Former St. Albert resident Scott Pfeifer will enter Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame and receive the Order of Sport, Canada’s highest honour for athletes, this October.
He and the rest of the legendary “Ferbey Four” curling team, who helped ignite new levels of excitement for the game in the early aughts, will join five other athletes — including Olympic gold medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir and three-time former UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre — and two builders of sport as this year’s inductees.
“This will be the first time we’ve gotten together in such a formal setting since we won our last Brier in 2005,” Pfeifer said. “To be able to be inducted with three of your best friends is something truly special.”
The Order of Sport recognizes athletes not only for their sports achievements, but also for the good they have done in their communities.
The Ferbey Four, consisting of Pfeifer, Randy Ferbey, David Nedohin and Marcel Rocque, won three World Men’s Curling Championships between 2002 and 2006 and four Canadian Men’s Curling Championships between 2001 and 2005.
Pfeifer believes that the award is partly a nod to the fact that the team created new curling fans.
“We were very innovative and played a very aggressive style of game,” he said. “I think even back when they were drawing record crowds at the Brier, our team was one of the most exciting to watch because you never knew what was going to happen…. Even when we were up on a team, it was foot on the gas pedal all the time. We wanted to put opponents away early, but also sometimes that ended up biting us in the butt.
“There was never a boring game when the Ferbey Four was on the ice.”
It was these qualities that helped make the team fan favourites.
Pfeifer said he remembers he and teammate Marcel Rocque earned the nicknames “Huff and Puff” for their sweeping prowess, and he remembers reporters rushing teammate Randy Ferbey after games because they knew he would give them a good quote.
“It produced some great rivalries over the years and some great storylines for fans and the media to follow along with,” he said.
But the team also worked off the ice to help grow the game and improve their communities.
Pfeifer is particularly proud of the team’s efforts to raise $50,000 for cancer research during the 2007 World Men’s Curling Championship in Edmonton.
“A lot of us have continued coaching and helping develop other curling athletes in the sport as well,” Pfeifer said. “It’s nice to see everyone give back to the game that gave so much to them.”
Pfeifer is currently the national team coach for Canada’s mixed doubles curling, working with a “bunch of our Canadian athletes to help them achieve the same dreams that team Ferbey was able to accomplish in the 2000s.”
He participated in the Olympics himself when he went to PyeongChang in 2018 to serve as an alternate for team Kevin Koe, and he said looks forward to taking Canada’s next mixed doubles Olympians to the 2026 games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
Early in his career, the dream was to play in a national or international competition, he said.
“To think 25 years afterwards I’d be being inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame, that was probably not something I had on my mind,” he said.
“When Dave and Randy asked me [to play,] I didn’t know how much that would impact who I am and where I am today.”
