FENB Honours and Awards
At the end of the 2025 New Brunswick fencing season, the first FENB Hall of Fame dinner and presentation occurred.
Alfred Knappe
FENB Hall of Fame Inductee: 2025
The provincial fencing association was officially established as the New Brunswick Fencing Association in 1969 and its founding president was Alfred Knappe.
Alfred Knappe began fencing while a teenager in the city of Hof in West Germany in 1950. In the spring of 1955 he emigrated to Canada and settled in Fredericton. In 1966 he was invited to coach at the newly formed fencing club at the University of New Brunswick where he was working at the time. In1967 Alfred represented NB at the National Fencing Championships in Montreal and at the Eastern Canadian Championships at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia in 1968. Here he met Gabriel Timar who had just started a club in Saint John. A club had also started up in St. Andrews. Alfred gathered representatives from these three clubs in 1969 with the result that the New Brunswick Fencing Association was born and Alfred was elected as its first President.
Barbara Daniel
FENB Hall of Fame Inductee: 2025
Barbara Daniel began coaching in Halifax in 1975 while continuing to train as a competitive foil fencer. She competed for NS at the Canada Games in Brandon (1975) and Lethbridge (1979). Over the years, she has founded six fencing clubs; most recently the Damocles Club of Fredericton from which she just retired.
Barbara has coached at Canada Games in 1991 & 1995 for Nova Scotia, and in 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2013 for New Brunswick. She served as National Women’s Epee coach at the 1993 FISU Games in Buffalo,1995 World Championships in the Netherlands and 1997 FISU Games in Sicily. She was the weapon leader for the National Women’s Epee program from 1997 to 2000 and was Team Manager at the 1994 Junior World Championships in Mexico, the 1999 World Championships in Seoul and the 2001 Junior World Championships in Poland.
- The Fencing Mind podcast (part 1, part 2)
- CBC News: A changing of the En Garde!
Rick Gosselin
FENB Hall of Fame Inductee: 2025
New Brunswick’s first fencing tournament was the New Brunswick Championships held at the Fredericton YMCA on March 21, 1970 in conjunction with the New Brunswick Winter Games. It was a men’s foil event involving six fencers: Rick Gosselin, Bob Pottle and Bill MacDonald from the Saint John YMCA club and Alan Muzzerall, Kevin Montague and Brian Grimley from Fredericton. Rick Gosselin emerged as the first NB Provincial Champion.
In addition to being New Brunswick’s first fencing champion in 1970, Rick twice represented our province at the Canada Winter Games. He found his calling as a coach, guiding the provincial fencing team at four Canada Winter Games.
Kara Grant
FENB Hall of Fame Inductee: 2025
Kara Grant is a two-time Olympic modern pentathlete from Canada. She is one of the first female Canadian modern pentathletes, along with Monica Pinette, to competeat the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.
- Olympic profile: Kara Grant
- Wikipedia: Kara Grant