Saturday, April 27, 2013

Elliott Kerr to be inducted to Mississauga Sports Hall of Fame

Press Release

 MISSISSAUGA — Mississauga Steelheads owner Elliott Kerr is among three influential sports figures who will be inducted into the Mississauga Sports Hall of Fame on June 6. Kerr will be inducted alongside former NHL supervisor of officials John D'Amico and Enzo Concina, assistant technical manager for Italian Serie A soccer club Napoli, at the Mississauga Sports Council's 39th annual Sports Dinner, being held at the Capitol Banquet Centre.

Kerr founded Landmark Sports Group, a City Centre event marketing firm in 1987 that is best known for staging the Mississauga Marathon each year since 2004. He purchased the Mississauga St. Michael's Majors from former owner Eugene Melnyk last May and rebranded the team before the 2012-13 Ontario Hockey League season. He was a part owner of the Mississauga IceDogs before the OHL team moved to Niagara in 2007 and also owned the now-defunct Mississauga Twins of the Intercounty Baseball League. Kerr was also an organizer of the Jane Rogers Championship golf tournament, a Canadian Tour event that was held in Mississauga and Halton Hills from 2007 to 2010.

Concina moved to Mississauga from Italy as a 4-year-old in the mid 1960s and played his minor soccer here before moving on to a professional career in Italy. He retired in 1994 as a member of the Montreal Impact's American Professional Soccer League championship team. Concina was also a member of the Canadian senior men's soccer team from 1988 to 1993 and captained Canada to a gold medal at the Jeux de la Francophonie in 1989. He's currently the assistant technical manager for Napoli and is the only Canadian so far to be employed in a managerial capacity at any top-level European soccer club.

D'Amico, the NHL's supervisor of officials from 1988 to 2004, will be inducted posthumously. D'Amico and his family settled in Mississauga in the late 1980s after he retired from a 23-year stint as an NHL linesman. He officiated more than 1,600 regular-season games and more than 240 Stanley Cup playoff games. D'Amico began his career as a 27-year-old in 1964 and was the last on-ice official active from the Original Six era when he retired. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1993 and died after a long battle with leukemia and bone cancer in 2005.

The Sports Council has also named five longtime volunteers who will receive an Outstanding Contribution to Community Sports Award at the Sports Dinner. This year's recipients are Mississauga Girls Hockey League president Phil Cancilla, Mississauga Newnorth Rhythmic Gymnastics Club founder Tatjana Dolic, Special Olympics Mississauga coach David Pritchard, Mississauga Rattlers Table Tennis Club founding member David Harvard and former Mississauga Minor Basketball Association president Gerrie Weldon.

The Sports Council will announce its 2012 Athlete of the Year award winners in the coming weeks. Yearly awards are given to the city's top male and female amateur athletes, male and female high school athletes, professional athlete, masters athlete and athlete with a disability. Mississauga's top amateur and high school teams will also be honoured.

Tickets to the sports dinner are available by contacting the Sports Council at 905-267-3536 or via e-mail atinfo@sportsmississauga.org.

 (Nathan can be reached at nathanfournier@mainehockeyjournal.com)

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