Moray Keith no doubt perked up from his bed in Delta Hospital last week when he heard the news that his good friend, the late Gene Kiniski, had finally been confirmed as a 2021 inductee into the BC Sports Hall of Fame.
Recovering from a recent stroke, Keith has been a staunch Hall of Fame advocate for the professional wrestler who referred to himself world-wide, over a 40-year career, as “Canada’s Greatest Athlete.” The Keith and Kiniski families go back three generations.
BC Sports Hall of Fame curator Jason Beck says Kiniski had been nominated several times in the past in the Athlete and the WAC Bennett Award categories “but this year’s selection committee felt he was best suited in the Pioneer category.”
Kiniski was diagnosed with cancer in November 2009 and died at the age of 81 in April 2010. He retired from the ring in 1992 and worked for many years as a wrestling promoter, mostly out of Vancouver, before settling in Blaine, Washington with his sons Nick and Kelly.
In an interview with CBC’s Peter Gzowski in 1978, Kiniski said: “If Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and I walked down the street together, people would say ‘the guy with the crewcut is Kiniski but I don’t know who the other fellow is’.”
Original Canucks captain Orland Kurtenbach remembers Kiniski being on the same commercial flight to California with the struggling Vancouver NHL expansion team midway through the 1971-72 season.
Out of the blue, Kiniski got up from his seat, stood in the aisle, and began barking a boisterous and insulting pep talk to the beleaguered players who had managed just 14 wins in their first 48 games. The next night they embarrassed the Golden Seals 5-1.
Moray Keith, it should be noted, is himself worthy of BC Sports Hall of Fame induction. He was one the corporate founders of the BC Lions Waterboys, serves as a director of both the BC Football Hall of Fame and Richmond Olympic Oval Corporation, was named winner of the Jack Diamond Award as Sports Personality of the Year in 2010 and co-owned the WHL Chilliwack Bruins as well as BCHL franchises in Langley and Chilliwack.
“Dad is recovering remarkably well,” says Moray’s son Greg. “He has a bit of a road to travel to get back to 100 per cent but he’s determined to do just that.”
SCENE & HEARD:
Another hall-of-famer was in the spotlight this past week with Burnaby Staff Sgt. Major John Buis being honoured at a mid-afternoon retirement gathering celebrating 45 years with the RCMP.
In March, 2020, Buis went public about his challenges with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to encourage fellow first responders to reach out for help when they feel the need.
“Police officers are just like everybody else,” he says. “We hurt, too.”
A hero in every sense of the word, no matter the uniform, Buis was inducted into the Delta Sports Hall of Fame (Builder category) in 2010 after an all-star playing career before volunteering at management levels with the BC High School Boys AAA Basketball Tournament and serving as president of Basketball BC.
“I tell people my name is also inscribed on the Grey Cup,” he jokes. “In a way, it is. My brother Jamie played 101 games over seven years in the CFL and was on the BC Lions championship team of 1985. They don’t use first names on the Cup, just initials, so there it is: J. Buis.”
Brother Jamie joined the Burnaby Fire Department after his football career and is now Assistant Chief Training Officer while Staff Sgt. Major Buis’ son, also named Jamie, is an eight-year member of the RCMP presently stationed at the Coquitlam Detachment.
END ZONE:
- A beaming Canucks’ head coach Travis Green was hosting a table of bright-looking young folks for Thanksgiving Dinner at Glowbal on West Georgia Monday night that included son Blake of the BCHL Coquitlam Express. The 18-year-old rookie left winger, signed by the Express this past summer, was with his billet family on the eve of his father’s departure for Edmonton and the launch of the 2021-22 NHL season.
- Our resident walking, talking sports encyclopedia Jim Robson no sooner saw The Orca item that Alex Rodriguez would be the keynote speaker at the 29th annual JCC Dinner next February and sent the following email: “On June 29, 1995 at Nat Bailey Stadium the Vancouver Canadians were playing the Tacoma Rainiers, Seattle’s Triple-A farm team. A 19-year-old phenom named Alex Rodriguez was playing shortstop for Tacoma and batting in the cleanup spot. He went 3-for-4, including a line drive home run over the wall in left-centre field in the eighth inning. The Canadians hung on to win 5-4 and the fans went home happy. They had seen the home team win and also watched a rookie they knew would soon be in the majors. He played 22 seasons in the ‘bigs’ and was one of the best hitters in baseball history”.
- On the move: One-time Hastings Racecourse General Manager and Great Canadian Gaming exec Raj Mutti joins the Canucks new farm club in Abbotsford as Vice President, Business Operations … Ed McLaughlin, former CEO at Hollyburn Country Club, is now Executive Vice President and General Manager at Rogers Arena … Walter Cosman has been elevated to Vice President, Sales and Marketing with the Vancouver Canadians
Greg Douglas ‘Dr. Sport’ contributes to The Orca on a biweekly basis. His five decades of covering sports in British Columbia included 19 years as a weekly columnist with The Vancouver Sun.
SWIM ON:
- Dr. Sport's debut for The Orca focused on the absolute state of local sports radio.
- ...but then the Good Doctor couldn't resist checking in with news of massive grand slam of a guest speaker for the next JCC Sports Dinner.
- Vancouver’s steadily expanding crime rate means we should start thinking about surveillance. We already allow social media apps to track us, so why can’t high risk areas be filmed? Jody Vance asks the question.
