TRURO, N.S. – New members will be enshrined into the Colchester County Sports Hall of Fame this fall.
They include Dennis Peterson, Justin Palardy, Denise Caughey and the 2002 Truro Bearcats senior baseball team. The induction ceremony will be Friday, Nov. 1 at the Marigold Cultural Centre, 605 Prince St., Truro. Doors open at 6 p.m. for a 7 p.m. ceremony start. An open reception will follow.
Tickets can be purchased online through Ticket Pro, or at the Marigold Cultural Centre box office. For further information, contact Sara McKenna at 902-957-0084.
Each week leading up to the ceremony, the Truro News will highlight inductees.
Justin Palardy
Justin Palardy had an outstanding football career.
He played in the Truro minor association with the peewee Bombers and bantam Freightliners, before joining the CEC Cougars high school team. He was awarded rookie of the year in 2003 and was named to the NSSAF all-star team three times as a punter and twice as a placekicker.
From 2002 to 2005, Justin played on Team Nova Scotia as a member of the U15 and U17 teams. He competed on the national stage with Nova Scotia twice, and in 2005, was named to the Canada Cup all-star team and received the special teams player of the tournament award.
Justin capped off his minor league football career by being named the IKON Sport Nova Scotia male team athlete of the year for Nova Scotia Football in 2006.
From 2006 to 2009, Justin attended Saint Mary’s University. He played four seasons at Saint Mary's where he earned a spot on the AUS all-star team three times as a placekicker and twice as a punter. In his rookie season with the Huskies, Justin was awarded the SMU and AUS rookie of the year award and was a nominee for the Peter Gorman Award (CIS Rookie of the Year). He connected on 65 of 84 field goal attempts and etched his name into the AUS record book by kicking the most field goals (65), converts (119) and points (320) in a career, and kicked the most field goals (23) in a season.
Justin broke five Saint Mary’s kicking records along with leading the AUS in scoring in 2006 and 2007, and in 2009 he led both the AUS and CIS in scoring. He capped off the 2009 season by being named to the CIS All Canadian Team (2nd Team) and winning the SMU football MVP award. Justin was a member of the Huskies when they won three straight AUS championships (2007-2009) and in 2007. Throughout Justin’s career with the Huskies, he was the recipient of the James McPherson Memorial Scholarship and achieved his university degree in 2011.
In 2010, Justin was drafted into the CFL by the Hamilton Tiger Cats in the fifth round, 36th overall. He cracked the starting roster with the Tiger Cats out of training camp and was named the team’s starting punter. After five games, he was released and picked up by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, where he played for four seasons. In 2010, Justin set the Blue Bombers single-season record for placekicking accuracy with 86.7 per cent, a feat he would equal in 2012.
Justin would later spend time with the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Ottawa Red Blacks. In 2015, he signed with the Toronto Argonauts. While with the Argos, Justin played both placekicker and punter throughout the season and was able to surpass 500 career points. Justin finished his CFL career with an 81.3 field goal percentage, ranking him the seventh most accurate kicker in CFL history.
In 2015, Justin returned home to Truro to coach the Freightliners for one season, in which they won the provincial Tier 1 title.
Following the 2015 season, he enrolled in the Atlantic Police Academy where he went on to graduate with the Hood Crossman Award (top cadet) and the Harvey O. Brown Award (top academic). He is now a police officer with the Halifax Regional Police Service.
Last year, Justin returned to the coaching ranks and joined the Dalhousie Tigers football team as a special teams and offensive assistant coach. The Tigers finished the 2018 AFL season undefeated and won the league championship.
