A trio of Olympians and a former NHLer will be the next inductees into the London Sports Hall of Fame.
Miranda Ayim, Alex Kopacz, Don Luce and TJ Sanders were announced Monday morning at Budweiser Gardens as the 2023 inductees into the city’s sports hall of fame.
They will join 103 individuals already enshrined into a Hall of Fame that began inducting local sports figures in 2001.
Speaking after the announcement, Ayim says it is an “honour” to be recognized in the city where she learned to play basketball.
“Even though I spent the last 15 years travelling around, London has always held a really special place in my heart and there is a whole community of people who have helped me throughout my career who are based in London,” Ayim said.
Ayim went to Saunders Secondary School, winning multiple Western Ontario Secondary School Athletic Association titles before attending Pepperdine University. While at university, she got West Coast Conference honours three times and set records that still stand for the most blocked shots in a season and over a career at the Malibu, Calif.-based school.
She spent her professional career mainly in Turkey and France while also regularly suiting up for the national team, including at three Olympics. Ayim was the co-flag bearer for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games opening ceremony.
One of the moments that sticks out most for Ayim and her family was winning the gold medal against the United States at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto in front of her family and friends.
“That was such a highlight that we will always treasure,” said Sandy Ayim, Miranda’s mother, who was in attendance for the announcement alongside Miranda’s father, Gus.
Also in attendance for the announcement was 2023 legend inductee Luce and his family. Luce spent 13 seasons in the NHL, playing for five teams, including 10 seasons with the Buffalo Sabres.
Before making it to the NHL, Luce spent his childhood learning the game in London, playing both school and minor hockey before starting Junior B at age 14. Luce then played with the Kitchener Rangers when they were a Junior A team before being drafted 14th overall by the New York Rangers in 1966.
“It’s an honour…. It’s exciting because this is my hometown,” said Luce, who has already been inducted into the Sabres Hall of Fame, Greater Buffalo Hall of Fame and Omaha Hockey Hall of Fame.
Luce tells Global News he has many memories of playing hockey in the community.
“I played a lot of games out of North Rink and outdoor rinks where when playing, you had to stop, everybody grabbed a shovel and cleared the rink off and then we could start playing again with all our friends,” said Luce.
Kopacz and Sanders, both Olympians, were not in attendance for the announcement, but Hall of Fame officials also touched on their accomplishments.
Kopacz grew up in London as an all-around athlete, competing for two years in shot put at Western University. It was there he was discovered and recommended to try out for the national bobsleigh team.
After competing well at the national camp, he became a brakeman for both two- and four-man teams, competing with Justin Kripps, with whom he was crowned World Cup champion in the 2017-18 season for the four-man.
At the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, Kopacz and Kripps tied with a German team for the gold medal, only the second time that ever happened in a bobsleigh event.
Sanders moved to London at eight years old and was a four-sport athlete at Oakridge Secondary School, winning a provincial championship for volleyball in 2008.
He then attended the University of Manitoba and McMaster University, honing his volleyball skills as a setter before joining the national program in 2013 and getting on the national team in 2014.
Sanders would help lead the national teams up the world rankings from 20th to a national best sixth. At the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, Canada placed fifth and had preliminary-round wins over eventual silver and bronze medallists Italy and the United States, respectively.
The induction event will take place on Nov. 2 at the Hellenic Centre.
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