Photos courtesy of Jeanette Kimball
Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961 and Sir Albert LaFontaine Assembly #1739, composed of fourth degree sir knights from Thompson, Flin Flon and The Pas, will run their 40th indoor games in 41 years – since its debut in 1975 – April 24 for elementary school students in Thompson in the C.A. Nesbitt Arena at the Thompson Regional Community Centre (TRCC).
Hundreds of students will compete with a schedule that begins at 8 a.m. Friday and wraps up with an awards ceremony at 9:45 p.m. Daytime events take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Evening events are from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The annual K of C indoor games here incidentally have included two future Olympians. The Westwood Elementary School Vikings, which has been a powerhouse at the indoor track meet in recent years, took the overall title last year on May 9 for the most combined points at the event. The Vikings finished first in five of seven event categories last year to finish with the most points for the 12th consecutive year, winding up with 259 points, 121 more than the second-place Deerwood Elementary School Dragons, who were runners-up for the fourth consecutive time. The top five teams finished in the same order last year as in 2013, with the Riverside Rams winding up in third place with 130 points overall, the Burntwood Bobcats fourth with 105, and the Juniper Jaguars fifth with 55 points. The only difference last year from 2013 was that La Voie du Nord finished sixth with 11 points and the Wapanohk Wolves were seventh with a total of four points.
The first Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961 indoor games was held Jan. 18, 1975 and the cost of the original plywood track was $7,500. The Knights of Columbus had promised to sponsor the indoor event a year earlier. For the inaugral event in 1975, the knights brought in some notable track and field stars to launch it, including 27-year-old Abby Hoffman, the Canadian record holder in the women’s 800-metre event. Hoffman competed in four Olympic Games for Canada in 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1976; four Pan American Games and two Commonwealth Games and was Canada’s flag-bearer at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. Ann-Marie Davis, the Manitoba record holder for the 800 and 1,500-metre events, and Bruce Pirnie, the 309-pound Canadian shot put champion, who also competed in the 1972 and 1976 Olympic Games, were also on hand in Thompson on that January day in 1975 for the first such track and field meet in Northern Manitoba sponsored by Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961.
Pirnie, born in Boston, had already won a silver medal in 1973 at the Pacific Conference Games in Toronto and bronze medal the following year at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, New Zealand and would go on 10 months after his visit to Thompson to his biggest victory, winning a gold medal at the Pan American Games in Mexico City in October 1975. Today, Pirnie, now 72, is the throws coach for the University of Manitoba Bisons.
All told, about 22,100 plywood sheets were used at the Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961 indoor games between 1975 and 2009, the last year they were used. More than 15,000 local students have taken part in the annual track meet since 1975. Above and beyond thousands of volunteer hours contributed by local knights, they have spent more than $200,000 in cash on the indoor games over the last 40 years. Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961 was chartered with 59 members on May 6, 1967 and reaches its 48th anniversary next month. The Knights of Columbus is a Catholic fraternal benefit organization headquartered in New Haven, Connecticut. Its origins date back to an Oct. 2, 1881 meeting organized by Father Michael J. McGivney, the assistant pastor at St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, who founded the order. Today, the Knights of Columbus is the world’s foremost Catholic fraternal benefit society. The order’s founding principles are charity, unity and fraternity. Patriotism is the added later principle that marks fourth degree knights.
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