At the 38th Annual Induction and Awards Dinner, the following were inducted into the North Bay Sports Hall of Fame:
CHANTAL CHAMPAGNE, a native of North Bay and a graduate of Ecole Algonquin, was a basketball star at the school as well as playing ringette, ball hockey and soccer. After moving to Ottawa she began playing Senior “AA” hockey until a knee injury put an end to that phase of her athletic career. Wanting to stay involved with the sport she began refereeing boys games, and worked her way up to handling Women’s “AAA” and International (IIHF) matches, becoming a certified Level 6 Official (the highest rank) along the way.She refereed games in three Women’s World Championships (2001, 2004, 2006), ten Canadian Women’s Hockey Championships and over 30 International matches, as well as acting as referee-in-chief of the Ottawa District WHA. She was in line to work the 2002 Olympics before accepting a position with Hockey Canada in the National Sledge Hockey program.
During three years with Sledge Hockey she managed the men’s team to its first gold medal in the 2006 Paralympic Winter Games in Turin, Italy, while developing a Canadian coaching manual and organizing coaching, officiating, scouting and development programs for the sport across the country.
She spent the next three years (2006-09) as the Sport and Wellness Director of the Calgary Talisman Centre which features 40,000 sq feet of training space for athletic development.
In 2012 Chantal became the General Manager of the Calgary Inferno of the Canadian Women’s Professional Hockey League and helped guide the team to the CWHL Championship Clarkson Cup in 2016.
During her time in Calgary she acted as GM of the Calgary Ultimate Association, which involved over 100 teams; coached Girl’s Bantam “AAA”hockey; served on the Board of the Calgary Sport Council; organized numerous hockey tournaments and was Canadian representative on the International Paralympics Committee. She relocated to British Columbia and is the Manager at CanLan Ice Sports, a twin pad arena and business centre in Langley.
ANDY COLLINS was born in North Bay and although ultimate proved to be his sport of choice, he was an excellent multi sport athlete in his youth, playing basketball, football and baseball. He played basketball for five years at Scollard Hall, was NDA Senior MVP in his last year, and was twice a Senior All Star. As a running back for the green and gold he scored twenty plus touchdowns in his final season.In 1995 he started playing ultimate with the Killer Tomatoes at Chippewa Field and went on to join the Nads, North Bay’s travelling team, and played with them at nine Canadian Championships (CUC) between ’95 and 2014 even though he moved to British Columbia in 2001. Over the years he continued to support the Nads franchise as it competed at the highest levels of the sport.
He played for a number of seasons with the famed Furious George club in BC and helped it win the Canadian Championship in 2011. One of the toughest tournaments to qualify for is the Ultimate Players Championship in the United States. Collins and Furious George reached the UPC North American Open four times – 2010, 2011, 2012 & 2014.
Every four years the CUC champion gets to represent Canada in the World Ultimate event and Collins was with team Canada as it won gold in the World International Open in 2008 in Vancouver, and bronze in 2012 in Japan.
He was the Captain of Team Canada as it won bronze in the 2013 World Games International Mixed Ultimate tournament in Colombia and played with Stache in the World Ultimate Club Championships, International Mixed division, the same year.
He played the sport professionally with the Vancouver Nighthawks of the Major Ultimate League in 2013 and 2014.
DIETER MISCH was born in Breslau, Germany (now Poland), and was 15 when he arrived in North Bay in 1953, having started his soccer career playing in schoolyards in his native country. He began playing the game locally in 1954, with the Ferris Men’s squad and joined the formidable Ted’s Redshirts team a couple of years later. Ted’s was a soccer powerhouse which eventually became the Germania Club and dominated the local men’s senior soccer scene for a quarter century – winning 12 league championships over a 25 year period.Misch played the game at its highest level for over three decades – playing every position except goal; he was not only a consistent goal scorer but was also a top defensive player. Over his career in outdoor and indoor soccer, he captured every local individual trophy available including top scorer, most valuable player, top defensive player, best mid-fielder and most sportsmanlike – winning MVP, Top Defensive Player and highest goal scorer awards multiple times.
He was Captain of the Davedi Garland soccer crew that won North Bay’s first Northern Ontario Soccer Championship and the Star Cup in 1966, defeating Sudbury Italia 3-2 in the final with Misch scoring the winning goal. He also captained the Germania Club squad that duplicated that feat by downing Sault Ste Marie 6-5 in overtime in 1979; only two players were on that pair of championship outfits – Misch and George Popp.
In 1978 the North Bay Soccer Association instituted the Dieter Misch Trophy which was awarded to the First Division Mid-Field Player of the Year. He continued playing soccer at the recreational level into his fifties and from 1969 until 1975 he coached minor soccer and refereed in both minor and men’s leagues.
Over his thirty five or more years playing competitive soccer Dieter Misch proved to be a major asset to the game in North Bay, noted for his dedication to the sport as well as being a tough competitor and a great two way player.
BRENT PIGOTT is a native of Copper Cliff and arrived in North Bay in 1972 to teach at Widdifield SS.He became head of Men’s Phys Ed in 1977 and was Athletic Coordinator on his retirement in 2002. He has been involved in the community as an educator, coach and executive in high school and community sport for over 45 years and he is well known for his work ethic and attention to detail.He coached Wildcat badminton for 29 years, winning five OF SAA medals, four NOSSA team banners and over 40 NDA team titles. His charges won over 40 NOSSA and 100 plus NDA individual titles over the years. He also coached wrestling for several seasons, producing four NOSSA individual champions and 24 NDA individual titlists. Outside the secondary school venue he contributed his time and expertise to minor hockey, baseball and volleyball. He taught part-time at Nipissing University for almost a decade and was badminton and lacrosse instructor in the Phys Ed program.
The 2002 winner of the Pete Beach OF SAA Award for services to high school sport served as President of NOSSA and was a three time President of the NDA while serving the district board in various ways including convening NDA and NOSSA badminton for many years. He was in charge of the NDA constitution and athletic records and transferred decades of paper documents to computer.
Pigott joined the NBSHF Board in 2003 and has been Planning Chair since 2005, spending many hours working on the design and implementation of the NBSHF presence in the concourse at Memorial Gardens including the various photo and archival exhibits. He is the man behind the Hall’s heritage pictures program and has scanned over 7000 photographs as well as organizing their storage and exhibition. He was editor and photo manager of the NBSHF books “They Were Our Heroes’: published in 2012, and “Flashbacks’; produced in 2017, and without his work neither of these projects would have gotten off the ground.
CRAIG RIVET was born in North Bay and played soccer, ball hockey and basketball as well as hockey in his youth. A member of local minor hockey clubs that won seven consecutive NOHA “AAA” championships, he played Junior Bin Barrie and spent three years with the OHL Kingston Frontenacs. He played 213 games on defence for Kingston, picking up 179 points and attracting the attention of the Montreal Canadiens who drafted him in the third round (68th) in 1992. He spent three seasons in the AHL with Fredericton where he picked up 76 points and 416 penalty minutes in 172 games before making the Habs for good in 1997, thanks to many hours of off-season work with Larry Sheppard in North Bay.He played 633 games with the Canadiens through 2007 and was an Assistant Captain for several seasons before being traded to the San Jose Sharks where he played 91 games, again wearing the “A’: Traded to the Buffalo Sabres in July of 2008 he was named Captain and played 165 games despite being hampered by a double labrum tear(shoulder) which required surgery and basically ended his NHL career although he played 14 games with Columbus in 2010. In his 923 regular season games as an NHL defenceman he scored 50 goals and added 186 assists for 237 points and 1171 penalty minutes. He listed 23 points (19 assists) with 69 PIM in 69 playoff outings.
He played with Team Canada in the 2003 World Ice Hockey Championships in Finland carding an assist in nine games as Canada won the gold medal over Sweden 3-2. The NHL lockout year (2004-5) saw him play 18 matches with Finland Turku in the European Elite League.
Rivet ended his active career as a player-coach with Elmira of the EHL in 2012. He has since coached in the Buffalo Junior Sabres elite hockey program and has been involved with the Sabres Alumni.
