Pfeiffer and the rest of the legendary “Ferbey Four” curling team will receive Canada’s highest sporting honour.
Former St. Albert resident Scott Pfeiffer will be inducted into the Canada Sports Hall of Fame and receive the Sports Medal, Canada’s highest honor for athletes, next October.
He and the rest of the legendary “Ferbey Four” curling team, which helped ignite new levels of excitement for the game in early August, will be joined by five other athletes — including Olympic gold medalists Tessa Virtue and former three-time UFC champion Scott Moir. Welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre – and two of the sport’s builders are this year’s inductees.
“This will be the first time we have come together in such a formal setting since we won the last Brier championship in 2005,” Pfeiffer said. “Being able to join three of your best friends is really special.”
The Sports Medal honors athletes not only for their athletic achievements, but also for the good they have done in their communities.
The Ferbey Four, consisting of Pfeiffer, Randy Ferbey, David Nedohin and Marcel Roque, won three World Men’s Curling Championships between 2002 and 2006 and four Canadian Men’s Curling Championships between 2001 and 2005.
Pfeiffer believes the award is partly a nod to the fact that the team has created new curling fans.
“We were very innovative and played very offensively,” he said. “I think even when they were drawing record crowds at the Brier, our team was one of the most exciting teams to watch because you never knew what was going to happen…. Even when we were on a team, we were on the gas pedal all the time. We wanted to put opponents away early But sometimes it would bite us in the ass.
“There was never a dull game when the Ferby Four were on the ice.”
It was these qualities that helped make the team a fan favorite.
Pfeiffer said he remembers that he and teammate Marcel Ruck 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 show.
“It has produced some great rivalries over the years and some great storylines for fans and media to follow,” he said.
But the team also worked on developing the game to help grow the game and improve their communities.
Pfeiffer 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.
“Many of us have continued to coach and help develop other curling athletes in the sport as well,” Pfeiffer said. “It’s nice to see everyone giving back to the game that has given them so much.”
Pfeiffer is currently the coach of Canada’s national mixed doubles curling team, working with “a group of Canadian athletes to help them achieve the same dreams that Ferbee’s team was able to achieve in the 2000s.”
He was involved in the Olympics himself when he went to Pyeongchang in 2018 to serve as an alternate for Kevin Koe’s team, and said he’s looking forward to taking Canada’s next mixed doubles athletes to the 2026 Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
He said that at the beginning of his career, the dream was to play in a national or international competition.
“To think that 25 years later I would be inducted into the Canada Sports Hall of Fame, that’s probably not something I had in mind,” he said.
“When Dave and Randy asked me [to play,] Little did I know how much it would impact my identity and where I am today.
