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Donald Knight, Marijane Stong, Jim Proudfoot and George Gross to be inducted into the Skate Canada Hall of Fame

(April 30, 2008 - OTTAWA, ON) – Skate Canada announced today that it will welcome four new members into the Skate Canada Hall of Fame: Donald Knight, Marijane Stong, Jim Proudfoot and George Gross.

Knight will be inducted into the athlete category, Stong into the professional category as a coach while Proudfoot and Gross will be inducted into the builder category as sport journalists.

Donald Knight, of Dundas, Ont., won the bronze medal at the 1965 World Championships in addition to his bronze medal at the 1965 North American Championships and the gold medal at the 1967 North American Championships. He also captured three Canadian titles (1965, 1966 and 1967) after being crowned national junior champion in 1961 when he was 13 years old. He competed in the Olympic Winter Games in 1964 where he placed ninth. His coaches were Ellen Burka until his first World Championships in 1963, Dennis Silverthorne and then Sheldon Galbraith for his last three competitive years (1965, 1966 and 1967). He attended his first World Championships when he was 15 years old and left amateur skating at 19.

After his professional days with Holiday on Ice and the Ice Capades, Knight teamed up with Wally Thomson in 1980 to become co-owners and operators of six Pizza Delights Restaurants in Southern Ontario. Knight is 60 years old and is married to Janet. They have two children and two grandchildren. He is currently coaching at the Burlington Skating Centre and helping other coaches with such things as stroking and footwork.

Marijane Stong, of Hamilton, Ont., is a level 4 certified coach. She is best known for coaching the 1988 Olympic bronze medalist ice dance team of Tracy Wilson and Rob McCall. Wilson and McCall also won three world bronze medals (1986, 1987, 1988) and three national titles with Stong. She also coached other world ice dance teams including Lorna Wighton and John Dowding and Michelle McDonald and Martin Smith. In addition to ice dancers, Stong also worked with Olympians Kurt Browning, Josée Chouinard and Marie-Claude Savard-Gagnon and Luc Bradet. Stong received the Longines-Wittnauer Coaching Excellence Award from the Coaching Association of Canada in 1987 and 1988.

Stong is 66 years old and has been married to well known coach and Skate Canada’s Skating Development Advisor Louis Stong since 1963. They currently reside in Etobicoke and have a son. She also has been a Skate Canada National Coach Consultant since 1999.

Jim Proudfoot, of Russell, Ont., was a well respected sport journalist who covered the 1955 Canadian figure skating championships in the sports section of the Toronto Star as an intro to the sport. He attended his first international competitions in 1959 - the North American Championships and World Championships. He also covered a total of seven Olympic Winter Games for the Toronto Star in addition to six World Championships. Proudfoot’s coverage of figure skating helped take the sport off the social pages and into the sports section. He received Skate Canada’s Award of Merit for a journalist who has made a contribution to figure skating in 1974. He was sports editor of the Toronto Star from 1970 to 1977. He was also awarded a national newspaper award for sport writing in 1988 and inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a writer in 1988. His favourite sports were figure skating and horse racing. Proudfoot passed away in 2001.

After settling in Toronto in the 1950s, George Gross, who passed away in March 2008, became a well known sport journalist. A fan and friend of figure skating, he covered the sport as a journalist in his native Czechslovakia before coming to Canada. From 1959 to 1971 he covered the sport of figure skating at many North American   and World Championships. Gross was also a member of the Canadian Figure Skating Hall of Fame Selection Committee from 1992-1996 and the author of the book “Donald Jackson King of Blades”.  He helped found the Toronto Sun in 1977, eventually becoming its Sports Editor. He covered seven World Cup soccer tournaments, eight World Hockey Championships, 12 Olympic Games and 14 Wimbledon Tennis Championships. George Gross was inducted into the broadcasters’ section of the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1985 and received a Stanley Cup ring from the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1992. He was inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2005 and named to the Olympic Order in 1994 as well as the Order of Ontario in 2003.

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Skate Canada, the national governing body responsible for the development and administration of figure skating in Canada, is the largest figure skating association in the world. With skating programs for athletes of all ages, offered at 1326 clubs across the country, Skate Canada is an association dedicated to providing every Canadian the opportunity to experience the passion, spirit and triumph of skating.