By B.C. Hockey Hall of Fame /
Dave Babych
Dave Babych developed into a steady blueliner during his 19-year NHL career. Babych spent three seasons with the Portland Winter Hawks, the last of which he was an all-star before making the leap to the NHL.
Babych went straight to the NHL without a game in the minors, suiting up for 69 contests with the Winnipeg Jets in 1980/81. By 1983, he was an NHL All-Star, and he went on to score 74 points that year, a career high. During his sixth season with the Jets, two of which he was named to the All-Star Team, Dave was traded to the Hartford Whalers for Ray Neufeld.
In 1991, Babych was claimed by the North Stars and then promptly traded to the Vancouver Canucks during this process.
During his third season with the Canucks, they advanced all the way to the Stanley Cup finals and extended the eventual champion New York Rangers to the seventh game. Babych provided three goals and eight points that playoffs.
Babych spent parts of four more years with the Canucks before he was traded again, this time to the Philadelphia Flyers.
The 1998/99 schedule was Babych’s final season in the NHL. He spent most of the year with the Flyers, but was traded, again at the deadline, to the Los Angeles Kings before calling it a career.
Dave Babych played 1,195 games in the NHL and finished with 723 points.
Dave Babych was selected by the Winnipeg Jets in round one, second overall in 1980.
Dave has been an resident of BC ever since he retired and has been very involved in BC Hockey as coach and executive at the minor hockey level at the Hollyburn Winter Club to this day.
Dave is currently the President of North Shore Winter Club.
Bob Brown
Bob Brown was recognized and honoured for his outstanding contribution and continuous support of Junior Hockey in Western Canada.
Brown won the WHL Executive of the Year – Lloyd Saunders Memorial Trophy twice (1990/91 and 1993/94).
The Kamloops Blazers’ organizational success has had alot to do with their management.
One name seems to pop up more than any other, starting at the top with guys like Bob Brown as the team’s General Manager through the 1986 to 1995 era.
During that time, the Blazers motto was the same as there theme song: “Takin’ Care of Business.” And did Brown’s era of the Blazers ever do that.
Brown joined the Blazers as a scout in 1985, in 1986, he progressed to General Manager, a position he held for the next 10 years.
During the years under his guidance, the team had a record of 435-184-29 with seven WHL Divisional titles, five WHL Championships and five appearances in the Memorial Cup, winning the championship three times between 1992 and 1995.
The Blazers accomplished in Brown’s tenure records shared to this day: most Memorial Cups won (1992, 94, 95) as a manager and most Championships in the team category, same years”.
Bob Brown strength in management was in assembling of a great staff that oversaw drafting and listing players, some who went on to play in the NHL. Some of the more notables include Rob Brown and Mark Recchi.
In the summer of 2002, Brown saw his dream of entering the NHL become a reality when he joined the Edmonton Oilers as an amateur scout.
Brown is inducted into the British Columbia Hockey Hall of Fame in the Builder category.
Father David Bauer
Father David Bauer was a hockey player, builder, and hockey pioneer who later was ordained in 1953 as a Catholic priest in the Congregation of St. Basil. Bauer believed the virtues of hockey and education could better equip young people for success in life.
Father Bauer, Chaplin at St. Marks College at UBC from 1961 until 1988, was described by the Canadian press as, "the kindly Roman Catholic priest who brought a reluctant Canadian hockey fraternity into the modern age of international play with his concept of a national team."
He was the pioneer of the notion that education and hockey could go hand-in-hand. Bauer said, "if you can improve the boy as a person through virtues of hockey – courage, judgement, prudence, fortitude, teamwork and fair play – he will improve as a hockey player.
Father Bauer twice won the championship title of Canadian Junior ice hockey: as a player in 1944 with Oshawa and 1961 as a coach and teacher with St. Mike’s College developing many players who went on to the Toronto Maple Leafs including Frank Mahovlich and Dave Keon. In 1961, he began building a National Team and represented his country with this team made up of amateurs and former Junior stars at the Olympic Winter Games in 1964.
He guided Team Canada at the IIHF World Championships in 1964 (bronze medal), 1966 (bronze medal) and 1967 (bronze medal) and at the Olympic Winter Games in 1968 in Grenoble as manager In the years just before his passing in 1988, Father Bauer was accorded a multitude of honours reflecting his importance to the game. These include Order of Canada (1967) Sports Hall of Fame (1967), and Waterloo County Hall of Fame in (1972).
Father Bauer was also elected into the Hockey Hall of Fame (1989) and the Olympic Hall of Fame in (1992).
Grant Kerr
Grant Kerr was born and raised in Alberta, where he watched and played hockey as a youngster.
Kerr moved to Vancouver in 1964 where his first assignment as a cub reporter was to cover the Vancouver Canucks of the Western Hockey league for the Columbia newspaper.
While on that beat, Kerr became a close friend of team GM Max McNab, who taught the young writer the facts on coaching in professional hockey.
In 1977, Grant got into coaching his sons at the North Shore Winter Club.
Though he held down a full-time position as a journalist and correspondent with the Canadian Press, he still managed to find time to coach and manage minor hockey.
In 1992, he moved on to guide the Junior B Coquitlam Warriors, and also had coaching jobs with the Pacific International Junior B Port Coquitlam Buckaroos and the North Delta Flyers.
Grant has been involved since the conception of the BC Hockey's Major Midget program with the Vancouver North West Giants as a coach.
On the media side, he has covered the Olympics and other world-class sports events throughout the world.
Kerr was named winner of the Jake Milford Plaque, presented "to the per who contributions to hockey in BC have been significant, of lasting impact and, generally, above and beyond the call of duty."
He joins previous winners Babe Pratt, Orland Kurtenbach, Harold Snepts, Pat Quinn and other deserving gentlemen who all have the same purpose – love of the game and putting something back into the community that has been so kind to them.
Grant Kerr is a worthy candidate for consideration and induction into the BCHHF.
Bob Rouse
Bob Rouse quietly went about his business, forging a long and successful NHL career that spanned 17 seasons and five teams.
During most of Bob Rouse’s career in hockey, the word guarantee bore virtually no relationship to his aspirations of making it to the big time. But the principal assets in Rouse’s favour were his sturdiness, size and determination and the willingness to play within his limitations. He was the prototypical stay-at-home defender who scored few points while clearing creases like a snowplow.
Rouse played three years of Major Munior hockey in the Western Hockey League without much fan fare, first with the Billings Bighorns, half a season with the Nanaimo Islanders and a season-and-a-half with the Lethbridge Broncos.
It was after his second season in Billings that the Minnesota North Stars made him their third pick – 80th overall – in the NHL Entry Draft.
The following season, Rouse appeared in 63 games for the North Stars – receiving honours as the North Stars’ top rookie – and he never looked back. He would play parts of six seasons for the North Stars, including a stint as team captain, before becoming part of a four-player trade between Minnesota and Washington that brought sniper Mike Gartner to the North Stars.
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