Brunet, James, Shields Join Canada's Sports Hall of Fame
Three individuals, each with a different story and all with strong ties to Canadian high performance sport, are tonight being inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. They are Caroline Brunet, Angela James and Ken Shields.
1) Caroline Brunet
Caroline Brunet is one of Canada’s most successful kayakers. She was particularly dominant in the K-1 500 metres. She is one of only 13 athletes to win medals at three successive Olympic Games in the same event. Brunet (Lac-Beauport, Que.) won Olympic silver in 1996 and 2000 before winning bronze in 2004 – all in the K-1 500 metres. She is a five-time Olympian with four other top-10 finishes sprinkled across 16 years of Olympic sprint kayaking.
Across three decades, Brunet was world champion 10 separate times while adding seven silver and four bronze medals for an amazing 21 World Championship podium appearances. She was Canada’s flag bearer at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
2) Angela James
An intense, skilled hockey player, James was a passionate advocate for women’s hockey as it rose in prominence throughout the 1990s. She is a hockey legend in Canada and a member of four gold medal World Championship teams in 1990, 1992, 1994 and 1997. She is known as a great clutch performer, a player of intensity, and in 1990 led Canada with 11 goals at the World Championship. All decade she was one of Canada’s best players and top scoring threats.
As a testament to her legacy, James was in 2008 one of three women who were the first-ever inductees into the International Ice Hockey Hall of Fame.
3) Ken Shields
A Member of the Order of Canada, Shields is one of the most preeminent basketball coaches in Canadian history. He began coaching with the national team in 1981, was head coach of the junior World Championship team in 1983 and 1987, and head coach of the senior national team from 1988 to 1994. In that last year, he led the team to a seventh-place finish at the World Championships in Toronto.
In Canadian inter-university sport, Shields is the most successful coach ever with a record number of coaching victories and seven national titles with the University of Victoria. He was coach of the year four times. He is a member of the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame and in 2007 received the James Naismith Award for lifelong contributions to basketball in Canada.
