The appointment last week of Trevor Linden and Tricia Smith to the Order of Canada not only gave British Columbia two more sport leaders in its delegation of those receiving the country’s highest civilian honour, it upped to five the number of members of the Order of Canada associated with the MultiSport Centre of Excellence Foundation, the not-for-profit charitable organization which is building its $54 million flagship athlete development centre next to 8 Rinks in the Central Valley sports hub in Burnaby..

Linden, the former Vancouver Canucks captain and NHLPA President, and Smith, a long-time Olympian rower who is the Vice-President of the Canadian Olympic Committee and a member of the Board of Directors of Own The Podium, are proponents of the MultiSport Foundation. Linden is a member of its Athlete Advisory Board while Smith is part of its Business Advisory Board.

They join fellow members of the Order of Canada Steve Nash, a member of the MultiSport Foundation’s Athlete Advisory Board along with Linden, Silken Laumann of Victoria and Grant Connell of West Vancouver, Peter Bentley, Chair Emeritus of Canfor Corporation and a member of the Business Advisory Board alongside Smith and Ron Thiessen of Hunter Dickinson Incorporated, and Dr. Doug Clement, who was named last month as a global ambassador of the MultiSport Foundation.

“We are honoured to have the kind of people who have stepped up to support our vision and commitment to athlete development in British Columbia and Canada,” said Scott Cousens, Chair of the MultiSport Centre of Excellence Foundation and a donor himself through his family’s foundation of more than $23 million to date, the single largest sport philanthropic gift in Canadian history. “We congratulate Trevor Linden and Tricia Smith, who are both so richly-deserving of this honour, and we express our appreciation to them and to all of those community leaders who are helping ensure we not only do the right things with our Foundation, but the right things right.”

Loyal Makaroff, President and Chief Executive Officer of the MultiSport Centre of Excellence Foundation, acknowledged the roles being played by both Linden and Smith and the other athlete, business and medical advisers associated with the Foundation.

“We’ve been so fortunate to not only have leaders such as Trevor and Tricia lend their names to our cause on behalf of athlete development at all levels in our community, but to have them truly engaged and helping us shape the vision and potential for what we do in the coming years and decades to build on the power of sport to transform lives,” said Makaroff. “They have been absolutely terrific to work with and are part of an inspiring team of sport, business and medical leaders who have come board at an exciting time for the Foundation and the flagship project we’re funding in Burnaby.”

Makaroff noted that site servicing is underway at the flagship facility location in the Central Valley sports complex in Burnaby and that construction is scheduled to resume next month.

Others associated with the MultiSport Centre of Excellence Foundation are health care trailblazer Dr. Brian Day, a former President of the Canadian Medical Association; Dr. Jack Taunton, Chief Medical Officer for Vancouver 2010; Rick Celebrini, a prominent sport physiotherapist and another top sport medical executive with Vancouver 2010; and Lynda Cannell, the President & CEO of SportMedBC.

“Consultations with Trevor, Tricia and all of our advising athletes, business leaders and sport medical pioneers have strengthened our vision for the seamless integration of sport medicine, sport science and sport training that will be delivered by the facility we are building in Burnaby,” said Makaroff, noting the flagship centre will be completed in early 2012, ahead of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The MultiSport Centre of Excellence Foundation is a sport sciences foundation and registered charity inspired to collaborate with like-minded organizations and individuals who recognized the power of sport to transform lives. Its mission is to fund and support world-class sport medicine and science resources, including collaborative research, education, programs and facilities.

– mcef.ca

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