Sports club honours long-standing members.
Kanata Sports Club president Lorne Weatherall, right, presents long-standing members Venita and Wayne Pilon with gifts of thanks for all their hard work with the club on Nov. 16.
Jessica Cunha/Metroland
The Kanata Sports Club honoured one of its longest-standing members at its weekly Hot Seat on Friday, Nov. 16.
Lorne Weatherall, president of the club, presented Wayne Pilon with a plaque and an Ottawa Senators jacket. Pilon helped create and establish the Hot Seat 21 years ago.
“I had the idea to do something on Friday afternoons,” said Pilon. “Everyone here thought I was nuts.”
The Hot Seat – which is hosted by Kanata resident and radio personality Mark Papousek – features sports figures and athletes and has been held every Friday afternoon during the fall and winter months since Pilon first mentioned the club should host a weekly event.
“Wayne was the bartender and he said, ‘Mark, you know what? We should do something on Fridays,’” said Papousek. “It was just an idea Wayne and I had and we let it fly.”
The first event in 1991 drew around 30 people, Pilon said, adding they hosted golfers, anglers, curlers and football players in the beginning. Now, about 90 per cent of the Hot Seats involve hockey and the floor is packed.
“It got going,” said Pilon with a smile.
Pilon has held a number of positions as a member of the club, as a bartender, creator of the Hot Seat and master of the 50/50 draw. But he had to take a step back after he suffered a stroke, said Weatherall.
“Anything I asked him, he’d do it. (He’s) just a great, great guy,” said Weatherall.
Pilon’s wife Venita, also a member of the sports club, was presented with a bouquet of roses, “for all her help,” said Weatherall.