Barb Hart Harris (Builder)

Inductee Name: Barb Hart Harris
Category: Builder
Date: Class of 2020

In the builder’s category for this year’s Hall of Fame class, Field Hockey Canada honours someone who went above and beyond both on and off the field. Barb Hart Harris contributed for 50-plus years to the Canadian field hockey community as an intelligent player and organizer.

Harris grew up in the Lower Mainland with little to no exposure to the sport. However, when she was admitted to UBC, she discovered the sport. She heard about the success of the team and learned that they travelled to play. So, she went out to a team practice to learn.

Harris was welcomed by head coach May Brown and ended up clicking with the game. After she began to learn and apply her skills in her first season, she began to break out in the season that followed. She went from being on the second team to ending up on the varsity team, leading the team as a goal-scoring threat.

She would then continue to succeed as a player at both the provincial and international levels. She played for the 1959 Team at the World Tournament in Holland and was the youngest of 43 delegates to represent her country at the World Conference held at the same time. She most notably served as captain for the Canadian team for the 1963 World Tournament in the USA. Harris credited her attitude and work ethic for her meteoric rise.

“Because I didn’t start out slowly and learn that this is the way you should do this shot or that shot, all I wanted to do was get the ball in the goal,” said Harris. “I just loved playing so much, I just did all I could to be as good as I could, and it worked out for me.”

Once her playing days were finished, she turned her attention to supporting the game on the administrative side. This administrative work included organizing the hockey section of the second Jeux Canada Summer Games, the first in the West, in Burnaby, BC, in 1973, and notably organizing the ‘remarkably successful Tournament’ at the 1979 IFWHA World Championship event in Vancouver, B.C.

“There is no doubt in my mind that we put on the best IFWHA tournament that was ever put on from 1930,” said Harris.

Harris founded, named, and set up, the 79ers Club for those who had travelled to an IFWHA Tournament. The purpose of the Club was to help host the 1979 Tournament financially and literally. She chaired the Organizing Committee in 1974, and two years later took on the role of Treasurer, which continued for 24 years. In the years following the World Tournament, Barb named the ‘1979 Trust Fund,’ and proposed its purpose be ‘to help fund projects that promote and further the best interests of field hockey for women and girls throughout Canada.’ She wrote the Terms of Reference for the Fund, and served as a Trustee, Treasurer, and Secretary, all at the same time, for 14 years With its principal of $30,476, the 1979 Trust Fund disbursed almost $100,000, three times the original amount, for its stated purpose. When the CWFHA was disbanded, the Fund was taken over by FHC. When it seemed there were no other options for funding the Qualifying Tournament for the 2008 Olympic Games, FHC dissolved the Trust and used the principal to fund the Qualifier.

Congratulations to Barb Hart Harris on being inducted into the Field Hockey Canada Hall of Fame.

HIGHLIGHTS:

1959 Player/Delegate at Canada’s second World Tournament, Amsterdam.
1963 Captain, World Tournament, Baltimore, USA, (1st CWFHA National Team).
1973 Sport Chair/Acting Technical Advisor, Jeux Canada Summer Games, (FH), Burnaby.
1976 Founder/Organizer/Treasurer, 79ers Club, to raise funds to help host in 1979.
1978 Tournament Coordinator, CWFHA Senior National Tournament, UBC, “The Dry Run.”
1979 Tournament Coordinator, Vice-Chair of Board, IFWHA World Championships, UBC.
1980 Founder/Organizer/Trustee/Treasurer/Secretary, 1979 Trust Fund.