Forward Jessica Kaczowka, who scored 28 points and grabbed 13 rebounds in the final, was named the CIS player of the year. Teresa Kleindienst, who was named the MVP of the game against Laval, was chosen the nation’s top defensive player. Bruce Langford, in his first year taking over from legendary SFU coach Allison McNeill, earned coach of the year honours. Lani Kramer was the team’s assistant coach. 

The Clan — which included Gaby Salazar, Jen Van De Walle, Kirsten Wood, Maren Corrigal, Jennifer McElgunn, Devon Campbell, Morgan McLaughlin and Dani Langford — averaged 77 points per game, while holding its combined opposition to just 49.3 points during that stretch.

SFU’s women hoopster squad was named Team of the Year by both Basketball BC and Sport BC. It was inducted into the SFU Sports Hall of Fame in 2014.

Joanne McLeod is considered one of the finest figure skating coaches in the world. As the Director of the Burnaby Figure Skating Centre of Excellence — now called Champs International Skating Centre of BC and based in Burnaby at the Scotia Barn (formerly (8-Rinks) — she coached some of Canada’s most decorated skaters including Emanuel Sandhu, Mira Leung, Kevin Reynolds, Jeremy Tan, Nam Nguyen and Emily Bausback.

McLeod has coached at three Olympic Games, 18 world championships, 10 world junior championships, four European championships and 17 Four Continents championships. She has coached more than 75 national medallists.

In 2004, McLeod was named Skate Canada’s National Coach of the Year. She is also a Skate Canada BC/Yukon Hall of Fame inductee (2025). In addition, McLeod has been named a provincial competitive coach of the year 15 times (2002 to 2018), Sport BC Female Coach of the Year (2015) and 2014 National Coaching Excellence Award winner.

Wayne Elderton was head of Tennis Canada’s Coaching Development and Certification in BC for more than 30 years. He was considered the architect of a system for development of tennis youth.

Elderton is one of 65 coaches in the world to receive the designation of International Master Professional from the Professional Tennis Registry, only the second Canadian to receive that designation. He has written coaching material for many organizations and countries and is a popular speaker at international coaching conferences.

His students have captured more than 20 national titles in junior and wheelchair competitions. His wheelchair tennis program has yielded 15 national titles and two international champions.

Elderton is a seven-time winner of Tennis Canada’s coaching excellence award, a two-time winner of Tennis BC’s High Performance Coach Of the Year and 2009 Canadian pro of the year.

Known as a coach of coaches, Elderton has mentored over 1,000 coaches and is a pioneer of modern coaching methods in North America.

Tom Mukai, Burnaby’s outstanding citizen in 1997, founded the Burnaby Judo Club at the Bonsor Recreation Centre in 1964. A 7th Dan black belt and Judo Canada life member, Mukai’s efforts has produced over 60 black belts during his more than 35 years in Burnaby, including numerous junior and senior national and international champions.

He was the first fighter from B.C. to compete at the judo nationals and later was Team B.C.’s first coach in 1970. Mukai mentored the Canadian men’s and women’s team internationally in the 1980s and ’90s.

Mukai is also a certified international referee and has officiated at the Junior Pan Am Games and the U.S. Open. He is a life member of Judo BC.

James Johnson was a founding member of Karate BC and is a past president of the organization and Karate Canada. He has also been a member of the World Karate Federation executive committee and the Pan American Karate Federation. Johnson represented Canada in three world championships and was the first person to win four national senior men’s open titles, including one in 1983 when he was 39 years old.

Johnson not only founded the Burnaby Karate Club at Cameron Recreation Centre in 1981 he was its chief instructor for 35 years. 

After volunteering for eight months as executive director of Karate in BC, Johnson was given the full-time salaried position which he held for 30 years.

He is a nationally carded referee and played a key role in women’s inclusion in kumite, or sparring. Johnson was inducted into the National Karate Association Hall of Fame in 1991 and was first honoured for his outstanding contribution to the sport in Canada in 1988. He received the Ross Rumble Award from Karate Canada in 1995.

Osvaldo ‘Ossie’ Chavarria went from winning the best utility player — he played second base, shortstop and left field — for the AAA Pacific Coast League Vancouver Mounties to umpiring the bronze-medal match at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. He also was an umpire at the 1983 (Caracas, Venezuela) and 1999 Pan American Games (Winnipeg).

The native of Panama, who played 105 games in Major League Baseball for the Kansas City Athletics, settled in Burnaby with his wife, Burnaby’s Donna Moore, during his tenure with the Mounties.

Chavarria started umpiring in 1979 and continued to find time behind the plate in the NAIA American university level, at national-level championships and in the Summer Games. Chavarria umpired internationally at the Olympics, world championships, Pan Am Games and Intercontinental Cup. He even filled in occasionally for Vancouver Canadians games, first of all at the AAA level until 1999 and then again when the Canadians became a short-season A team.

In addition to his umpire skills, Chavarria was an assistant coach for Canad’s men’s team at the 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis and the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. He was a coach with the Vancouver-based National Baseball Institute (1986 to 1990) and was a scout for the Toronto Blue Jays. He is a member of the BC Baseball Umpires Association Hall of Fame (2015) and was chosen for induction into the BC Sports Hall of Fame in 2026.

Cliff Ronning tallied 955 regular season and playoff points in 17 seasons in the NHL, including six years with the Vancouver Canucks between 1990 and ’96. A seventh-round draft pick of the St. Louis Blues in ’84, Ronning scored 306 goals and 869 points in 1,137 regular season games while scoring 29 goals and 86 points in 126 post-season games.

Ronning played four seasons with St. Louis, another three with the Phoenix Coyotes and four with the Nashville Predators before finishing his NHL career with stints with the Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota Wild and New York Islanders.

He also scored over 150 points in two stints with the Canadian national team. A former Western Hockey League MVP and rookie of the year, Ronning was also a key player of the Burnaby Winter Club midget AAA team that won the Air Canada Cup national championships in 1982.

Photo: Mario Bartel

After his career, Ronning returned to Burnaby to raise his family and has work in the hockey industry in stick and shooting development and research.

Courtney Knight was the first visually-impaired athlete to win a B.C. high school track and field championship, placing first in the discus in 1995. With less than 10 per cent normal vision, her participation with an able-bodied Team B.C. at the Canadian Junior Championships and Western Canada Games were also firsts.

Knight was ranked No. 2 in the world in the pentathlon, discus and shot put and at the time of her induction was the Canadian record holder in seven individual Paralympic disciplines. 

She is a three-time paralympian, winning a silver medal in discus in Atlanta (1996) and another in the pentathlon in Sydney (2000) while taking bronze in discus at Athens (2004). Knight, who also competed at the 2010 Winter Paralympics (Vancouver-Whistler) in cross-country skiing, was the Sport B.C. disabled athlete of the year in 1995 and was B.C. Athletics’ female disabled athlete from 1996 to 2003.

Glenn Anderson was a fourth-round draft pick of the Edmonton Oilers in 1979, who went on to win five Stanley Cups (1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1990) in 11 seasons. He won a sixth Stanley Cup ring in New York in 1994. In 16 NHL seasons, 

The speedy Anderson scored 498 goals and 1,009 points in 1,129 NHL regular season games while notching 93 goals and 214 points in 225 playoff games. Anderson twice tallied over 50 goals in a single season and scored over 100 points on three separate occasions, including a career-high 105 points in 1982. He also played in four all-star games and in four Canada Cup events.

Anderson was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2008. A few months later, the Oilers retired his No. 9.

Justin Abdou is one of Simon Fraser University’s most successful wrestlers. Competing at 80 kilograms, Abdou was a nine-time Canadian senior champion and won a gold medal for Canada at the 1994 Commonwealth Games.

He won two silver medals and two bronze at Pan American Games and represented his country at the Sydney Olympics. During his university career, Abdou won four consecutive NAIA national championship titles, only the second SFU wrestler and fifth on the continent to do so. Abdou finished his collegiate career with a record 204 wins, 24 losses and two draws.

Abdou was a member of Canada’s national wrestling team for 13 years before retiring in 2001. He was inducted into the SFU athletic hall of fame in 2016 and is also a member of the Canadian Amateur Wrestling Hall of Fame and the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) Hall of Fame. 

He has since gone on to coach Canadian teams at four World Cup of Wrestling championships, four University World Championships, the World Junior and World Championships and assisted with the 2008 Canadian Olympic wrestling team. Abdou has been the head coach of SFU’s women’s wrestling team since 2002 winning national titles in 2009 and 2010 and has also at times did double duty as the school’s men’s wrestling coach.