people

Steve Nash Richmond Opening

By Alison McLaughlin /

NBA two-time MVP Steve Nash with “The People’s Senator,” The Hon. Gerry St. Germain



New Evolution principal Mark Mastrov & CEO Jim Rowley from the parent company of the Steve Nash Sports Club



AutoWest’s executive team Charl Kim, Alex Tong and Rick Wang



SNSC contractors Jason Schlackl, Daniel Lee, Tim Grant had the “Optimum Solution”



Jiri Slovenik, better known as “The Unforgetable Yeeri,” proved himself a real joker



Anna-Maria Camarda and Cassi MacDonald



Enter Sandman Signature Hotel + Resort, that is! Here’s Executive General Manager Scott Johnson



Don Harbich, President/CEO of Steve Nash Sports Club, with superagent Bill Duffy and Bill Sanders of the Bill Duffy Agency.



Navid Soofi of Cube Films and Brady Dahmer of the Projecting Change Festival with Andy Chu of Arc 2 Intertainment.



Michael Jiang, Chris Chu of Viva Health!



Film Office Manager Mark Mansfield makes sure the City of Richmond is always ready for its close up.



I wish I were a little bit taller. I wish I were a baller. I wish I had a girl that looked good I would call her…



Steve shows his MVP form


Event: Grand Opening of The Steve Nash Sports Club
Setting: Richmond, BC (July 2, 2009)
My Rating: Ballin’

The second location of the Steve Nash Sports Club opened its doors on July 2nd, and the man himself was on hand to assist Mayor Malcolm Brodie with the ribbon-cutting. The SNSC is a partnership with New Evolution Fitness Company, a California-based lending and management company that develops emerging fitness companies. As part of the fun, there was a charity shoot-out with Steve to benefit Kidsport. Established in 1993 by Sports BC Kidsport has expanded nationwide providing assistance to children with financial barriers that keep them from participating in organized sport.

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Have you checked Richmond out lately? She was the awkward teen of the GVRD, but she’s taken off her glasses and shaken out her bun. Now the sexy city is hitting her prime just as the world prepares to descend on her for the 2010 Olympic Games. Richmond’s newly-erected Steve Nash Sports Club is, in my opinion, the sports edifice most important to the 2010 Games and yet it’s not even a venue.

Why, you ask, is the SNSC so important? Simple. After touching down on Lulu Island the aforementioned “world” will shuttle right past it en route to their hotels. The club is brilliantly positioned on St. Edwards Road, next to a refitted Airport Sandman Resort + Spa. This scores a bounty of traffic for the Nash brand.

Visitors will see the SNSC logo when they visit Richmond’s Speedskating Oval and it’ll be the last thing they peep out the taxi window when they leave the city. The visitors may not know much about Canada, but they will know this: Steve Nash, the two-time MVP of the NBA, is ours. He may be South African by birth and Arizonan by profession, but look at Nash and you’ll see an obvious dude from B.C. The Chuck Taylors, vintage shirt, and shaggy mop scream West Coast louder than the Stanley Park 9 o’clock gun.

And he’s generous: at the club opening, the signs that read “No Autographs” were a waste of paper. Steve Nash, not one affected with baller braggadocio, was only too happy to leave his inky scrawl across the pages – and hearts – of his fans.