{"id":17344,"date":"2017-05-24T15:49:14","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T19:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=17344"},"modified":"2017-05-31T12:13:48","modified_gmt":"2017-05-31T16:13:48","slug":"palmateer-wall-thompson-named-to-sports-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/palmateer-wall-thompson-named-to-sports-hall-of-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"Palmateer, Wall, Thompson named to Sports Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Homegrown heroes on the ice, in the pool, and even on the cricket pitch are set to be inducted into the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame as the Class of 2017.
\nHockey stars Mike Palmateer and Bob Wall, along with gold medal-winning swimmer Dan Thompson and cricket pioneer William Fleury were announced as the latest installment of Honoured Members at this week\u2019s Council meeting on Tuesday night.
\nFormer Toronto Maple Leaf Mike Palmateer joins the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame in the \u201cAthlete\u201d Category.
\nBorn in Toronto, Mike joined the Toronto Marlboros at the age of 12, serving as goalie until they brought home the Memorial Cup Championship in the 1974\/75 season.
\nA short time later, he made his NHL debut, joining the Toronto Maple Leafs for the 1976\/77 season where, in the following year, he posted 34 wins with five shutouts in 63 games, becoming key in the Leafs\u2019 making the final four in the quest for the Stanley Cup. In all, he played in 365 NHL games before retiring to Aurora, becoming active locally in coaching and business.
\n\u201cI am very pleased and honoured to learn of my induction into the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame,\u201d says Palmateer. \u201cI have many terrific memories of my professional hockey career but I deeply value all the wonderful memories and experiences spanning over 30 years of living and working in Aurora.\u201d
\nOak Ridges-native Bob Wall joins Palmateer in the \u201cAthlete\u201d category.
\n

\"Dan

Dan Thompson<\/p><\/div>Wall got his hockey start in Aurora, playing with the Aurora Bantams (All-Ontario Champions) and Aurora Midgets between 1957 and 1959.
\nAt 16, he was drafted to play with the Hamilton Red Wings Junior A Team and was awarded Rookie of the Year. While still with the Red Wings, the team won the Memorial Cup Championships in 1962. Following the 1967 NHL expansion, Wall was drafted to the newly-minted Los Angeles Kings where he served as the team\u2019s inaugural Captain. From there, he played for the Edmonton Oilers from 1972-1973, the San Diego Mariners from 1975-1976 before retiring to Aurora in 1977 where he coached local hockey teams through 1981.
\n\u201cMy childhood dream was to play in the NHL,\u201d says Wall. \u201cI was given the chance to play hockey in Aurora and that is where I was discovered, so to be in the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame is a fantastic honour.\u201d
\nOff the ice, the Class of 2017 is honouring swimmer Dan Thompson, also in the \u201cAthlete\u201d category.
\nBorn in East York in 1956, the Aurora resident mastered butterfly events in the 1970s and 80s, garnering numerous medals, including gold, competing in the World Student Championships, the Pan Am Games, and the Commonwealth Games.
\nIn 1980, he became a Canadian Olympic hopeful, set to compete in the water at that year\u2019s Summer Olympics and serving as Captain for the Canadian Olympic Team, but that dream was cut short following the international boycott of the Moscow games.
\nA Masters swimmer, Thompson became a member of the Aurora Master Ducks Swim Club and set numerous records in the pool, including Short Course and Long Course individual and relay at both the Masters and Canadian levels.
\nA former CEO of Skate Canada, he has served as a Board Member of the Canadian Amateur Swimming Association and as an athletes\u2019 representative on the Board of the Canadian Olympic Association.
\nAll three men have fostered up and coming Aurora athletes in their retirement, paving the way for athletes making their marks in the pool and on rinks around the world who, in turn, are paving the way for the hockey and swimming stars of tomorrow.
\n\u201cIt is nice to be recognized in your own community for accomplishments that you\u2019ve had along the way,\u201d said Mr. Thompson. \u201cI have had a very active high performance career in swimming but I have also continued to be involved in the sport not only from a leadership point of view, but also as a master swimmer.
\n\u201cFor me, it has been a life of learning and I just think sport can contribute in so many ways to having balanced, healthy, active lives.\u201d
\nAlthough cricket hasn\u2019t enjoyed as enduring popularity in Canada as hockey and swimming, however, the same can also be said of William Fleury, who is being honoured posthumously for his contributions to cricket.
\nAlso being honoured in the \u201cAthlete\u201d category, Fleury was born to a prominent Aurora family in 1865 and quickly became a natural on the cricket pitch both here at home and in Newmarket. By 1883, Fleury was at Upper Canada College, becoming an emerging star in what was, at the time, considered the \u201cNational Sport\u201d in the young nation.
\n\u201cFrom 1883-1887, he played for various teams until the age of 22 when, as a left-handed batsman, he was chosen to represent Canada as a member of the Gentlemen of Canada touring the US, Ireland and England,\u201d say ASHOF organizers. \u201cHe continued to ay cricket locally and internationally as a member of the Gentlemen of Canada, Toronto Zingari, until 1895.\u201d
\nBetween 1907 and 1908, Fleury both coached and played with the Canadian Zingari, taking on British teams, still fully immersed in the sport at the age of 45.\u201d
\nFleury died in 1946.
\nLooking over the slate of 2017, ASHOF\u2019s Nancy Black says that while Aurora has always been a hockey town, the inductees show multiple facets of sport in our community. Each of their stories are unique and different and, this time around, with swimming and cricket, two new sports will be part of Hall of Fame.
\nThe four members of the Class of 2017 will be inducted into the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame at a special diner at St. Andrew\u2019s College on November 8, once again hosted by TSN\u2019s James Duthie. Tickets are available online at www.aurorashof.ca. <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Homegrown heroes on the ice, in the pool, and even on the cricket pitch are set to be inducted into the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame as the Class of 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5,24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4vK","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 06:29:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}