{"id":22248,"date":"2018-11-22T10:16:25","date_gmt":"2018-11-22T15:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22248"},"modified":"2018-11-29T12:40:47","modified_gmt":"2018-11-29T17:40:47","slug":"bain-doolittle-land-in-aurora-sports-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/bain-doolittle-land-in-aurora-sports-hall-of-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"Bain, Doolittle land in Aurora Sports Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

Connections past and present marked the inductions of both basketball coach Robert Bain and late ex-NHL linesman Loring Doolittle into the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame, made official at the annual induction dinner last week.
\nPassionate about both hockey and his hometown, where his legacy is forever cemented in Loring Doolittle Court, friends and family were given the opportunity to share the legacy behind the name with the hundreds of guests in attendance.
\nAn emotional Claire Doolittle took to the stand to remember his late older brother, along with Loring\u2019s daughter, Cathy.
\n\u201cWhen I was growing up, Loring was my idol,\u201d said Claire. \u201cEvery kid in Aurora watched (CBC\u2019s) Hockey Night in Canada. Foster Hewitt would come on, and Loring had the honour of working alongside everybody involved.\u201d
\nHe recounted Loring\u2019s relationship with fellow linesman George Hayes, the first official to work one thousand games in the NHL.
\n\u201cFoster would always start his broadcast by saying \u2018these teams don\u2019t like each other, you know. Doolittle and Hayes are gonna be busy.\u201d
\nStanding on the podium beside the portraits of new and former Hall of Fame inductees, Claire was driven to tell a story when he saw the face of ex-NHLer Bob Wall, an inductee to the 2017 class.
\n\u201cBob and I went to high school together in Aurora,\u201d recalled Claire.
\nWhen Loring\u2019s career took him to the west coast after the NHL\u2019s expansion into California, he and Mr. Wall met up once again when Mr. Wall was playing with the Los Angeles Kings.
\n\u201cThe story I got from my brother was, he came up and nudged Bob Wall and he said \u2018any crap from you tonight and you\u2019re going back to the bush league in Lake Wilcox,\u201d said Claire, referring to the Oak Ridges community.
\nWith both mom and dad, and five other siblings, watching that game in the famed Los Angeles Forum, Claire said the hometown connection was something special.
\n\u201cIt was the opening game for the LA Kings, and I thought about it\u2026there are ten players on the ice and three officials\u2026two of them were from Aurora.\u201d
\nAbove all, Claire said he looked up to his older brother for his leadership.
\n\u201cWhenever he\u2019d come back to town, he\u2019d go to public speaking events, at churches, banquets, minor hockey, everything.\u201d
\nFor Mr. Bain, the hometown connection also runs deep in his blood. It was former head chair of Sport Aurora that certified his coaching license through the National Certified Coaching Program (NCCP).
\n\u201cAs a matter of fact, he certified virtually all the coaches at York University. What that program has done for coaching in Canada is insurmountable.\u201d
\n\u201cThere is now a leg to stand on for coaches with that program, and nights and honours like this are proof.\u201d
\nYet despite almost forty years of coaching including multiple titles with the Yeomen, Mr. Bain said he was \u201cshocked\u201d to be standing at the podium.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a tremendous honour, I actually didn\u2019t believe it when I got the phone call,\u201d said Mr. Bain. \u201cI thought it was a joke. My players over the years have played several pranks on me, and I\u2019m the kind of guy who always gets caught.\u201d
\nYet Mr. Bain said it was exactly his relationship with his players that have helped him earn his second hall of fame induction.
\n\u201cI can\u2019t thank my players enough, I\u2019m very, very proud of my players,\u201d said Mr. Bain. \u201cI recruited on three things\u2026you had to get into York, you had to be skillful, and last but not least, I tried to recruit players with good character.\u201d
\nHe also made sure to thank his family in attendance, including his wife Linda, who spent many years volunteering with the York Yeomen.
\n\u201cShe did everything at York for a while, she was the video person, she did timing and scoring, and I helped her run the high school tournament at Christmas when we had one.\u201d
\nLastly, he thanked and gave praise to not only the volunteer staff and students that have assisted him over the years, but the volunteers that helped put together the sixth annual induction dinner.
\n\u201cI had no idea what this event was about. What an incredible evening. My wife and I are shocked at the grandeur of the whole event\u2026I\u2019m extremely impressed by the quality of the people inducted before me.
\n\u201cI watched Dave Morland play at the Canadian Open, when I worked as a statistician\u2026to be inducted with someone as famous as that\u2026wow.\u201d
\nMr. Doolittle and Mr. Bain join triathlete Paolina Allan and pro golfer David Morland IV as this year\u2019s class of inductees into the Hall.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Connections past and present marked the inductions of both basketball coach Robert Bain and late ex-NHL linesman Loring Doolittle into the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame, made official at the annual induction dinner last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22258,"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-22248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/2018-11-22-10.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5MQ","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 14:19:24","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\/22248","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=22248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}