Courtright’s Dustin Jeffrey is being inducted into the Sarnia Sports Hall of Fame. He’s one of nine people and one team who are in the Class of 2025.

Jeffrey played 131 National Hockey League games with Pittsburgh, Dallas and Arizona, scoring 18 goals and 15 assists for 33 points. Counting his time in the American Hockey League and European loops he played 785 professional games, scoring 209 goals and 408 assists.

Jeffrey grew up in Courtright and was a member of the 2009 Pittsburgh team that won the Stanley Cup. He also played with an AHL champion and a Swiss Cup winner. On top of that, he helped Team Canada win a pair of Spengler Cups.

He joins his father, Neil Jeffrey, and grandfather, Stuart Jeffrey in the Hall. Both of those individuals were members of teams that were inducted in earlier decades.

Golfer golfer Chris Dickson is also being inducted in the professional category. Dickson was a touring golf pro for eight years, during which time he won eight events. He also holds two course records while playing the PGA tour.

From there he went on to coaching where he helped the University of Western Ontario Women’s golf program to numerous team and individual titles. In 2012 he won the Canadian Golf Coach of the Year award.

Also in the Sarnia Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2025

• Jack Isom Award: Michael Marinaro, a competitive pairs skater, has won this award, which is for athletes who have excelled in international competition. Marinaro and Kirsten Moore-Towers won three national titles, along with two Four Continents medals. The pair also won medals in both the Grand Prix and Challenger series, including gold at the 2019 Nebelhorn Trophy and the 2017 U.S. International Classic. The pair also represented Canada at the 2018 and 2022 Winter Olympics.
• Amateur athlete: Matt Cimetta, a gifted hockey offensive defenceman, won numerous trophies in Ontario and Michigan minor campaigns on his way through the ranks. In 2011 he was the OHL Cup leading scorer among rearguards. As a member of the Sarnia Legionnaires Jr. ‘B’ club, he was named the Western conference most outstanding first year blueliner and Legionnaires rookie of the year. Still more honours followed, including Legionnaires top scoring defenceman and most dedicated player.
• Special Achievement: Ross Helps has won this award, which is for a person who over a number of years has made significant contributions to sports in such endeavors as media, coaching, training or as an official. Helps worked as a volunteer for the Mooretown Juvenile Silver Stick Tournament for 41 consecutive years. He also helped out with Sarnia Silver Stick events. Helps also managed minor hockey teams, volunteered as an off ice official for the Sarnia Sting and coached minor baseball. He was also involved in the startup of the Moore Gymnastics Club and was a volunteer announcer at Sarnia Highland Games dancing competitions.
• Earl MacKenzie Award: Pete Kaija has won the Earl MacKenzie Award, which is for people involved in sports for at least 30 years. Kaija was a head basketball coach for both boys and girls St. Clair Secondary School teams for more than three decades, winning many championships. He was also an assistant basketball coach at Northern Collegiate and a women’s head coach at Lambton College. In 2021 he won the Pete Beach Award, which is for teacher/coaches who are a source of discipline, a mentor and a friend to student athletes.
• Bud Morrison Award Joe Birch is being recognized which people who have made significant contributions to young people in their sporting endeavours. Birch joined the Ontario Hockey League head office in 2006 where he worked in marketing and communications, brokered contracts, dealt with players and parents, developed fan growth and led the league’s scholarship program, among other things. Later, he became a certified player agent. He was twice named by the Hockey News as one of the top 100 people of power and influence in the sport
• Builder: Lisa Bennett is being inducted for her 45 year years of volleyball involvement. She is perhaps best known for her coaching of both elementary and high school students. She was also involved with college volleyball. She has also been heavily involved in curling.
• Rose Hodgson Award: Bob Newman is being inducted with this award which recognized for outstanding contributions to the community. Newman was a highly successful girls softball coach as well as a track and field coach at both the high school and university level. He also donated generously to track and field programs and Lambton Kent High School Athletics, among other programs.

• Team; The 1993 St. Pat’s Fighting Irish senior football team is being inducted after a Cinderella campaign that saw it become the first non-Toronto area high school club to win the prestigious Metro Bowl. The Irish were only invited to the event after a meningitis scare forced some Toronto schools out of the tourney. St. Pat’s, which was considered a heavy underdog going in, defeated Peterborough Crestwood 20-6 in the quarterfinal, upended defending champion Scarborough West Hill 29-12 in the semi-final and won all the marbles with a 20-6 victory over perennial powerhouse St. Michael’s in the final. This historic victory was made all the more remarkable because a public high school teachers’ strike had forced the cancellation of the Lambton Secondary Schools Athletic Association’s football season that fall. The Irish kept practicing five days a week in the hopes that the strike would end and were rewarded in late October with an unexpected chance to play in the Metro Bowl. The St. Pat’s triumph forever changed the Metro Bowl, with the expansion of the tourney leading to what became known as the OFSSAA series of games, featuring a number of bowl games from around the province.

The enshrinement dinner will be held October 18 at the Dante Club.