SportsLife 2016, Issue 2 | Page 16

Two Hockey Heroes to be Inducted to Manitoba Hall By Scott Taylor, Photos and biographies courtesy of Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame Herb Gardiner was one of the greatest stories in NHL history. He didn’t play and NHL game until he was 35 and won the league MVP at 36. It’s quite remarkable, actually. Which makes one wonder how it took so long for the Winnipeg-born Gardiner to be inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame. Well, better late than never. In March, the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame announced that it will induct Gardiner, along with all-round athlete (and hockey star) Gary Aldcorn plus a championship soccer team at Sport Manitoba’s Night of Champions, on Saturday, April 23, at the Club Regent Event Centre.  Thanks my good friend Rick Brownlee at the Hall for providing the spring inductees biographies: Herb Gardiner will be inducted posthumously in the Athlete category for his outstanding hockey career that began with the Winnipeg Victorias as an amateur and continued after his service in the Great War as a professional. First, he was a member of the WCHL’s Calgary Tigers (league champs in 1924) and then, at the age of 35, he broke into the NHL with the Montreal Canadiens and played there from 1926-28 (where he won the Hart Trophy as MVP in wks as a player/ d the Chicago Black B