Lac La Biche Bold Centre

Eugene was born in Edmonton, AB on April 10, 1941. He was raised in Lac La Biche, and returned to the area when he finished school in 1958. He has always been actively involved in community sport, scorekeeping for hockey games, including the Portage Voyageurs for over thirty years.

Eugene was a hockey referee for 17 seasons, a Bantam hockey coach for two seasons, and “A” baseball coach for three seasons. He has been a member of the Board of Directors for the Lac La Biche Golf Club for 25 years, spending ten years as President. Eugene is always looking to improve things, and spearheaded the idea to upgrade the course from sand to grass greens. He first collected $250,000 from local businesses and individuals, then supervised the project, which took approximately 16 months to complete.

Ken Scullion has always been passionate about sport, in particular the role it plays in building community, resilience, and confidence in young people. In 1986 Ken founded the Lac La Biche Boxing Club with the intention of creating a space to encourage community members to build their knowledge of amateur boxing, but also to develop important life skills like discipline, determination, and commitment. The list of tasks requiring personal time and effort was lengthy - finding a suitable venue, acquiring operating funds, purchasing equipment, financial administration, fundraising, managing tournaments, travel arrangements, and the list goes on. Despite this effort, Ken managed to not only coach every athlete, but mentor them and develop life-long relationships. After years of evolution, the Lac La Biche Boxing Club went from a heavy bag in a school gym to a fully equipped gym at the Bold Center.

Since 1986, Ken has received many accolades in the boxing community, including being selected to coach the Alberta provincial team at six National Championships, and coaching teams at the Alberta and Canada Winter Games. Internationally, he has coached team Alberta in the United States, England, Greece and Ireland. He was also selected to be a national coach at the World Youth Championships and was named Alberta Boxing Coach of the Year in 1992.

Alumni of the club have seen success at various levels. They rose, competed, and won at the provincial and national level all while hailing from a small, northern rural community - a true testament to the passion and professionalism of the coaching they received.

Ken had high expectations of all club members and worked alongside community partners such as KidSport to ensure the club was accessible to anyone who was interested, regardless of financial or life circumstances. The safe environment allowed the youth to feel part of a caring community, with hard work and good sportsmanship as trademarks of the club. Winning was always a goal but winning and losing with respect and dignity was far more important to Coach Ken.

Clint was born in Bowmanville, Ontario on July 31, 1956. He moved to Lac La Biche in 1978 with his wife Lynn, when she was offered a nursing job at the then McArthur Place Hospital. Clint quickly became involved with the local hockey scene, joining the Lac La Biche Clippers Senior “A” Hockey Club as a goalie. Through the years, Clint remained involved with local recreation hockey teams as an athlete.

Clint found a passion for coaching in the late 80’s helping out with various local teams. His Hockey Canada sports profile spans 30 years, from 1993-2023. In that timeframe, Clint has officiated games, coached, billeted, volunteered, and assisted with various conditioning camps, hockey schools and evaluation camps. During his tenure, the U18 Lac La Biche Clippers were Zone 2 champions in 2003-04, and 2016-17, and the Plamondon Bantam (U15) team won Zone championships in 2019-20.

In the inaugural season (2008-09) of the Portage Voyageurs, Clint was hired as the Assistant Coach. Clint took on this task whole heartedly, spending his time assisting in the recruitment process, coaching and as a board member. The Voyageurs made the playoffs, which was a first in the history of the ACAC. Clint remained with the Voyageurs club until 2013 and continues to coach and assist with Lac La Biche Minor Hockey teams to present day.

Clint has been a community leader, team builder, and a positive role model representing the community across the province and the country, providing a positive outlook and approach toward the growth of youth in the community. He provides leadership, life skills, and a helping hand to all ages and levels of competition involved in local sports. His dedication and contributions have played a pivotal role in Lac La Biche minor sport and promoted growth in the community.

In the process of nominating Clint for this award, he said:

“It was about all the kids in the community who wanted to play, and collectively the community of Lac La Biche, gave me the opportunity to coach”.