The third and final leg in the BPA Triple Crown is its Sportsmanship Award. Coupled with the Caesar for prowess on the gameboard and our GM of the Year which honors those who sacrifice their time to make the events possible, the Sportsmanship winner completes our virtual Hall of Fame by reminding us that there is no fun to be had with these games without an affable and enjoyable opponent with which to cross vicarious swords. While some get caught up in the quest for “wood,” our Sportsman of the Year always subscribes to a higher standard…a shining example of sportsmanship that we should all aspire to. These folks are the ones that make it all bearable for our GMs and contribute most to the “club” atmosphere of the convention. Their shining example contributes to the remarkable esprit de corps and camaraderie for which the WBC has always been noted by those in the know.

This year’s honoree is a veteran of every WBC/Avaloncon or “Doncon” as he calls them. A past winner of many tournaments, this “grognard” has nothing left to prove and stopped pursuing “wood” a long time ago. The antithesis of the “win at any costs" gamer, he makes the annual trek all the way from the wilds of Alaska every year to “game till he drops” for a solid week. He also foots the bill for various and sundry assorted relatives to make the pilgrimage for an annual gaming family reunion.

Moreover, he is the first to volunteer for any task and would GM the entire convention if we let him as proven yet again this year when he took the reins of Grognardcon to extend WBC to a full nine days for all his fellow wargamers who can't enough of the old classic hex wargames. As such he will be performing GM chores in absentia for the early Preliminary rounds of no less than eight wargames using the Free Form format he invented and popularized at WBC until their regular GMs arrive on Tuesday. It is fitting then that Bruno Sinigaglio should be our guest at WBC 2006 as our Sportsman of the Year.

The 2005 Sportsmanship voting by the membership was the heaviest ever recorded so Katie McCorry should be pleased with her second place finish and a vote total that would have won the award in any prior year. Rounding out the top six finalists—all with double digit vote totals—were Stuart Tucker, Bob Jamelli, Keith Hunsinger and Charles Stucker in that order.

WBC Sportsmanship Winners

Chuck Stapp 1992 - NJ	Tiger Von Pagel 1993 - FL	Rob Kilroy 1994 - PA	Ian Lange 1995 - AE	Jim Matt 1996 - MI
Ed Connery 1997 - NJ	Frank Sinigaglio 1999 - NJ	Robert Sacks 2000- NY	Bret Hildebran 2001 - OH	Kaarin Engelmann 2002 - VA
James Jordan 2003 - MD	Steve Okonski 2004 - MD	Bruno Sinigaglio 2005 - AK