CHARLOTTETOWN – A brother and sister from the sport of curling, the founder of the sport of fencing in the province and one of the most notable figures in Island baseball, hockey and harness racing have been named the P.E.I. Sports Hall of Fame’s 2018 inductees.
Kathy O’Rourke and Peter MacDonald (curling), Lothar Zimmermann (fencing) and Gerard Smith (baseball, hockey) will be inducted at the annual induction dinner at Credit Union Place in Summerside on Friday, Nov. 9. Tickets, priced $45, are now available by contacting either Sport P.E.I. at (902)-368-4110, or Nick Murray at (902)-393-5474.
The inductions are sponsored by the P.E.I. Mutual Insurance Company.
Peter MacDonald
(Curling)
One of P.E.I.’s most successful curlers, MacDonald played on five P.E.I. Tankard winners that represented the province in the Brier national championship in 1976, 1978, 1981, 1996 and 2001. He was also the fifth player selected by five other P.E.I. champions.
Born in Summerside, MacDonald skipped the 1973 P.E.I. junior men’s championship winning team, and two years later he was a member of Bill Merklinger’s P.E.I. rink at the Canada Games in Lethbridge, Alta.
He also won three provincial mixed curling championships, and represented the Island in the nationals in 1990, 1994 and 1999. His sister, Kathy O’Rourke, played on the ’99 team.
He won the P.E.I. senior men’s title twice in 2010 and 2013.
Kathy O’Rourke
(Curling)
Kathy O’Rourke skipped one of P.E.I.’s greatest curling teams to the final at the 2010 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, narrowly losing to Jennifer Jones in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. It was only the second time that P.E.I. had finished as runner-up in the national women’s championship.
She won her first P.E.I. women’s title in 1989, playing second on the Kathie Gallant rink. She was second stone with Angela Roberts’s rink in 1991, and was third for Susan McInnis in 1996. She also played with Rebecca Jean MacPhee in 1999 that was the host team for the Scotties in Charlottetown.
She skipped her own rink to the 2002 P.E.I. title, and then the 2010 foursome with Erin Carmody, Geri-Lynn Ramsay and Tricia Affleck.
O’Rourke also played on Robert Campbell's 1989 rink that won the Canadian mixed championship in Brandon, Man., a team that included her husband, Mark O’Rourke, and Roberts.
In 1999, playing third with her brother Peter MacDonald, husband Mark and sister-in-law Karen A. MacDonald, the Island team finished second in the national mixed.
O’Rourke also joined her brother Rod, husband Mark and sister-in-law Karen MacDonald to win another Island mixed title in 2013.
Lothar Zimmermann
(Fencing)
Lothar Zimmermann has committed 50 years to the sport of fencing on Prince Edward Island.
Born in Germany but raised in Hamilton, Ont., Zimmermann founded the first fencing club on P.E.I. during the 1967-68 school year after being hired as a faculty member at Prince of Wales College. When the University of Prince Edward was formed later, so was the first UPEI Fencing Club.
Membership initially fluctuated with members required to travel outside of P.E.I. for regional tournaments. However, the fencing club grew and attracted members outside of the university, including younger fencers. Zimmermann also helped form the Prince Edward Island Fencing Association.
The sport’s growth has led to a Canada Games bronze medal won by Matthew Coe of Montague in epee in 2003, an under-15 national champion in 2008, and an Olympian in the sport of Modern Pentathlon in 2004 and 2008, where Islander Kara Grant competed in fencing as part of the standard.
Many club members, under the direction of Zimmermann, have gone on to national competitions and World Cup events.
Gerard Smith
(Baseball/Hockey)
Gerard Smith has had a long career as a player and coach in many Island sports, including hockey and baseball.
He was born in Charlottetown in 1942, and has spent many years in Summerside.
“Smitty" was a goalie for the Hardy Cup-winning Saint John Mooseheads in 1972-73, and again with the Charlottetown Islanders in 1980-81. The Islanders were inducted as a team to the P.E.I. Sports Hall of Fame in 2013.
He also played on the 1977 P.E.I. Islanders that won the silver medal at the Canadian senior men’s baseball championship in Brandon, Man. He was a catcher and also played first and third. The Islanders were named to the P.E.I. Sports Hall of Fame as a team in 2016.
Smith tended nets for the Saint Dunstan’s Saints 1962 to 1964, and won Maritime titles with Sandy’s Royals twice in the 1960s.
In baseball, he also won Maritime titles with both the Morell Chevies and later on the Tignish Aces.
He coached the 1970-71 Summerside Crystals’ Island junior B hockey champions, and coached both the Peakes Little Leaguers and Mosquitos to Maritime minor baseball championships in 1972.
As a race official, Smith has served as the race secretary for Summerside Raceway since 1972, and at the Charlottetown Driving Park since 2005. He also has similar duties for tracks in Inverness, Saint John, Fredericton and Woodstock, NB. He was named Atlantic Provinces Harness Racing Commission official of the year in 2016.
