Super Bowl champ Laurent Duvernay-Tardif appointed to Order of Canada
Posted December 18, 2024 10:28 am.
Last Updated December 18, 2024 2:18 pm.
Doctor and former football player Laurent Duvernay-Tardif is one of the new members appointed to the Order of Canada on Wednesday.
Duvernay-Tardif is the first NFLer born in Quebec to win the Super Bowl.
According to Canada’s Governor General, Mary Simon, Duvernay-Tardif received this honour because he embodies “team spirit on the football field and in everyday life.”
The Governor General said she recognized his nine-season NFL career, his decision to forgo a season to fight COVID-19 and his work with his foundation.
This is a new honour for the 33-year-old, who has been a Knight on the National Order of Quebec since 2019.
In the NFL, Duvernay-Tardif played with the Kansas City Chiefs from 2014 to 2021 and with the New York Jets for part of the 2021 and 2022 seasons. He won Super Bowl LIV with the Chiefs in 2020.
Alongside his career on the field, Duvernay-Tardif continued his studies in medicine, graduating from McGill University in 2018.
In 2020, he made international headlines when he chose to forgo the NFL season to fight the COVID-19 pandemic in long-term care homes – just months after winning the Super Bowl. He was later named Sports Illustrated’s Person of the Year.
Since retiring, Duvernay-Tardif has continued to work with his foundation, which promotes the educational success of young people by promoting physical activity and the arts.
Duvernay-Tardif is one of the 88 new members who were announced to the Order of Canada this week.
“Deadpool” actor Ryan Reynolds, Holocaust survivor and awareness leader Mariette Doduck, geneticist David Chitayat, curler Kevin Martin and Canadian singer-songwriter Heather Rankin also received the honour.
The Order of Canada aims to recognize the “extraordinary” contribution of Canadians to their country. It was created in 1967.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
