By Nolan Kowal, Sport Performance Specialist
The Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame & Museum is pleased to announce that it will induct an athlete who excelled in hockey then coached successfully, an all-round builder from basketball and football, and the first professional hockey team to play out of the old Winnipeg Arena at Sport Manitoba’s Night of Champions, presented by Manitoba Chicken Producers, on Saturday April 13, 2019 at the Club Regent Event Centre.
Harold Mauthe will be inducted in the builder category for his coaching talents that spanned over three decades starting in the 1940s. Mauthe coached women’s basketball in the 40s while still playing varsity in high school. He led the Winnipeg Light Infantry (WLI) to back-to-back national junior basketball championships in 1952 and 1953 and coached basketball in the senior league until 1961. He then switched over to refereeing and officiated for the next 15 years. During the 1960s, Mauthe coached the St. Vital Bulldogs to National Intermediate Football Championships in 1960 and 1962 and served on the executive for the 1968 and ’69 back-to-back championship Bulldogs’ teams. He was inducted into the Manitoba Basketball Hall of Fame in 1985 and six times into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame with the WLI and St. Vital championship squads.
Alf Pike will be inducted posthumously in the athlete category for his stellar hockey career that saw him star for the 1937-38 Winnipeg Monarchs who captured the Memorial Cup that season. He moved up to the NHL with the New York Rangers in time to capture a Stanley Cup in the 1939-40 season. He was nicknamed “The Embalmer” as he was a licensed mortician in the off-season. After six years in the NHL, interrupted by two years’ service in the Royal Canadian Air Force from 1943-45, Pike moved into coaching and guided the Guelph Biltmore Mad Hatters to the 1952 Memorial Cup. He also coached the 1956 Winnipeg Warriors to the Western Hockey League title and Edinburgh Trophy. He coached two NHL seasons with the Rangers from 1959-61 before returning to the WHL. He was inducted into the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame in 1985. Pike passed away on March 1, 2009 in Calgary and we would ask the media’s help in locating family to represent him at his induction.
The 1955-56 Winnipeg Warriors will be inducted in the team category for the sport of hockey. The Winnipeg Warriors were a minor league hockey team that played in the Western Hockey League (minor pro) from 1955 to 1961. Owned by Winnipeg’s prominent Perrin family, the Warriors represented the return of professional hockey to Winnipeg after a 27-year absence. In 1955, the Warriors club was the first tenant in the brand new Winnipeg Arena. The 1955-56 Warriors, coached by Alf Pike, went on to win the Edinburgh Trophy, emblematic of the World’s Minor Professional Hockey Championship.
Tickets may be purchased by the public at a cost of $40 each. Tickets are available online here.
