2011 – Stan Houston

Stan Houston

Stan is considered the pioneer in the creation and growth of the Canadian sports and event marketing and communications business. He invented the ‘Scotch Cup’ which later became the Men’s World Curling Championships.
It isn’t widely remembered that Stan was a working sportswriter before he went into the PR and Communications field. His first foray into sportswriting was as a teenage reporter while in high school in Toronto who ‘joined the pros’ in the 50’s when George Dulmage, assistant sports editor of The Tely hired him into the sports department. As a Toronto Telegram hockey writer he is credited with hanging the appelation ‘The Big M’ on Frank Mahovlich.
Stan left the newspaper in 1959 for a stint with PRSL the leading PR firm at the time.
In 1970 he set up his own firm – The Houston Group -with Chick McGregor, Gwyn Williams, Paul Dulmage, Gord Pepper, Lloyd Finley — former Toronto Telegram guys, and another key player was Sid Priddle.
For a time The Houston Group created and supervised events in curling, skiing, track and field, badminton, bowling, powerboat racing and Junior Olympics and many others in the performing arts field.

Stan is considered the pioneer in the creation and growth of the Canadian sports and event marketing and communications business. He invented the ‘Scotch Cup’ which later became the Men’s World Curling Championships. It isn’t widely remembered that Stan was a working sportswriter before he went into the PR and Communications field. His first foray into sportswriting was as a teenage reporter while in high school in Toronto who ‘joined the pros’ in the 50’s when George Dulmage, assistant sports editor of The Tely hired him into the sports department. As a Toronto Telegram hockey writer he is credited with hanging the appelation ‘The Big M’ on Frank Mahovlich. Stan left the newspaper in 1959 for a stint with PRSL the leading PR firm at the time. In 1970 he set up his own firm – The Houston Group -with Chick McGregor, Gwyn Williams, Paul Dulmage, Gord Pepper, Lloyd Finley — former Toronto Telegram guys, and another key player was Sid Priddle. For a time The Houston Group created and supervised events in curling, skiing, track and field, badminton, bowling, powerboat racing and Junior Olympics and many others in the performing arts field.