By Nolan Kowal, Sport Performance Specialist
If you’ve ever walked into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame, you’ve probably noticed the dynamic displays in the Decades Gallery and in the Featured Exhibits. This doesn’t happen overnight. A ton of work goes into building each new exhibit, and our team is currently in the midst of doing this right now.
With 2019 being our 40th anniversary, our upcoming exhibit will be a celebration of each induction class since our 1980 inaugural year. We’ve been working on the anniversary exhibit since the beginning of June, and it’s almost ready!
Each exhibit always starts with an idea. That’s the fun part. Then we start gathering photographs, documents, and artefacts. First we research our museum collection for the bulk of the exhibit content. Then we reach out to our Honoured Members and others in the community for loans to fill in the gaps, or to provide content that is new and exciting . That’s the work part.
As a team, we’re always thinking about how we can best present the exhibit. What should we include? How can we showcase Manitoba sport history in a new way? How will the public receive the exhibit? We want to make it as good as possible.
The thing I’m most excited about for this exhibit is the diversity of the content. It’s a celebration of so many athletes and teams from over 130 years of sport in Manitoba, including sports that fall outside the mainstream ones like hockey, football and basketball. We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with how many sports are on display.
As somebody who has been involved with the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame for over 20 years, I can tell you that sport is without a doubt an essential part of our community. I hope that our 40th anniversary exhibit will resonate with our visitors.
We’ll let you know when it’s ready to go. In the meantime, don’t forget to grab your tickets to our induction dinner coming up in a couple weeks.
