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Seven new names have been added to the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame for 2025.
The group of inductees was announced this week at the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame in downtown Regina.
Three inductees of the class of 2025 are in the athlete category, two in the builders category, with teams making up the final two.
Read more:
- Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame announces Class of 2024
- Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame unveils Class of 2023
Athletes include Julie Foster (Regina, rugby), Noah Miller (Regina, water polo) and Jon Ryan (Regina, football); builders are Brad Hornung (Regina, hockey) and Klara Kesmarky Miller (Budapest, Hungary, gymnastics); while the teams were the 1997 and 1998 Regina Rams football clubs and the 1978 and 1980 Saskatoon Harmony Centre women’s softball teams.
It’s a special year for the organization, with the first individual inductees for rugby and water polo and the first year a parent and child were to inducted — Klara Klesmarky Miller and Noah Miller are mother and son.
An induction dinner and ceremony celebrating the athletes and their achievements will be held at the Conexus Arts Centre on Sept. 20, and this year’s additions bring Saskatchewan’s list of sports talent to 561 inductees, 257 athletes, 173 builders and 131 championship teams.
The class of 2025:
Julie Foster (rugby)
Foster represented Canada at the Women’s Rugby World Cup three times, reaching the semifinal on each occasion.
When she retired, her 44 appearances for the Canadian national team placed her third all-time. She also represented Canada in sevens rugby 10 times over the course of an 11-year international career. She finished her career with 13 tries and was the fifth woman inducted into Rugby Canada’s Hall of Fame.
Speaking at the ceremony she said that she quickly fell in love with the sport.
“It’s the camaraderie. I love the game because it’s fast paced, hard hitting and meeting people everywhere and I’ve met people all over the world and you’ve got a friend anywhere you go,” she said.
Foster said that she was surprised that she got the call to be recognized.
“It’s actually pretty exciting, I guess I never would have expected it but there are a lot of people who stand behind you and recognize the things that you’ve done through rugby and all the sports that I’ve played,” said Foster.
Noah Miller (water polo)
Miller spent nine years on the Canadian men’s national water polo team.
He has competed at six FINA World Championships, three FISU World University Games, and has won bronze medals at the Pan Am Games twice, once in 2003 and once in 2007. Miller has also won six Canadian national championships with three clubs.
Jon Ryan posing with the Vince Lombardi Trophy after the Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl in 2014. (Jon Ryan/Twitter)
Jon Ryan (football)
Ryan has enjoyed a 19-year professional football career and spent 12 of those seasons as a punter in the NFL.
He is best known in his career for the time he spent from 2008-2017 with the Seattle Seahawks. It was in Seattle when Ryan won a Super Bowl in 2014, and that same year threw a touchdown pass in the NFC Championship game to help mount an unthinkable comeback win against the Green Bay Packers .
While he spent time in the NFL, he started his career in Canada, playing in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Edmonton before retiring.
Ryan said the induction means a lot to him.
“I don’t know if it’s a dream, because I feel like it was the result of a dream coming true. I felt like when I was trying to make the CFL or NFL, I was in full control about what I was doing and I could work hard and make the team,” he said.
“I feel like this is more of an honour than a dream. It means the world to me.”
Ryan admitted it will be pretty cool to see his name in the same hall as some of the best athletes from Saskatchewan.
“Growing up as a kid and going to field trips to the Hall of Fame and seeing guys like Gordie Howe and Mary “Bonnie” Baker — people like that. To think that my name is going to be alongside theirs in that hall is pretty humbling and overwhelming.”
Ryan said there’s a whole bunch of people he has to thank for helping him carve out his career.
“I think it was definitely different people at different times. Growing up, my parents were a huge influence on me. They always supported me. If I needed to be pushed, they’d push me and if I didn’t, they didn’t,” he said.
“Playing for the Rams and Frank McCrystal … telling me that it didn’t matter if it was small town Texas or small town Saskatchewan, if you were good enough they were going to come and find you. He just always let me dream those big dreams.”
Ryan also credited his wife Sarah Colonna for also helping him throughout his career.
Former Regina Pats players Stu Grimson (left) and Brad Hornung. (Brad Hornung/Facebook)
Brad Hornung (hockey)
Hornung had his dream of reaching the NHL put on pause after he was paralyzed from the neck down at the age of 18 in a WHL game against Moose Jaw in 1987.
The injury did little to stop him and his love of hockey and he would later go on to work as a scout for the Chicago Blackhawks for four years, then work as a scout for the NHL’s Central Scouting.
The WHL’s The Brad Hornung Trophy has been presented to the league’s most sportsmanlike player since 1988. Hornung died after a battle with cancer in 2022 at the age of 52.
Brad’s mother, Terry Hornung, attended the induction ceremony and said that she couldn’t be more proud of her son.
“He’d be so humble,” she said.
Terry said she couldn’t believe it when she got the call telling her that her son was being inducted.
“Your heart pounds because it makes you very proud that people remember him like I do … that he’s still going to be remembered forever.”
Klara Kesmarky Miller (gymnastics)
Miller’s involvement in gymnastics has lasted more than 60 years.
At the age of 16 she judged her first provincial competition and was helping coach the Regina Girls Gym Club’s competitive program.
Miller spent 27 years as a judge and launched the YWCA Limberettes Gym Club in her teens and also helped establish the Queen City Kinsmen Gymnastics Club. She also served as the CEO of Gymnastics Saskatchewan for 30 years.
Saskatoon Harmony Centre
The Saskatoon Harmony Centre team won national women’s softball championships in 1978 and 1980 and went on to represent Canada each time.
The team would also represent Canada at the 1979 Pan American Games in Puerto Rico, where they finished fourth. In 1981, they took part in the World Games in California, where Canada finished second.
Regina Rams
The team concluded their era as a junior football club by winning consecutive Canadian Bowl national championships in 1997 and 1998.
The Rams beat the Okanagan Sun 23-20 in double overtime to win in 1997 and beat Okanagan again 36-13 in Regina in 1998 to close the book on their junior football era.
— with files by 650 CKOM’s Shane Clausing
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