The Midland Sports Hall of Fame recently completed a major project, compiling information on all 98 of its inductees.
“We started on the project in January,” said Thomas Paradis, a well-known Midland sports historian and the researcher involved in the project.
Paradis, along with Bryan Peter, Midland’s director of parks and recreation, proposed the project earlier this year.
Their pitch was forwarded to the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, which granted 16 weeks of funding to retain the services of Paradis as a researcher.
From January to May, Paradis embarked on an extensive search for information on all 98 inductees, pulling together whatever tidbits he could from a variety of sources.
“It was just stuff like going into the microfilm of the Midland Public Library, scouring old Midland newspapers, the Toronto Star newspaper archives from the past, looking through family scrapbooks, checking Internet sites and talking to various people,” said Paradis.
As someone who thrives on researching the history of sports and recreation in the Midland-Penetanguishene region, Paradis said the project was a labour of love.
“One of the really great things about this project was getting to know people better than you thought you did,” he said. “People like Harold (Mac) McAllen, who ran the Midland Arena for so many years. I didn’t know he was involved with the Midland Figure Skating Club. I didn’t know he was the manager of the 1949 Midland Huskies Junior C club that went to the Ontario finals.”
Other people he found out more about included elite freestyle skier Sarah Burke, Aaron Coutts and teams such as the 1947 Midland bantams.
“They (the bantams) didn’t win a single game during the regular season and went into the playoffs and ended up winning the Ontario championship title,” he said.
Paradis said countless families provided scrapbooks, each packed with invaluable information and photos that can now be shared with everyone.
“For residents, media people or others doing research, now there is a place they can go where they can find all the information on a team or athlete in one place. And, really we’ve only scratched the surface so far,” said Paradis.
Madelaine Twitchin, the administrative assistant at the parks and recreation department, provided valuable assistance in making the project so successful, said Paradis.
“Madelaine was just as gung-ho about this project as I was,” he said. “I can’t say enough about that lady.”
The Midland Hall of Fame inductee information files are housed in the parks and recreation department, located at the North Simcoe Sports and Recreation Centre.
mdodd@simcoe.com
