Steps to create a Surrey Sports Hall of Fame are detailed in a "status update" report to Surrey council this week.
Plans for the new SSHOF include having the first inductions a year from now, in June 2026, during a ceremony at Surrey City Hall.
This summer, applications will open for an advisory board in July, followed by a call for hall nominations in August.
The inaugural class would be announced next spring by a nominating committee, with council approval, in the categories of Athlete, High Performance Athlete, Team, Builder, Coach, Game Changer and Community Hero Award.
Long-term plans involve building a permanent Surrey Sports Hall of Fame space in the future City Centre Arena project, notes a report to city council from Laurie Cavan, Surrey's general manager of Parks, Recreation & Culture.
To start, "interactive kiosks" for the SSHOF would be installed at the Museum of Surrey and "select civic facilities" by the end of 2026. Cavan's report includes a digital rendering of a Surrey Sports Hall of Fame display in the museum atrium, under the stairway, with built-in cases, interactive kiosk and bubble hockey game.
Funding of $700,000 for SSHOF is in the city's 2024-2028 Five Year Capital Plan. Operating funding is set to start in 2026 for research, induction ceremonies, exhibit maintenance and updates, staff wages, website maintenance, co-ordinating kiosks for select facilities for city-wide access and planning for a future permanent home for the SSHOF in the future City Centre Arena, Cavan notes.
Earlier this spring, 1,159 responses were received in an online survey about the development of the sports hall. "Overall, there was strong support among survey participants for the project and the approach outlined in this report," Cavan notes in her report, which urges council approval of a Terms of Reference and approach for continued work on the project, at a June 23 meeting.
Plans to create a Surrey sports hall (or museum) have been pitched over the past six years, in one form or another. The idea was floated at a 2019 meeting of Surrey’s Parks, Recreation & Culture Committee. By 2021, the city pitched the concept of a virtual sports museum.
In 2023, local Ironman marathoner Elizabeth Model renewed her fundraising efforts to amplify a virtual sports museum with a bricks-and-mortar facility located somewhere in Surrey City Centre, where she is CEO of Downtown Surrey Business Improvement Association (BIA).
