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Farhan Zaidi

Farhan Zaidi, baseball executive, economist, (born 11 November 1976 in Sudbury, ON). Farhan Zaidi is the president of baseball operations for the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball (MLB). In 2014, he became the first Muslim and first South Asian person to serve as general manager of an American professional sports franchise when he was named GM of the Los Angeles Dodgers, a role he held until 2018. He also worked for the Oakland Athletics from 2005 to 2014. Zaidi has a degree in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and earned his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. He was named the MLB Executive of the Year in 2021 after the Giants finished first overall with 107 wins — the most in franchise history.

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Larry Kwong

​Larry Kwong, hockey player (born 17 June 1923 in Vernon, BC; died 15 March 2018 in Calgary, AB). On 13 March 1948, Kwong became the first Chinese Canadian to play a National Hockey League game, thereby breaking the colour barrier. He was also the first Asian-Canadian and first hockey player born in Vernon, BC, to play in the NHL.

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Vancouver Asahi

The Asahi was a Japanese Canadian baseball club in Vancouver (1914–42). One of the city’s most dominant amateur teams, the Asahi used skill and tactics to win multiple league titles in Vancouver and along the Northwest Coast. In 1942, the team was disbanded when its members were among the 22,000 Japanese Canadians who were interned by the federal government (see Internment of Japanese Canadians). The Asahi were inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003 and the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame in 2005.

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Charles Hamelin

Charles Hamelin, short track speed skater (born 14 April 1984 in Lévis, QC). Hamelin has won three Olympic gold medals for Canada in short track speed skating. With five Olympic medals in total, he shares the record for the most medals won by a Canadian male Olympian. At the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, he won the men’s individual 500m event and men’s 5000m team relay event (with Guillaume Bastille, François Hamelin, Olivier Jean and François-Louis Tremblay). At the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, he won a gold medal in the men’s 1500m short track speed skating event. Hamelin also won a silver medal in the men’s relay at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turin and a bronze medal in the relay at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games, in PyeongChang. As of March 2018, Hamelin has won 12 gold medals at the World Short Track Speed Skating Championships. He became overall world champion in 2018, the first Canadian to hold that title since Marc Gagnon in 1998. Hamelin has been named Male Short Track Athlete of the Year 10 times by Speed Skating Canada.

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Patrick Chan

​Patrick Lewis Wai-Kuan Chan, figure skater (born 31 December 1990 in Ottawa,ON). Patrick Chan is a Canadian champion and world champion men’s singles figure skater. A three-time world champion, he has won 10 national championships in the singles competition, breaking the record set by Montgomery Wilson in 1939. Known for dazzling artistry, Chan has repeatedly won major international competitions such as the World Figure Skating Championships and the Skate Canada, Grand Prix, Trophée Eric Bompard, and Four Continents events. He has set world records for points at competitions including the 2011 and 2013 World Championships and the 2013 Trophée Bompard, and has won three medals at the Olympic Winter Games: a silver in the men’s competition (2014) and a gold (2018) and silver (2014) in the team event.

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Jean Lowe Butler

Alice Maud Eugenia “Jean” Lowe Butler, track and field athlete, educator (born 1922 in Toronto, ON; died 11 September 2017 in Mobile, Alabama). Jean Lowe Butler was one of Canada’s most accomplished amateur athletes. She set Ontario records in the women’s 100-yard and 220-yard dash and held the Canadian record in the women’s 100 m sprint (11.9 seconds). An elite college athlete in the United States, she competed in the 100 m, 200 m, long jump and high jump, and won medals in each event at every meet. Her exclusion from the 1948 Canadian Olympic team was controversial. A teacher for 30 years, she was inducted into the Tuskegee University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1985.

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Alexander Wilson

Alexander Sheldon Wilson (born at Montréal, Que 1 Dec 1907; died at Hidalgo, Tex 9 Dec 1994). Alex Wilson was a sprinter who wore the Canadian colours in the 1928 and 1932 Summer Olympics in track and field.

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Equestrian Sports

Canadians have been involved in modern equestrian sports (dressage, jumping and eventing) since the early 20th century, and have brought home medals from the Olympic Games, World Equestrian Games and Pan American Games.

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Carla Qualtrough

Carla Qualtrough, politician, athlete, lawyer (born 15 October 1971 in Calgary, AB). Carla Qualtrough is the Liberal member of Parliament for Delta, a suburban constituency south of Vancouver. She has served as Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities and is currently Minister of Public Services and Procurement and Accessibility. Prior to entering politics, she worked in human rights law and in sports administration. Qualtrough, who is legally blind, was the first Paralympian elected to the House of Commons. She won three bronze medals in swimming at the Paralympic Games and four medals at the world championships.

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Brooke Henderson

Brooke Mackenzie Henderson, golfer (born 10 September 1997 in Smiths Falls, ON). Golf phenom Brooke Henderson has won the Bobbie Rosenfeld Awardas Canada’s best female athlete three times (2015, 2017, 2018), as well as the ESPY Award for best female golfer in 2019. She is the youngest golfer ever to win a professional tournament (at age 14), the youngest ever to win the Canadian Women’s Amateur Championship (at 15), and the second youngest female golfer ever to win a major title (at 18). She holds the record for most victories (10) by a Canadian professional golfer on either the PGA or LPGA Tour, beating the previous record of eight held by George Knudson, Sandra Post and Mike Weir. In 2015, she became the first Canadian to win on the LPGA Tour since Lorie Kane in 2001. 

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Sonja Gaudet

Sonja Gaudet (née Melis), Paralympic wheelchair curler (born 22 July 1966 in North Vancouver, British Columbia). A three-time Paralympian, Gaudet won gold for Canada at the 2006 Paralympic Winter Games in Turin, at the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver and at the 2014 Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi. She is the first wheelchair curlerever to win multiple Paralympic gold medals. She is also a three-time world champion, having helped Canada win gold at the World Wheelchair Curling Championship in 2009, 2011 and 2013. Gaudet has been inducted into the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame and the BC Sports Hall of Fame. She was named to Canada's Sports Hall of Fame on 27 May 2020 and will be formally inducted in 2021.

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Howie Meeker

Howard William “Howie” Meeker, hockey broadcaster, player, coach (born 4 November 1923 in Kitchener, ON; died 8 November 2020 in Nanaimo, BC). Howie Meeker won a Junior B hockey championship and served with the army’s Corps of Royal Canadian Engineers before joining the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1946. He won the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie in 1947, and won four Stanley Cups in his first five years with the Maple Leafs. He also served as a Member of Parliament and played a key role in the development of hockey in Newfoundland. He was perhaps best known for his enthusiastic and influential commentary on CBC TV’s Hockey Night in Canada. A Member of the Order of Canada, Meeker was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame and the British Columbia Hockey Hall of Fame.

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Crazy Canucks

​In 1975, alpine skier Ken Read became the first North American to win a World Cup downhill race. For a period of about ten years, Read and three other young Canadians — Dave Irwin, Dave Murray, and Steve Podborski — challenged the European ski establishment and changed the course of ski racing history in Canada.

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Ned Hanlan

Three successive victories over the local champion Thomas Loudon led a group of Torontonians in 1876 to form the Hanlan Club to back Hanlan as a professional. The club bought him an English-made shell and equipped it with a sliding seat and swivel oarlocks.

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Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir

Tessa Virtue, figure skater (born 17 May 1989 in London, ON) and Scott Moir, figure skater (born 2 September 1987 in London, ON). Virtue and Moir are the most successful Canadian ice dance team of the early 21st century, and were the first North Americans to win the Olympic Gold Medal for ice dance, at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games. At the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, they won silver in ice dance and in the team competition. They won gold in ice dance and in the team competition at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, becoming the most decorated figure skaters in Olympic history. They have also won four world championships (three senior and one junior), three Four Continents championships, nine Canadian championships (eight senior and one junior) and multiple Grand Prix events, including a Grand Prix Final.

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William "Hipple" Galloway

William “Hipple” Galloway, baseball player, hockey player, tinsmith (born 24 March 1882 in Buffalo, New York; died 17 February 1943 in Buffalo). Raised in Dunnville, Ontario, William Galloway became the first Black Canadian to play professional baseball when he started at third base for the Class-D Canadian League Woodstock Bains on 12 June 1899. He was also one of the first Black Canadians to play amateur hockey in Ontario. Galloway was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2021.

Macleans

Jacques Villeneuve (Profile)

In the select fraternity of race-car drivers - men who squeeze behind the wheel of the "tub" and turn a skeleton of thin carbon fibre into a howling, fuel-slurping, rubber-sizzling bullet - talk among the brethren sometimes turns to fear.

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Christine Sinclair

Christine Sinclair, OC, soccer player (born 12 June 1983 in Burnaby, BC). Soccer player Christine Sinclair has been named Canadian Player of the Year 14 times. She has scored more international goals (187) and more Olympic goals (12) than any other player in the world. After twice being named the top women’s college soccer player in the United Sates and winning two NCAA championships, Sinclair led the Canadian women’s team to three World Cups (2011, 2015, 2019) and four Olympic Summer Games (Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020). The team won back-to-back Olympic bronze medals in 2012 and 2016 before winning gold in Tokyo. Sinclair received the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award as Canada’s female athlete of the year in 2012 and 2020 and was named Canada Soccer Player of the Decade in 2019. The first soccer player to win the Lou Marsh Trophy (now the Northern Star Award) as Canada’s athlete of the year, she has been inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame and is an Officer of the Order of Canada.

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Penny Oleksiak

Penelope “Penny” Oleksiak, swimmer (born 13 June 2000 in Scarborough, ON). Swimmer Penny Oleksiak is Canada’s most decorated Olympian, with seven medals overall. She also holds the record as the youngest Canadian to win Olympic gold (16 years and 59 days). In 2016, she became the first Canadian athlete to win four medals at a single Olympic Summer Games: gold in the 100 m freestyle; silver in the 100 m butterfly; bronze in the women’s 4x100 m freestyle relay; and bronze in the women’s 4x200 m freestyle relay. Oleksiak won three medals at the Tokyo Games in 2021: silver in the women’s 4x100 m freestyle relay; bronze in the women’s 200 m freestyle; and bronze in the women’s 4x100 m medley relay. She received the Lou Marsh Trophy and the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award in 2016.