If you look up near the northwest entrance inside North Bay's Memorial Gardens, you will see a sign that embodies fair play in sport.
"A good sport is good for sports," the sign reads across from the hundreds of plaques honouring North Bay athletes on the North Bay Sports Hall of Fame's wall off fame at the local arena.
Peter Handley came up with the saying, but he admits it wasn't easy.
"It took me a long time to create that, 'A good sport is good for sports,'" recalls Handley.
The longtime local sports broadcaster created that as his signature Sports Director saying, which was a common theme for sports broadcasters to have back in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
"It means exactly what it says, no more or no less but if you want to extrapolate sports into life, it could be expanded into life as a whole," he said.
"If you give you receive, if you take it is a whole different ball game. A good sport involves life. You can go through life being a cynic and critical, cruel, nasty and mean and that is what you will get back in the long run from people."
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Handley, was recognized this week as part of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee ceremony where more than a dozen local citizens were recognized for their efforts in the community.
"It is an interesting award, I did not even know it existed," said Handley.
"Awards are always sort of subjective, you don't know what they mean but what it means to me is that I was thought enough of to be even nominated for such a thing so I am very proud and happy."
Aside for his years of broadcasting more than 900 North Bay Trappers and North Bay Centennials games on the radio, Handley was also the founder of the North Bay Sports Hall of Fame, he helped establish North Bay's Heritage Committee, and he was a North Bay city councillor for nearly a decade.
"I am really proud of those heritage site plaques and the work I did with the Heritage committee, I am very proud that we have a sports hall of fame that has existed since 1977, and I had a small role to play in that and I still continue to," said Handley, who is also known for hosting programming on YourTV in North Bay including the show, "Life Is."
While Handley has called North Bay home since 1958, he and his wife Pam will be packing their bags and moving to the Belleville area with their daughter and son-in-law in November.
For Handley, this award is a nice send-off.
"I enjoy everything I volunteer for. I am not a masochist, I do not go into something I am not going to enjoy working on.
"I think it's a mixed bag because in some respects I don't think I am worthy but in other respects, I think I am. I look at all these awards and think is there someone else who should have gotten it."
