2000 Fred Thornhill

FRED THORNHILL, Toronto Sun
by Don Goodwin

The Sports Media Canada Award for Outstanding Sports Photography is presented to a photographer in Canada whose fulltime occupation is still, film or TV photography and whose work is published or telecast in Canada.

Fred Thornhill

Fred Thornhill


A photo taken by Fred Thornhill of the Toronto Sun has been selected to receive the inaugural Outstanding Sports Photography Award. Fred took the shot (of the celebration of a Toronto Maple Leaf goal) with a manual focus 600mm lens on a Nikon F4 camera. Fred’s ‘outstanding’ photo was taken at the Air Canada Centre during a Leaf-Pittsburgh playoff game.

Caught dead centre of a player scrum was the impish grin of Leaf captain Mats Sundin who had just scored a game-winning goal in overtime – which led to a spontaneous celebration, including a mountain of blue and white uniforms which descended on the Leaf captain.