Fred Usselman, an East Burnaby boy, was a long, lanky sniper who was lethal playing on one of the era’s most prolific lines. The six-foot-four Usselman played alongside two other Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame inductees, Gord Gimple and Alex Carey, starting from their early days in minor lacrosse in Burnaby.

The trio led the Vancouver PNE Indians (1954) and Mount Pleasant Legion (1956) to Minto Cup national junior championships and then followed it up with Vancouver Burrards/Carlings to capture the 1961, 1963 and 1964 Mann Cup Canadian senior men’s titles. A five-time Western Lacrosse Association all-star, Usselman scored 476 goals and 773 points in his 12-year career.

He was inducted into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1979 and those Mann Cup championship teams have also been inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame. After winning the 1961 WLA scoring title, Usselman told the league it should have a trophy for the scoring leader. The league agreed and created the Denny Huddleston Trophy in 1962, although it turned out to be too late for his name to be engraved on it.