Curator & Collector

BC Sports Hall of Fame and Museum photograph image from the BC Sports Hall of Fame and Museum

The BC Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, which I recently had occasion to visit at its home in BC Place Stadium in downtown Vancouver, is a well-curated collection of exhibits that managed to please this museum buff for whom sports are passé. For the record, the museum has interactive exhibitions suitable for children and sports history buffs.

I enjoyed the beautiful replica poster of the 1924 Olympic Games (depicted in the movie Chariots of Fire), and the photo of the Canadian men’s ice hockey team at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games (where Canada took Gold in both Men’s and Women’s hockey). BC-ers on the men’s team included legends such as Paul Kariya, Joe Sakic, Steve Yzerman, and Pat Quinn.

What made the museum really worthwhile for me, though, were the Terry Fox Gallery and the Rick Hansen Gallery. Both of these men were and are Canadian heroes.

The Terry Fox Gallery is devoted to celebrating the accomplishments of Terry Fox, who died after running half-way across Canada on an artificial leg mounted onto an amputated stump; a part of the artificial leg is shown below:

Fox ran across Canada in 1980 in an early Herculean effort to raise money for cancer research; his run was tragically cut short by his passing. I have a special interest in Terry Fox, widely recognized as one of Canada’s greatest heroes, as I attended the high school he went to; some of my teachers had met him. By all accounts, Terry Fox was a highly disciplined, very caring, and determined young man. Interestingly, a plaque at the Terry Fox Gallery indicates that it is presented by the Rich Hansen Man in Motion World Tour Society.

Rich Hansen, a paraplegic British Columbian who wheeled around the world in his wheelchair to raise money for, and awareness of spinal cord research, was an acquaintance and friend of Terry Fox who was also inspired by him. Unlike Fox, Hansen lived to finish his physical journey, and remains active in sport, health, and environmental causes today. The gallery showcases the route he took as he wheeled around the world, as well as his wheelchair, a prototype of what would become the sports-wheelchair used by disabled athletes today:

My only concern with the museum was the omission of the “Terry Fox loonie” in the Terry Fox Gallery. This coin, released in 2005, is the only Canadian circulation coin minted so far (!) to depict a Canadian on it. Sometime after the end of April, I will be offering to the museum a coin from my own collection to remedy this omission.