HALL OF FAME

& MAJOR AWARDS

Celebrating Greatness in Yukon Sport

An important part of our work speaking as the voice of sport in the Yukon is recognizing the incredible achievements of Yukon athletes, coaches, organizers, and others through the Yukon Sports Hall of Fame and the Sport Yukon Major Awards.

YUKON SPORTS HALL OF FAME

Welcome to the home of our greats.

A place for celebration, respect, admiration and nostalgia. For sports moments made famous and Yukoners famous for having made them.

Sport is a defining and dominant part of the Yukon’s culture. In honouring the achievements of its inductees, the Yukon Sports Hall of Fame preserves, presents, and shares this invaluable sporting heritage as an inspiration to all Yukoners.

Nominations & Selections

Nominations for the 2025 Yukon Sports Hall of Fame are open until December 31st, 2025.

Please closely review the Hall of Fame Nomination Criteria linked below. Sport Yukon will directly receive all nominations. All eligible nominations will remain eligible for consideration for a three year period.

“Reaching for the Win”

Violet Gatensby is an inland Tlingit artist from the Carcross & Tagish First Nation, and was commissioned to create this art for the Yukon Sports Hall of Fame in 2022. This art is proudly displayed on the Hall of Fame wall in Sport Yukon’s lobby.

ReachingForTheWin-VioletGatensby

Description:

Wolf and crow are moiety for multiple First Nations in the Yukon. The wold and crow both reaching for the centre of the target are to represent Yukon athletes competing. The wolf was created to look meaner and intimidating to capture the competitive spirit in sports. The crow was created to look strategic and calculating to capture strategy in sports.

Artist Biography:

Born into a large family, Violet Gatensby spent much of her childhood on the land. She explored art as a youth and was supported by community members like Keith Smarch and Claudia Mcphee, and later by Dempsey Bob, Ken McNeil, Stan Bevan and Arlene Ness. Violet attended art school in B.C. and holds an advanced diploma for the First Nations Fine Arts program at the Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art. A versatile and talented artist, Violet’s preferred medium is wood, however, she also enjoys metalwork, designing, and painting.

Event thought Violet is a young artist, she has a robust resume of major commissions including a carved panel for the Yukon Supreme Court, public utilities artworks for the City of Whitehorse, and a dugout canoe apprenticeship with Wayne Price. Violet has been, and continues to be influenced by the values of her parents and grandparents - stay connected to the land, have an open mind, be teachable - and she brings these influences into her art and the contemporary world.

An articulate leader and community force, Violet is one of the North’s rising talents.

SPORT YUKON MAJOR AWARDS

Each year we celebrate extraordinary achievement of Yukon sport administrators, coaches, athletes, and teams.

The Sport Yukon Major Awards are a celebration of greatness but also of dedication, of passion, and of outstanding commitment to the growth and improvement of Yukon sport, whether on the field of play or in the back office.

Nominations

The deadline to submit a nomination for the 2024 Sport Yukon Major Awards was December 31st, 2024.

Nominations for the 2025 Major Awards will open in February 2025.

  • The nomination period for our Major Awards Program opens every year in January and closes at the end of December. After adjudicating all nominations, Sport Yukon awards are usually presented in late spring.

  • Being honoured with a Sport Yukon Major Award is limited exclusively to the top echelon of athletes and those who play a supportive role. Selection by their peers is the pinnacle of achievement for Yukon sportspeople. They have all achieved excellence at the highest level within their sport, and all are recognized for raising the bar as sport builders.

    Sport governing bodies, community sport and recreation associations and other clubs, groups, organizations or individuals that are active for Sport Yukon are welcome to nominate a person or a team at the top of their game. All nominations must be supported by a sport governing body.

    Would you like to nominate an outstanding athlete, coach, administrator or team? Let us know.

  • Open to athletes and volunteers who call the Yukon home and are members in their associated sport governing body.

    Athletes who are products of our territorial sport development system but live temporarily in other provinces or territories for training or education are also eligible for nomination. If a nominee is from another region, they are also eligible to be nominated as long as their primary residence is declared as being in the Yukon.

  • This category is reserved for athletes who have competed for Canada in major international events sanctioned by their National Sport Governing Body. Competitions to be considered include the Olympic/Paralympic Games, Commonwealth Games, Pan-American or Para Pan-American Games or the World Junior/Senior Championships.

    This category does not apply to athletes who’ve competed in the Arctic Winter Games or the North American Indigenous Games.

    Once an athlete has competed for Canada in this category, they are ineligible for an award in the Territorial or National category unless competing in an entirely different sport.

  • A defining moment in team building, this category is dedicated to outstanding achievement in a team sport. Athletes must compete as a team and cannot compete in individual categories in the same sport.

Government of Yukon Sport Awards

Our territorial government also celebrates our all-stars. Each year it presents awards to outstanding Yukon athletes who achieve a level of excellence.