Since before the first BC Golden Gloves tournament in British Columbia - 1939,
and throughout the decades leading-up to the Provincial Boxing Championships
at Kelowna, BC on November 21/22, 2009, there have been hundreds of tournaments
and club show. Some have had a Provincial focus, some had a National focus
and some like the 1954 British Empire Games in Vancouver or the 1994 Commonwealth
Games in Victoria, and then there was the 1967 BC Diamond Belt Amateur Boxing
tournament that was held at the PNE facility in East Vancouver while the out-of-
town folks crashed at a Motel in North Vancouver including the legenday undefeated
heavyweight champion of the world - ROCKY MARCIANO.
There were many participants, and I was one. I (BRIAN ZELLEY) travelled from the Newcastle Boxing Club in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. I was one of four Island boxers, the other
three were from Victoria's London Boxing Club: LES VEGAS - KEN ALEXANDER - BILLY TAYLOR.
Others would come from as far as California, and one of Canada's best from
Montreal - DONATO PADUANO who would compete in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico.
There were many more, but the first two that I met outside the North Vancouver
Motel were two of our fine First Nation's boxers ED WILLIAMS and CHESTER DOUGLAS.
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