1981 Award Winners

Major Award Winners

ATHLETE OF THE YEAR

Horst Bulau, Ski Jumping


Anne Heggtveit began to ski at the age of three, so did Betsy Clifford.

Pat Morris hit the slopes at the age of two and was jumping at six.

Horst Bulau was skiing at 2 ½ and jumping by five.

Between them, the four have skied around the world and won 8 of the 33 Associated Canadian Travellers-Cities of Ottawa and Nepean Sportsman’s Dinner athlete of the year awards.

Heggtveit and Clifford slid downhill to five titles, Heggtveit taking three including her gold medal year and Clifford back-to-back wins in 1969 and 1970.

Morris won athlete honours for ski jumping in 1967 and Bulau’s ski jumping was outstanding in 1981 and 1982.

There is a message there somewhere, but we will leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.

“Yes,” said Bulau to the question of whether or not his athlete of the year awards have been useful to him. “They have allowed me to meet some important people.”

He was talking about the ACT honour during the last holiday season break on the World Cup ski jumping tour… a tour that finds him making a comeback at 23 years of age.

After a third overall finish in 1980-81 and 1981-82 and a second overall in 1982-83, the Gloucester resident hit the skids. He fell to eight then 19th in the next two seasons.

Consequently he’s been something of an enigma in a sport that requires split second timing. He appears to have lost that all-important consistency which is essential to good ski jumping.

He has collected other honours in addition to the ACT trophies and athlete of the year awards in seven consecutive dinner appearances. He has twice won the John Semelink Memorial Trophy awarded to the country’s outstanding skier.

Bulau is a business administration student at Algonquin College when not on the ski slopes. Between classroom vacations he can be found on the golf course where he can break 80.

SPORTSMAN OF THE YEAR (GORD TRIVETT MEMORIAL TROPHY)

Hazel Miner, basketball

After 16 years of solving (money) problems for her Rookies basketball organization and settling provincial matters like raising Cain over the Ingrid Kihl ineligible ruling because she went to college for a half term, you would be entitled to think that maybe Hazel Miner would be slowing down a step or two.

She’s going a step or two faster.

Odds on catching her at home on a given day are equivalent to winning Lotto-649. She sees plenty to be settled, but at the moment the workers are few.

Miner, who won the ACT’s Trivett Trophy on her birthday in 1981, is now working on a Basketball Ontario juvenile (under 18) summer basketball camp. She hopes it will go to Queen’s University at Kingston but that is tentative.

The plan is to take the top 40 boys and top 40 girls and bring them to camp where they’ll get a thorough test of skills. The top dozen will come back later and hopefully get international exposure before the summer runs out. Rookie head coach Bob Butler will handle the provincial women. Junior basketball is well organized with provincial teams and coaches thanks to the Canadian Games program.

But lacking, says Helen, is opportunity for the seniors in the province. “There are a number of players out there around 25 years old and they play good basketball. But we’ve got nothing for them,” she said.

The 1984 season was the best ever for the Rookie organization as they won three titles in as many tries. They were best in bantam, midget and premier (under 20), the latter a replacement for junior which has dropped a year internationally.

Head coach is still Bob Butler, who came to the organization after Miner had established an operating base through biddy basketball and formed the Rookies. An original Rookie, Laura Gillespie, handles the midgets and Bob Sheperd. Bob MacAdam assists Butler.

Top Amateurs

Alpine Skiing — Robin McLeish
Archery — Scott Ramsay
Badminton — John Czich
Ball Hockey — Achilles (Toe) Pietrantonio
Baseball — Phil Franko
Basketball — Chris Jonsson
Biathlon — Richard Webber
Bowling — Christina Danis
Boxing — Pierre Huneault
Cross-country Skiing — Jenny Walker
Cycling — Mike McCloskey
Diving — John Nash
Equestrian — Diedre Laframboise
Fencing — Louise Leblanc
Field Hockey — Terry Wheatley
Figure Skating — Elizabeth Manley
Football — Duncan Anderson
Freestyle Skiing — Tim Simboli
Golf — John Haime
Gymnastics — Sean McManus
Handicap — Randy Akeson
Hockey — Doug Smith
Judo — Phil Takahashi
Lacrosse — Denis Desjardins
Orienteering — Megali Robert
Paddling — Sue Holloway
Modern Pentathlon — Lawrence Keyte
Ringette — Laurie Cavers
Rowing — Bernard Ceravel, Ghislain Hotte
Rugby — Norm Carr
Sailing — Andy Roy
Shooting — Mike Wong Shuy
Ski Jumping — Horst Bulau
Soccer — Ben Charles
Softball — Pierre Landry
Speed Skating — Stephen Graham
Squash — Nick Nemeth
Swimming — Brian Johnson
Table Tennis — Pierre Parulekar
Touch Football — Barry Hughes
Track and Field — Ann Peel
Trap and Skeet — Éric Dagenais
Volleyball — Paul Gratton
Water polo — Heather Gifford
Weightlifting — Terry Hadlow
Wrestling — Ray Takahashi

Team — Bell Bruins — Senior Basketball

Notes on a Cuff

A basketball scholarship to Niagara University awaited Chris Jonsson on graduation from Bell High School and he topped the basketball list for a second year in a row… Shooting came up with a different face in Nepean’s Mike Wong Shuy, the top Canadian at Bisley and with the leaders at the DCRA… The Gatineau Zone’s Richard Webber captured an experimental Canadian biathlon championship… The program was set up to interest veteran cross-country runners in the skiing sport and thus build a base for the 1988 Winter Games… Hockey player of the year, Doug Smith, an 18-year old draft by Los Angeles Kings was sent from the Kings to Buffalo toward the last third of the NHL schedule… Tim Simboli and Anna Fraser have been proving they belong in free-style skiing, since the sport dropped grandiose sports plans and settled for the experienced and stable amateur scene… Horst Bulau again served notice that he planned to move up the ski jumping ladder by sweeping the U.S. National titles…

And a light note to conclude 1981:

Earl Bullis approached Herb Capozzi to be guest speaker at the 1981 dinner and Capozzi replied: “I think it can be done if you arrange a dinner with the Governor-General for me!”

Bullis held his breath until Capozzi finished and then let go a loud sigh… It seems Capozzi finished and then let go a loud sigh… It seems Capozzi had won one of those “Dinner with the Governor-General” prizes set up by Governor-General Schreyer in aid of worthy causes and Capozzi wanted to collect his.