Table tennis and archery will be front and centre at the 40th annual Sport Yukon Awards Night later this week.

Two of the sports’ greats – Kevin Murphy and Les Johns – will enter the Sport Yukon Hall of Fame Thursday night during a ceremony at the Yukon Convention Centre.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. with the program getting underway at 7.

Murphy is a 20-time men’s singles champion, winning his latest title last year at the age of 57.

The longtime coach is also known for singlehandedly keeping the sport alive when it was dropped from the Arctic Winter Games slate for a decade in the ’80s.

Johns, meanwhile, has played a vital role in developing archery in Yukon, and at 71, continues to be the face of the sport in the territory.

Major awards honouring Yukon’s top athletes will also be handed out during the event.

Elite curler Thomas Scoffin will be named National/Territorial Male Athlete of the Year after earning a national Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) title last March.

The Whitehorse Bantam Mustangs will win Team of the Year, after earning Yukon’s first Tier 3 BC Hockey provincial championship banner.

All other categories feature multiple nominees.

Figure skater Rachel Pettitt will be up against cross-country skier Kendra Murray and rising biathlete star Nadia Moser in the National/Territorial Female Athlete of the Year category.

Special Olympics runner Darby McIntyre and cross-country skier Knute Johnsgaard will both vie for the International Male Athlete of the Year award.

And three cross-country skiers – Emily Nishikawa, Dahria Beatty and Annah Hanthorn – are up for International Female Athlete of the Year, alongside swimmer Bronwyn Pasloski.

Additionally, Dennis and Laurie Jacobsen of Biathlon Yukon are up against Judo Yukon’s Aaron Jensen for Coach of the Year honours, while Sherillynne Himmelsbach of the Yukon Horse and Rider Association is nominated alongside Bonnie Love of Athletics Yukon for Administrator of the Year.

“Major award nominations are decided on by a Sport Yukon committee consisting of both board members and YTG Sport and Rec branch staff,” explained Sandra Freese, programs and events co-ordinator at Sport Yukon.