The BC Hockey Hall of Fame is going to be filled with Kootenay influence this summer.
Announced this morning, Shawn Horcoff will be one of two players to be honoured.
Born in Trail and raised in Castlegar, Horcoff went on to play 1,008 regular season NHL games with the Edmonton Oilers, Dallas Stars and Anaheim Ducks after being selected in the fourth round, 99th overall of the 1999 NHL Draft. Horcoff helped the Oilers reach the Stanley Cup Final in 2005-06, losing in seven games to the Carolina Hurricanes.
Horcoff represented Canada three times at the World Junior Championships, winning gold in Helsinki in 2003 and Prague in 2004 and earned a silver medal in Bern in 2009.
“First off, it’s a humongous honour. I grew up in British Columbia, playing all my minor hockey there, and played three years of junior hockey (Trail Smoke Eaters/Chilliwack Chiefs) before leaving for college,” said Horcoff.
Other Kootenay notables to be inducted are trail Smoke Eaters Larry Kwong who was the first player of Asian descent in the NHL, and ex Nelson Maple Leaf Ted Hargreaves.
Off the ice, Hargreaves was a development pioneer. He was involved in the first motion picture (16mm film) instruction series on skills (became the foundation of Hockey Canada’s National Coaches Certification Program).
He later contributed over 400 illustrations to early coaching manuals and spent 20 years leading B.C. Hockey’s coaching programs, eventually serving as Provincial Coach.
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