Leslie J. Topshee, a retired engineer now living in Truro, is a native of Sydney. An outstanding and dedicated athlete, known in his competitive days as “Tubby”, Les has been active in sports for nearly 60 years. His participation in sports began at Sydney Academy in the late twenties and early thirties, where Les excelled in basketball, English rugby, and track and field. He played hockey for the Sydney Junior Millionaires and later on a farm team of the Chicago Black Hawks. In 1939 he won the most valuable player award as a member of Chicago’s Tri-State Hockey Champs. From the mid-thirties, and for 25 years, Les’ prowess as an outstanding athlete was evident in several sports at provincial, Maritime, national, and international levels – track and field, hockey, basketball, softball, boxing, and English rugby. Les held four Maritime records simultaneously during the mid thirties – junior, interscholastic, intercollegiate, and senior, with his senior record of 6′ 2″ standing for over 20 years.

In 1934 Les represented the Atlantic Provinces in high-jumping at the British Empire Trials at Hamilton, Ontario. He missed winning the trials by about one inch, and missed a trip to the 1934 Summer Games in Australia and New Zealand. At Saint Francis Xavier University, from where he graduated in 1938, Les displayed versatility and brilliance in several sports. He won four letters in a single year in football, track, hockey, and boxing – a feat accomplished no other athlete at St. F.X. has achieved. Following active participation, Les has spent much of his spare time actively engaged in promoting, organizing, coaching, and refereeing sports in Truro. He has been involved in organizing Little League football in Truro, serving as president from 1964 to 1967. He worked with a group to build the new Colchester Legion Stadium, and served as volunteer stadium commissioner for six years.

Through the Truro Rotary Club, he was involved in organizing a bantam baseball league in the mid-sixties. More recently Les has been active in golf in his adopted town. He was president of the Truro Golf Club in 1985. In recognition of his outstanding achievements, competitive spirit, sportsmanship, and dedication to many sports, Les was inducted into the Saint Francis Xavier Sports Hall of Fame in 1974. At that time Dr. Cecil MacLean, Antigonish, long associated with sports activities in that area, wrote: “This rangy splendidly muscled athlete … quickly proved in intercollegiate circles that he could play any game on their agenda, not only brilliantly, but usually at any position to which he was assigned. Gifted with quick reflexes, boundless energy and stamina, he played with a rare type of enthusiasm ..Behind his athletic achievements lay a strong competitive spirit, a sense of solidarity with team members, and an earnest desire to give his very best at all times.”