• Competed in varsity football and hockey (1936-40).
• Two-way football player and all-star hockey defenceman.
• Twice a Wilson Challenge Trophy winner (1939 and 1940).
• Played for the Chicago Blackhawks (1940-41) before serving for three years in the Canadian military.
• Served 30 years in BC's Okanagan region as a player, coach, and organizer in minor hockey.

Dave (Red) MacKay (B Sc - Mining Engineering, '40) was born in Innisfail, Alberta, and spent his early years there and in Pincher Creek. He epitomized the most successful athletes of his era in that he competed in whatever sport the season called for. At Strathcona High School in Edmonton he was a standout in trade baseball, hockey, and golf. In 1936 he entered the University of Alberta to study mining engineering, On “Varsity” teams-as Alberta's teams were called before adopting the Golden Bears nickname in the mid-'40's - he continued his multi-sport pattern and was a force in football and hockey. In a day when football players went both ways Red MacKay was a hard-running back fielder who could be counted on in short-yardage situations on offense, and on defence he was a tenacious linebacker.

But his best sport was hockey where his speed, size, puck -handling and game sense made him one of the best defencemen ever to play for this university. In the fall of 1939, when the Edmonton Flyers of the powerful Western Canada Senior League, needed a blueliner to strengthen a roster depleted by enlistments in the Canadian Armed Forces, Vanity Captain Red MacKay stepped in and according to the game accounts, "starred" at that level too. The same season he was a western university All-Star and in the final game for the Halpenny Trophy, chalked up 5-points, to add to Don Stanley's 8, in leading Alberta to the championship. In both 1939 and 1940 he won the Wilson Trophy as the outstanding male athlete on campus.

In the fall of 1940, he attended the Chicago Blackhawk's camp, a powerhouse team that included two future NHL Hall of Famers, Max Bendy, and Earl Seibert Dave was a stalwart on the "Hawks" blueline that season. In 1941 he cut short a promising NHL career to serve three years in the Canadian Army Engineers. He played senior hockey in Nanaimo, New Westminster, and in Vernon, B.C., where he and his wife Phyllis settled down to raise three children, Bonnie (Houston), Susan (Cunningham), and Donald. He was dubbed "Mr. Hockey" in the Okanagan and received numerous honours for his three decades of community service as a player, coach and organizer in minor hockey.

He brought the dedication that had made him a successful athlete to his professional activities as city engineer in Vernon, a job he held for more than 20 years. A man of his times, he shifted smoothly from work as a conventional mining engineer to accommodate the growing concerns for conservation and protection of the environment. On his retirement, the city set up a continuing scholarship to assist a Vernon-area student to pursue an engineering degree.

Among his many honours are: Vernon Sportsman of the Year, 1969; B.C. Environment Ministry Achievement Award, 1977; Meritorious Service Award of the B.C. Association of Engineers, 1978; and Award of Merit for the Kalamalka Wood Lake Study. He died in 1980.