Former SCRD chair Ed Steeves is being inducted into the Moncton Sports Hall of Fame this weekend. The Davis Bay resident was part of the Mabey curling team that dominated curling in the province of New Brunswick from 1960-70 and won the Canadian Mixed Curling Championships in 1974, when Steeves was named the all-star skip.
In the past Steeves was recognized by the Canadian Curling Association and the province of New Brunswick, earning a spot in both Sports Halls of Fame. As a curler he represented New Brunswick at the Briar and as a national mixed competitor and he was also a National Schoolboy Championship coach. All told he contributed more than 30 years to the game of curling.
He served as a board member of the Canadian Curling Association (CCA) for six years and the president of CCA for two terms from 1989 to 1991. He has the unique distinction of being the only person to hold that office twice. He explained that during his year as president of the CCA, the women’s curling association joined the men’s association, under the CCA umbrella. Steeves fought for equal representation of men and women on the CCA board of directors and was asked to stay on as president of the association. “It was the first time women were invited to be on the board,” he said.
As the president of the CCA, Steeves represented Canada at the World Curling Association and was the North American representative on the three-person body formed to persuade the International Olympic Committee to include curling as a recognized sport at the Olympics. Curling was at the inaugural Olympic games in the 1920s but had not been a recognized sport since then. Steeves said, “It was three years of hard work,” but the upshot was that curling returned to the Olympics, first as a demonstration sport in the early ’90s and then a medal sport in 1998 when Canadian Sandra Schmirler’s rink won Olympic gold.
Interviewed earlier this week, Steeves said he was “looking forward to being in Moncton.” He was born there and spent a good portion of his early adult life there, raising three children and being involved in the community as a curler and as a municipal councillor. He worked as a chiropractor and owned a travel trailer park in Moncton.
He and wife Helen moved to the Sunshine Coast in the late ’80s after visiting Gibsons, following a curling association meeting on Vancouver Island. Friends from the curling association invited them to visit in Gibsons and they liked what they saw.
“We thought this is the place to retire.”
They sold the Moncton trailer park and bought five acres on West Reed Road in 1986. He retired in his early 50s but remained active in community service on the Sunshine Coast, serving on both Gibsons and Sechelt council and as SCRD chair. He’s still active in the community as part of the Elder College board of directors, the Davis Bay-Wilson Creek Community Association and the southern Sunshine Coast Ferry Advisory Committee.
Steeves is expected to join the other members of the Mabey team at the Capital Theatre in Moncton this Saturday night for the Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Besides the ceremony and meeting up with his former curling team, he is also looking forward to visiting his children, grandchildren and great-grandson, who all live in Moncton.
