Moira Colbourne passed away earlier this month. She was 90. The following is her biography for the Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame. She is also a member of the BC Sports Hall of Fame and the Field Hockey Canada Hall of Fame.

Moira Colbourne started the field hockey program in Burnaby in 1968 and was instrumental one year later in forming the Burnaby Women’s Field Hockey Association. She was its president for more than 30 years and saw the association grow from two teams to 44.

The captain of the BC team that won a gold medal at the 1969 Canada Summer Games in Halifax and member of two teams representing Canada at international events, was a member of the Vancouver Women’s Field Hockey Association for more than 35 years.

Colbourne also helped form associations in Delta, Coquitlam and West Vancouver. She began serving on the BC Women’s Field Hockey Association council in the late 1960s.Colbourne introduced field hockey into Burnaby schools serving as a volunteer coach at Royal Oak Junior High and Burnaby South Senior Secondary.

She began umpiring high school and senior games in the early 1960s as well as provincial and national championships, Colbourne was still refereeing games more than half a century later.Along with coaching Simon Fraser University’s field hockey program, which has an annual Moira Colbourne Women’s Field Hockey Award scholarship, for 29 years, she coached BC to a gold medal at the 1981 Canada Summer Games and was team manager at the 1985 Games. 

Colbourne served on the executive of the Canadian Women’s Field Hockey Association and was its vice-president of coaching in 1983.The long-time South Burnaby resident was inducted as a builder into the BC Sports Hall of Fame in 1985 and the Field Hockey Canada Hall of Fame in 2020.

Colbourne also served on the Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame committee for more than two decades. She passed away in October 2026 at the age of 90.

This is a link to a a recent story about her passing in The Freshet News.

https://www.freshetnews.ca/field-hockey-pioneer-helped-build-the-sport-in-burnaby-and-beyond/