Five new additions to the Oshawa Sports Hall of Fame
By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express
For the 32nd time, the Oshawa Sports Hall of Fame is getting a series of new members.
Presenting before council on Monday evening, Dan Walerowich, chair of the board of governors for the hall of fame, announced the five new inductees that make up the class of 2017.
The newest members include volleyball star Stacey Jiggins (nee Gordon), former Argos receiver Andre Talbot, swimmer and community builder Jim Kinlin, lacrosse player and builder Carolyn Toll, and the 1987-88 Oshawa Kiwanis major midget AAA hockey team.
Jiggins, now 35, played volleyball locally while growing up in Oshawa before going on to play nationally and internationally, twice being named the Ohio State Athlete of the Year and winning NCAA freshman of the year honours.
Kinlin, once compared to Terry Fox for his philanthropy work, was born in 1926 and died in 1990 at the age of 63. Well known for his annual swimathon event in Oshawa, Kinlin raised over $200,000 for leukaemia research and swam the equivalent distance of Canada’s 3,405 miles and then some. Among his series of accolades, Kinlin was honoured as Citizen of the Year by PPG Limited in 1980 and earned a Community Service award from PPG in 1983. The City of Oshawa has twice proclaimed (once in 1984 and 1989) a Jim Kinlin Day.
Talbot started his career as a quarterback at Paul Dwyer before moving on to play 10 seasons in the CFL, nine of them with the Toronto Argonauts and being a part of the 2004 Grey Cup winning team. Drafting in the fifth round of the CFL draft in 2001, Talbot retired in 2010.
Toll started playing lacrosse in Grade 10 at Donevan Collegiate and would go on to become one of Oshawa’s most prominent builders of the sport. Along with representing Ontario at the national championships several times, she was also part of the Canadian World Cup team that travelled to England in 2001. Since moving to coaching, she has worked with Anderson Collegiate, Brookline High School and in the community with the Oshawa Lady Blue Knights.
The final inductee is the 1987-88 Oshawa Kiwanis Major Midget AA team, which during that season amassed a 70-12-8 record, scoring an average of 4.68 goals a game and allowing half of that number. The team would go on to win almost every championship in Ontario and finish fourth at the national championships. Four players from the team would go on to win a Memorial Cup with the Oshawa Generals in 1990 and three would move on to the NHL.
All five of the new inductees will be officially honoured in a ceremony on May 31 at the Tribute Communities Cenre.