tuesday at the 2007 Rotary Sports Award Banquet. It marked the first time the award was awarded to two winners since Marty Turco and the Mount St. Joseph’s Girls Basketball team split the award in 1998.

“For me, it’s really not my award,” Hartsburg said. “There’s a lot of people that I worked with, whether it was our team in the Soo or Team Canada, that were great people. Our assistant coaches and everybody with the Greyhounds organization – Denny (Lambert), Toots (Kovacs), Terry (Barbeau), Dave Torrie – I don’t look at this as something that I just did. It was with good people and we had some success.”

Hall noted that the North Star organization was happy to be honoured after being nominated for the award in prior years only to come up short.

“It feels great,” Hall said. “I’m especially happy for this team that they got the recognition I think they deserve. It’s been a long time coming but certainly well worth the wait.”

St. Mary’s student-athlete Jeff Greco was the recipient of the Walter Lowe Memorial Award as the top high school athlete as selected by the Physical Education directors across Sault Ste. Marie.

Ian Connell of Sir James Dunn was named the winner of the B’Nai B’Rith award. The award goes annually to the graduating student who best combines athletic ability and academic achievement.

Sport specific award winners included: Ben Ginter of Korah and Ian Connell/Brett Davey of Sir James Dunn in badminton; Nico Louiero of Korah and Nick DiDonato of St. Basil in basketball; John Harvey of St. Mary’s in cross-country running; Brendon Hodgson of White Pines for curling; Jonathan Widgett of White Pines for football; Anthony Silvano of White Pines for hockey; Jeff Pellegrino of St. Mary’s for soccer; Richard MacLennan of St. Mary’s for track and field; and Jason Chalfoux of Central Algoma Secondary for wrestling.

The Russ Ramsay High School Hall of Fame also saw four new members inducted. Richard Maunu, Karen McLean, and Loris Pecile, all of whom taught at St. Mary’s for a time, as well as Cliff Summers were all inducted for their years of service to high school sports.