“Flurry from Fort McMurray” recognized 30 years later

Next month, amateur boxer Wayne Bourque will be inducted into the Wood Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame in his hometown of Fort McMurray.

“It’s nice to be remembered and I am very honoured,” said Bourque, who has lived in Toronto for over two decades. He added that his 16-year-old son, a talented lacrosse player, put the induction into perspective for him. “My son Brandon hit the hammer on the head and said it best, ‘Dad…they still remember what you did and that was nearly 30 years ago.’”

Bourque, a Métis, took up boxing at a young age with the Clearwater Boxing Club as a way to escape the racial taunting he heard from others.

“It hurt….deep,” he said of those days. He wanted to be proud of who he was.

He won his first tournament at age 13 with the prestigious 1973 Northwest Pacific Golden Gloves in Seattle, Washington.

It whet his appetite.

A year later he won a Canadian junior amateur national title in the 80 pound weight class and followed with a silver in 1974 at 85 pounds and bronze in 1975 at 90 pounds.

Nicknamed “The Flurry from Fort McMurray,” he established himself as one of the premiere amateur boxers in Canada winning three North American Native Boxing titles and four provincial and Golden Glove championships.

In 1983, Bourque placed third at the senior national championships in Sudbury, Ont.

Only Guy Normandeau and Kevin McDermott stood in his way at a potential shot of representing Canada at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Fate stepped in only a few months prior to the trials. Bourque injured his right knee while skiing.

“It was an impossible injury to come back from in such a short time…my dream had ended,” said Bourque.

His amateur boxing career saw him fight in an estimated 130 bouts with 109 wins and 21 defeats.

“In one year we traveled out-of-town for all of our fights and I had 33 fights,” Bourque reminisced. “And that was when there was only a gravel road leading out of Fort McMurray.”

In the late 1980s looking for a fresh start and rebirth, he moved east to Toronto where in 1994 he opened Centre Ring, which is now rated as one of the top boxercise facilities in North America.

Boxercise offers a combination of exercises that a typical boxer would use during training sessions.

Bourque’s clients have included actor Russell Crowe whom Bourque worked with in the 2005 movie Cinderella Man, countless NHL players, and three-time Olympian rower Marnie McBean.

In 2009 Bourque, at age 50, returned to the ring to win the Ringside World Championships Masters aged 45 to 55 years-of-age 178-pound weight class in Kansas City, Missouri.

Of his connection to Fort McMurray he proudly states: “Even though I have been gone a long time I still call Fort McMurray home. I always let people know that I am from Fort McMurray. We produced a lot of great athletes even though we were so isolated back then.”

The Wood Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame will honour Bourque, and three other inductees: builder Bob Campbell, Tae Kwon Do coach Sandy Bowman, and NHL linesman Darren Gibbs at the 6th Induction Dinner on June 21.

Photo caption: Amateur boxer and soon-to-be Hall of Fame inductee Wayne Bourque is on one of the four giant mural montages of local on a wall in the Syncrude Sport and Wellness Centre.