History of FENB

History of Fencing in New Brunswick

The provincial fencing association was officially established as the New Brunswick Fencing Association in 1969 and its founding president was Alfred Knappe.

Alfred Knappe began fencing while a teenager in the city of Hof in West Germany in 1950.  In the spring of 1955 he emigrated to Canada and settled in Fredericton.  In 1966 he was invited to coach at the newly formed fencing club at the University of New Brunswick where he was working at the time.  In1967 Alfred represented NB at the National Fencing Championships in Montreal and at the Eastern Canadian Championships at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia in 1968.   Here he met Gabriel Timar who had just started a club in Saint John.  A club had also started up in St. Andrews.  Alfred gathered representatives from these three clubs in 1969 with the result that the New Brunswick Fencing Association was born and Alfred was elected as its first President.

New Brunswick’s first fencing tournament was the New Brunswick Championships held at the Fredericton YMCA on March 21, 1970 in conjunction with the New Brunswick Winter Games.  It was a men’s foil event involving six fencers: Rick Gosselin, Bob Pottle and Bill MacDonald from the Saint John YMCA club and Alan Muzzerall, Kevin Montague and Brian Grimley from Fredericton.  Rick Gosselin emerged as the first NB Provincial Champion.