Heidi Beck

Heidi returns for her fifth and final season as a member of the highly successful Humber Hawks women’s curling team. On the ice, she is a two-time CCAA National silver medalist, with these two performances coming in back-to-back seasons. She has filled many positions on the team, a true credit to her versatility and approach to team success.

In the classroom, Heidi excels. She has graduated with honors from the Early Childhood Education Degree Program at the University of Guelph Humber and is currently enrolled in the post-grad program Advanced Studies In Special Needs. This past year, she was honored as an OCAA Provincial Academic All-Star, CCAA National Academic All Canadian, and was recognized as a CCAA National Scholar.

This combination of both incredible athletic success and a well above-average performance in the classroom certainly makes her a very worthy winner of the 2016 Etobicoke Sports Hall of Fame Scholarship.

Blake Kauer

Blake, a second-year standout catcher with the Humber Hawks men’s baseball team, has brought leadership to the freshman-based Hawks squad. Catchers, widely known as the player who calls and controls most aspects of a game, need to be both skilled and intelligent, and Blake brings this approach in each and every game he plays.

He is, without question, the top defensive player at his position in the entire league. Teams often change their approach to the offensive side of the game, living in fear of Blake’s ability to throw out runners. After a fine year in the prestigious Inter-County Baseball League, he has found great success at the plate this year, hitting a robust .417 at press time.

Blake is enrolled in his second year in the Community & Justice Services Program at Humber’s Lakeshore Campus. His ability to lead and be an impact player in every game makes him a fine choice for the 2016 Etobicoke Sports Hall of Fame Scholarship.

Daniele Clemente

Daniele, who may be viewed as diminutive in size at 5’ 6”, is a powerhouse on the pitch for the Humber Hawks men’s soccer team. The fourth-year midfielder was a key contributor on the Hawks squad that swept its way to winning both the OCAA Provincial and CCAA National championship titles last year. In fact, he played a significant role in the national gold medal game, as the Humber squad had to battle after going down two men early in the first half.

This season, the Hawks have not skipped a beat and are ranked as the number one collegiate men’s soccer team in the province and in the country. Daniele, from his position as a midfielder, has to read the play, challenge for the ball consistently, and distribute to the strikers for opportunities to score. This is one of the most intellectual positions in soccer.

He is striving in the classroom as well, currently in his second year in the Culinary Management Program at Humber. Great things come in small packages, and that is the basis of Daniele receiving the 2016 Etobicoke Sports Hall of Fame Scholarship.

Ceejay Nofuente

Ceejay just completed the most successful season an athlete can experience in Canadian Collegiate basketball, winning every individual and team award available to a student-athlete. She led the Hawks to its first-ever CCAA national crown, and in fact, the first national title for any Ontario women’s sports team (basketball, soccer, volleyball) in the 39 years of CCAA play. Along the way, she was the OCAA and CCAA Player of the Year and lived up to this billing by winning the OCAA and CCAA Championship tournament MVP awards. For her efforts, she was named as the OCAA Female Athlete of the Year—Across All Sports.

In her OCAA career, she has led her Humber teams to a league record of 51–3 and a playoff mark of 8–1. The Hawks have medaled in every year she has played. She has found her niche in the classroom as well, excelling in her third year of the Sport Management Program at Humber’s North Campus. Ceejay, based on her incredible exploits, is so deserving to be recognized for a 2016 Etobicoke Sports Hall of Fame Scholarship.

Eugenio Garro

Eugenio, currently enrolled in the Journalism—Advanced Diploma program at Humber College, is a contributing member of the Humber College Varsity Sports Information Team and a standout on the Hawks men’s soccer team. In the classroom, Eugenio has excelled, carrying a 75% average, as he heads into his third and final year of the program. He is well-respected as a journalist and has contributed many articles to the college’s main student online newspaper.

As the number one writer for the Humber Sports Information team, he has had his articles published to all of the social media platforms within the Humber Varsity area. Additionally, he has writing credits for SOAR Magazine—The Official Magazine of Humber Varsity Alumni. His sport of choice is soccer, and he has initiated a unique approach to journalism. He plays for the men’s team, then watches the women’s game, and then does full game reports for both. His ability to remove himself as a player when writing is quite remarkable.

His athletic prowess is well-documented, as he is a three-time men’s soccer national champion with the Hawks and two-time national championship MVP.

Jake Thomson

Jake took over last year as the voice of the Humber Hawks, sitting in the public address chair for Humber Hawk home games. This is the same chair that has featured broadcasting greats such as Herbie Kuhn of the Toronto Raptors and Aris Xenarios of Toronto FC. His experience, and more so, the outstanding job he did, has spurred him on to heading to the Radio Broadcasting Program at Humber College. He has returned to the broadcast chair this year and has taken over an even larger role. Just recently, he was the voice of the 2016 OCAA Men’s Baseball Championship hosted by Humber and competed for at Etobicoke’s own Connorvale Park. He can also be heard on the live streaming of all Hawks home volleyball and basketball games.

Jake has an incredible sporting background to support his broadcasting endeavors. Prior to his current program, he was a student in the three-year Sport Management Program. As an athlete, he is entering his fourth year on the Hawks Cross Country Team and was crowned a national champion a few short years ago.

Rachel Santini

Rachel Santini is a natural born leader. She is captain of the field hockey, ice hockey, and soccer teams at Father John Redmond Catholic Secondary School, and also wears the “C” with the Etobicoke Junior Dolphins of the Provincial Women’s Hockey League, an organization she has been with for 12 years. Santini impresses her coaches and inspires her teammates with her work ethic, commitment, and dedication, as well as her positive mindset, humility, and compassion. The well-respected and self-motivated student-athlete balances her busy sports schedule—she also competes in dragon boating and track and field at Redmond, and plays with the Etobicoke Youth Soccer Association and Mimico Minor Lacrosse Club—while organizing school activities on Redmond’s leadership team, tutoring her peers, and holding down a high-90s grade average at the Advanced Placement and gifted levels. This is no small feat considering her course load is heavy on math and science. Next year, Santini plans to study engineering and play varsity hockey at McGill.

Christina Piccinin

Christina Piccinin inspires her classmates at Bishop Allen Academy both on and off the court. As captain of the school volleyball team, Piccinin led the Cardinals to a gold medal at OFSAA, adding to a bronze medal and city and provincial titles. She also won a city title with the varsity soccer team and played senior basketball. Outside of school, Piccinin plays competitive volleyball with Etobicoke 381. After putting in long hours to improve her game physically and mentally, Piccinin saw her hopes of playing post-secondary volleyball put on hold when she tore her ACL late in the season. But she is staying positive despite this setback, displaying the perseverance and leadership qualities that help her lead vocational summer camps, welcome Grade 9 students to BA’s annual orientation camp, and volunteer at the 2015 Pan Am Games. Piccinin is president of her school’s athletic council and an honour roll student in the gifted program. In the fall, she plans to study political science.

Kelly Gruber

Twenty-five years before the exploits of Josh Donaldson, another long-haired third baseman with a penchant for getting his uniform dirty inspired Blue Jays fans to leave their seats and cheer his latest big hit or highlight-reel play.

Kelly Gruber, who lived in Etobicoke during his time with the Blue Jays, quickly became a fan favourite, helped by his flowing blonde hair and his fearless play at the hot corner. As a mainstay of the Jays lineup in the late 1980s and early 90s, Gruber had many moments of triumph on the diamond. But it is a play that officially didn’t happen that carved out his enduring place in Toronto sports history.

In the fourth inning of Game 3 of the 1992 World Series, Devon White made a sensational leaping catch against the centre field wall to rob Atlanta’s David Justice of extra bases. “Devon went back and made a catch that made Willie Mays’ catch look like child’s play,” Gruber recalled. Thinking the ball was going to drop, Atlanta runner Terry Pendleton took off from first, inadvertently passing his teammate, Deion Sanders, who was watching the play from second base.

Pendleton was automatically out, but the Blue Jays doubled him off first base anyway. First baseman John Olerud then fired the ball to Gruber, who ran Sanders back toward second base and dove, tagging him on the ankle. That tag—seemingly confirmed by video replay—would have completed only the second triple play in World Series history. But umpire Bob Davidson ruled that Gruber’s glove hadn’t grazed Sanders’ cleat, and despite Gruber’s protestations, the call stood.

Adding injury to insult was that Gruber tore his rotator cuff while lunging to tag Sanders. When he trotted off the field he could barely lift his arm more than six inches, but four innings later, Gruber electrified the SkyDome by clubbing an adrenaline-fuelled home run to tie the game.

The Jays went on to win that game and the series, bringing the championship banner north of the border for the first time. “That’s what every child plays for. To have that come true is just remarkable. There’s not much that compares to that,” Gruber said of Toronto’s World Series win, which took the sting out of not getting the triple play call. “I would trade all that in any day for that ring, and that’s what we won.”

The title was sweet, but Gruber’s all-out style of play had already endeared him to Toronto fans. Drafted tenth overall by the Cleveland Indians in 1980, the Blue Jays claimed Gruber in the 1983 Rule 5 draft. The Texan came to Toronto with the best mullet this side of MacGyver and the raw tools to succeed in the big leagues.

One of the knocks on Gruber as a minor leaguer with Cleveland was his defense. Playing shortstop for Batavia of the New York-Penn League, Gruber made 21 errors in 61 games and hit just .217. Batavia coach Luis Isaac suggested Gruber’s quick reflexes made him better suited for third base. But that position switch didn’t happen for three seasons, during which time Gruber’s hitting suffered along with his glove work and he began to doubt that he would ever make it to the majors.

A pessimistic report from Gruber’s Double-A manager prompted the Indians to leave him unprotected in the Rule 5 draft. The Blue Jays, with Garth Iorg and Rance Mulliniks platooning at third, jumped at the chance to bring in the raw yet talented youngster, who had impressed Al LaMacchia when the Toronto scout saw him play at Westlake High School in Austin, Texas. “Gruber just stood out,” LaMacchia remembered. “You knew you were dealing with a tremendous athlete. The way he fielded. Nice soft hands. The arm. The way he hit. His stroke. It was all there, and he was just a kid.”

Gruber gets his athletic ability from his father, Claude King, an NFL and CFL running back, and his looks from his mother, Gloria, a former Miss Texas and recording artist who later married David Gruber. Gruber called his adoptive father an inspiration, saying David practiced sports with him every day and provided young Kelly with a good example of how to handle himself on the diamond and in life.

After an uneventful cup of coffee with the Jays to start the 1984 season, Gruber was sent down to Triple-A Syracuse, returning to the big club in September and collecting his first major-league hit by launching a home run over the Green Monster at Boston’s Fenway Park.

On April 16, 1989, Gruber made Blue Jays history when he hit for the cycle, recording a home run, double and triple before completing the feat with a bloop single in the bottom of the eighth inning, much to the delight of 35,000 fans at Exhibition Stadium, who gave him a standing ovation. Gruber drove in six runs and scored four times that day in a rout of the Kansas City Royals. “The cycle was very special, even though I didn’t know what the cycle was,” Gruber told Sportsnet’s Kristina Rutherford in 2014. “And thank goodness I didn’t because I’d have probably choked it. But I found out I hit for the cycle after my last hit, when I was on first.”

Coincidentally, Gruber was at SkyDome in 2001 when Jeff Frye hit for the second cycle in Blue Jays history. A smiling Gruber came onto the field after Frye’s fourth hit and gave the Toronto utility player a congratulatory hug. “For it

Mike McCarron

Over its storied history, many future stars and hall of famers have skated with the St. Michael’s Buzzers. Mike McCarron was not one of them.

McCarron likes to jokingly say that his claim to fame is being the worst goalie in St. Mike’s history. But his relationship with the Buzzers did not end after his last game between the pipes. The Etobicoke native later rescued the team from financial ruin, and as majority owner for nearly 15 years, he led a movement to revitalize the entire Ontario Junior Hockey League.

Like many kids growing up in central Etobicoke in the 1960s, McCarron was a rink rat. He played minor hockey with the Royal York Rangers. “It was all local kids,” he recalls. “For me, it was a sense of community.”

“Ace”—a childhood nickname that stuck—remembers seeing other kids wearing their Rangers jackets in the pews of All Saints Catholic Church, and playing against some of his Rangers teammates in the Catholic Youth Organization hockey league. “It was almost like small-town hockey,” he said of the tightknit CYO. “It became very competitive for bragging rights.”

While at St. Michael’s College School, he played metro junior B with the Buzzers. “I was proud to be part of the St. Mike’s hockey legacy. It’s a staggering history,” said McCarron, who felt a thrill to put on the jersey worn by such hockey greats as Red Kelly, Tim Horton, Dick Duff and the Mahovlich brothers.

After graduating from the University of Toronto with a bachelor’s in political science and economics, McCarron began a lifelong career in trucking and transportation. He hadn’t planned on getting back into hockey until Fr. Daniel Zorzi, the Basilian priest in charge of St. Michael’s College School, asked McCarron to share a meal that would change his life.

The Basilians were looking to sell the financially beleaguered Buzzers, and Fr. Zorzi convinced McCarron to help. “I met a guy for dinner and came home owning a hockey team,” McCarron said with a laugh, adding that he was honoured to take over the business side of a franchise that was close to his heart. “I just fell in love with the team, and I felt it was worth hanging onto,” he said. “It became a hobby and a passion.”

McCarron took over in January 2001, and with the support of his business partners from the trucking industry—who loved opportunities to meet famous Buzzers alumni at fundraising dinners and be in the presence of the Stanley Cup – he kept the team afloat. Not long after his arrival, the Buzzers were crowned OJHL champs, winning the Buckland Cup in 2005 and successfully defending their title the following year.

The Buzzers never became a financial windfall, but McCarron wasn’t in it for the money. He says his favourite part of owning the team was seeing his players develop on and off the ice. “Before the championships, it’s the amount of kids we sent to the next level. That’s more important,” he said. “Nothing used to excite me more than having a parent call and say, ‘My kid just signed a deal.’”

One of those kids in particular stuck out for McCarron—his son Patrick. “There’s no question the highlight for me was my third-last year. My son was the captain and they won the championship,” he said of the 2013 season. Twenty-two players from that team went on to play in the NCAA, CIS or OHL, with five ending up in an NHL training camp. Patrick, a defenceman, played for Cornell and recently skated at the Detroit Red Wings prospect camp.

McCarron is also proud of the structural changes he introduced at St. Mike’s that later became adapted throughout the junior hockey community. The Buzzers were known for never making deals with incoming players—no one was paid to play, and no roster spots were up for sale. McCarron says such practices, which were common in junior A at the time, had a negative effect in the dressing room. “(Side deals) absolutely kill the kids. It doesn’t take long for them to figure out who doesn’t belong there.”

The Buzzers stipulated that players had to pay to be on the team. That policy ran counter to Ontario Hockey Association rules, but McCarron believed it would increase the players’ level of commitment. He expected blowback from the league, but says he never heard a word of objection. Today, pay-to-play models are common throughout junior hockey.

The hardworking owner also tackled the problem of the OJHL’s diluted on-ice product. There were 37 teams in the league when McCarron arrived, and just 22 when he left. Through a blind auction process that saw the board of governors buy out teams and then contract them, the talent on the remaining teams increased, while junior B, C and midget hockey became more competitive as former junior A players moved to the lower levels.

McCarron’s bold moves, driven by his desire to make the league credible and fair, paid off. “A lot of the things we were doing were getting noticed by Hockey Canada,” he said. “The league is fully sustainable now.”

His work with the Buzzers led to other opportunities in hockey. In January 2015, McCarron co-ordinated the awards ceremony that saw Team Canada receive their gold medals after winning the world juniors. McCarron called it “the thrill of a lifetime” and a “great honour” to carry the medals onto the ice. Before the ceremony, McCarron himself ironed the championship banner that would hang from the rafters at the Air Canada Centre.

He coached hockey at Humber Valley, leading the undefeated 1994 AA Sharks squad— with Patrick McCarron on the blue line—to All Ontario, North American Silver Stick, GTHL and Carnation Cup championships. “Coach Ace” credits an unusual approach for the team’s success—his Sharks didn’t track stats or name a captain, and coaches rotated the lines equally rather than skating their best players more often.

“It was a really interesting dynamic. We taught them hockey without consequences,” McCarron said, explaining that theirs was the only team that didn’t choose most valuable players after games. “The guys knew we didn’t (name MVPs), because the MVP’s the team.”

McCarron says playing team sports as a child helped him later in life, a pattern he has seen repeated in the lives of kids he’s coached. “You’ve got to work hard, be committed to something, make sacrifices, work and think like a team—all the things that make you a success in business are the same as sports,” he said.

With help from Hockey Hall of Famer and Buzzers alumnus Jim Gregory, McCarron arranged for a CBC Hockey Day in Canada special to be filmed on location in January 2009 to commemorate 100 years of hockey at St. Michael’s College School. “I told them we could get Dave Keon to come up, and we delivered,” McCarron said. “It was a great day—a great celebration of hockey. A lot of work, but a lot of fun.”

Everyone who has donned the uniform—from a legend like Keon to Etobicoke Sports Hall of Famer Mike Walton and highly touted Maple Leafs prospect Connor Brown—shares the same enduring pride in the Buzzers, and is eager to give back. “Everyone’s so good about St. Mike’s,” McCarron said. “The bond is very strong.”

McCarron sold his controlling interest in the Buzzers in August 2015. He was away from the club a fair bit that season, watching his son’s Cornell games and launching a new transportation consulting firm. Having raised their three children—Danielle, Alicia and Patrick—McCarron and his wife Tammy live on the Kingsway and remain active in the Etobicoke community.

Looking back at his life in hockey, McCarron said he had a blast. “It’s been a lot of fun. Met a lot of great people. It was a hell of a ride.”