Speed skating is in Ariana Van Der Starre’s DNA and she has proudly carried on the family tradition.

Van Der Starre has spent more than 30 years coaching at the Burnaby Speed Skating Club taking skaters to competitions around the province and the country. It was a natural transition considering her mother, Agatha, had been inducted into the Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame in 2007 for growing the BMSC into one of the biggest in the province. After competing for Team BC,

Ariana Van Der Starre turned to coaching in 1994 becoming a national level coach. Her skill has led to countless medals for not only club skaters but also ones from around the province. In the 2024-25 season alone, Van Der Starre accompanied skaters from various age classes to more than 20 meets in BC and Canada.

The club has won the points title at four short track provincial championships as well as the 2011 provincial long track championship. She has been appointed by the Speed Skating BC almost 50 times to work with Team BC skaters at competitions such as the Canadian Youth Championships and the Canada Winter Games.

Her Masters skaters have, at various times, held Canadian and world records in their age categories in long track and short track.

Susan Kirkby has been a Burnaby Minor Lacrosse Club executive and its registrar since 2004. She has been its president since 2022. In 2010, after Burnaby’s “Mr. Lacrosse’ Jack Crosby, a Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame Honoured Member inducted in its first class in 2001, passed away in 2008 Kirkby became the head organizer for the minor lacrosse tournament named after him that had begun in 2004.

Kirkby’s tireless efforts have been recognized with awards both by Burnaby Minor Lacrosse and the BC Lacrosse Association, which gave her the Ruth Seward Award in 2011. She also served as second vice-president and first vice-president of the BMLA between 2009 and 2022.

When Josephine Lee came to Canada, specifically Burnaby, in 1994 to escape continued unrest from the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in China, she was looking for something new to spark her interest.

So Lee and husband Freeman Watt turned to lawn bowling, a sport Watt had been fascinated with since he was a boy in Hong Kong. Lee became so proficient at bowls she got to travel the province, country and the world to compete.

Since 2001, she has won 37 provincial medals (24 gold) and 19 national medals (10 gold). Internationally she has won two gold medals at the US Open, a silver at the 2009 Hong Kong Open and represented Canada at the 2008 Asia Pacific Games and the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Dehli, India.

Lalji has become one of Canada’s foremost football experts, on many levels, as well as being a community builder for the sport in the province. He moved to the city with his family when he was six.

Lalji played football for Burnaby Central and after graduating in 1986 he helped coach the team from 1987 to 2000. He did a stint as Simon Fraser University’s sports information director in the early 1990s before becoming a sports reporter for CBC Vancouver from 1995 to 1997.

He joined TSN as a regional reporter in 1997 and while he cover the regional sports for the network he as become one of TSN’s football experts. Lalji has covered 22 Grey Cups, 16 Super Bowls and 12 NCAA championships. He is frequently seen on the sidelines of CFL games as a reporter for TSN and occasionally is in the booth as a play-by-play announcer as well as anchoring TSN’s coverage of the annual CFL Canadian college draft.

His in-depth knowledge of football at all levels — professional, collegiate and even high school — is not only on display on TSN throughout the year but also as a frequent expert commentator for many broadcast and podcast outlets on both sides of the border.

In addition to reporting extensively on the Vancouver Canucks, Lalji has covered Stanley Cup finals, NBA finals, MLB and NBA all-star games, the U.S. Open and PGA golf championships and three Olympic Games.

His community contributions have also earned him a place in the BC Football Hall of Fame. In 2003, Lalji revived the dormant football program at New Westminster Secondary School, not only serving as its head coach but also cultivating sponsorships for the program to make it thrive and helping many of its players obtain post-secondary scholarships. The football hall said “there are few individuals who have had as profound an impact on the growth of high school football in BC than Farhan Lalji.”

His efforts in growing sponsorship for the organization included obtaining sponsorship from Subway for the provincial championship games to be held in BC Place and to appear on television from 2002 to 2012.

Lalji pioneered the provincial high school football all-star awards dinner and annual all-star games and went on to serve as BC High School Football president from 2010 to 2012. During that sting one of his major accomplishments was developing a safety policy around concussion prevention for the BCHSF.

Sean Fleming, born and raised in Burnaby, spent 16 seasons in the CFL kicking for the Edmonton Eskimos. He set club records for points (2,571), field goals (553), converts (713), punts (1,264), punt yardage (52,957) and kickoff yardage (69,973).

Fleming, who attended Parkcrest Elementary and played soccer for Cliff Avenue United and baseball for the Burnaby Baseball Association, played in five Grey Cups, winning three, and was named the 1983 Grey Cup’s Most Valuable Canadian. He kicked the game-winning field goal in overtime in the 1995 Grey Cup.

He’s a four-time West Division all-star and two-time CFL all-star.
After graduating highs school from Vancouver College, Fleming went to the University of Wyoming where he still holds almost every Cowboys place-kicking record including scoring 324 points in his four years there.

As a pro, he had brief stints in the NFL with Washington and Kansas City before joining Edmonton, who selected him sixth overall in the 1992 CFL draft. He was inducted into the team’s Wall of Honour in 2011.