Surrey Sports Hall of Fame<\/a> is set to launch this year\u2014with its inaugural class of inductees being named at a special ceremony at City Hall in June\u2014a mini version of the Hall was soft launched at the Museum of Surrey at the beginning of February.<\/p>\nThree glass displays showcase sports memorabilia and photos from the city\u2019s amateur sporting history, telling the stories of the early beginnings of organized sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s meant to be an intro to the Surrey Sports Hall of Fame,\u201d a museum worker told the Cloverdale Reporter. \u201cThis is the first display for it. It\u2019s like a warm up to the main ceremony that will happen this summer.\u201d<\/p>\n
That ceremony, to induct the class of 2026, will be held June 2 at City Hall.<\/p>\n
One display case houses baseball memorabilia, another lacrosse, aquatics, golf, and basketball, and yet another some very colorful historical sports badges from the city\u2019s past.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Surrey Sports Hall of Fame honours the rich history of sport in Surrey,\u201d notes a display board as part of the new exhibit. \u201cFrom a farming municipality to one of the fastest growing cities in British Columbia, sport continues to bring people together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Information from the exhibition explains that to celebrate the history of sport in the city\u2014and the success of city residents that have led the way\u2014City Hall has envisioned a sports hall as a place where athletes, builders, contributors, and others will be forever enshrined. This is to both tell their stories and to inspire future generations to reach higher.<\/p>\n
According to information in the exhibit, early sports associations began to form when \u201cgroups of young people who gathered at the end of the long day to socialize and make connections\u201d formed the first associations, leagues, and tournaments.<\/p>\n
The lives of the early homesteaders in the city was arduous. For many, long days included work such as: tree falling, clearing land for farming, looking after animals,` tending to crops.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the food had to be preserved to last the winter or sold at the markets to make some income. It required help from the whole family.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t all work and no play, the exhibition highlights. Weekends involved recreation and people would attend evening socials or make trips to different places around the city, such as Crescent Beach in the summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the 1920s, following the end of WWI, there was a rise in sports organizations in Surrey.\u201d<\/p>\n
The exhibition notes this was often done through the support of the communities, hence the rise of community athletic associations.<\/p>\n
Primary sports in the intervening years between the world wars were baseball in the summer and basketball in the winter. Often the community associations had one women\u2019s team and two men\u2019s teams, with the men\u2019s teams being split into A\u2019s and B\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Games were played in the evenings and players and supporters from both teams would end the evening off with a dance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Opera House and adjoining athletic hall in Cloverdale was a popular location, often hosting the biggest events of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the city developed and the population grew, more sports clubs were formed. Most of them began to cross over the smaller community lines and became bigger sports clubs and minor sports associations. Eventually, the small community associations became a thing of the past.<\/p>\n
Today, there are more than 45 minor sports associations in the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis display tells a small portion of the many sports stories that make Surrey\u2019s history,\u201d a storyboard concludes. \u201cFrom games played on these lands before the arrival of settlers, to the nearly endless list of sports that have been played here since, the Surrey Sports Hall of Fame aims to tell these stories over the coming years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new Surrey Sports Hall of Fame mini-exhibit also solicits nominations for the Hall\u2019s Class of 2027.<\/p>\n
For more info, or to make a nomination, visit surrey.ca\/sportshall.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Surrey Sports Hall of Fame exhibit opens at Cloverdale museum Published 12:00 pm Wednesday, February 18, 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-483842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}