With hopes of a rep level U18 (Midget) team forming in Tumbler Ridge, council has extended how long the ice will remain in the arena.
The ice at the arena will remain on until April 15. That’s good news for folks looking for something to do, as the pool is currently in its annual shutdown.
The pool closed early—on March 16—due to mechanical issues, and is expected to reopen July 1.
While council is hoping to see the arena get plenty of use by the public, the reason for the decision is the hope of a new hockey team.
Monty Hendrickson is a Tumbler Ridge Minor Hockey board member and parent of a local U18-aged kid who plays out of town. He says there are eight players from Tumbler Ridge who played U18 hockey out of town, as well as five other players who either didn’t play out of town, or who will be aging into the group, for a total of 13 potential team members.
He’s hoping to hold a tryout in mid-April with these players, as well as possibly attracting other players from the area to join the team for an “ID Skate”, which is simply a chance for the newly forming team to identify potential players, both in town and out.
The most likely source for out-of-town players would be from Chetwynd, as Dawson Creek and Fort St. John already have U18 teams of their own.
The team would be a rep-level team, which is a more competitive style of play than a house league team.
“It’s been 18 plus years since we’ve had a rep-level midget team like this, so this would be kind of a special thing,” he says. “We want to really push hard this year to try and get some good sponsorships and try to get going with this team of kids.”
He says if this is to happen, they would have to have the team pulled together by September 20. He’s hoping all 13 Tumbler Ridge players will try out for the team, which would be a perfect number. “The rules say you need a minimum of eight platers and a goalie, I think we would need 12 plus a goalie to really make it work and to have enough kids. The maximum is 21.”
He says he’s pursuing getting a rep team in town because the kids who are playing out of town are used to the higher level of play. “If it was a house league, we’d lose a lot of kids. The reason why they’re playing out is for that level of hockey. If we just end up with a house team, they wouldn’t be back here. And honestly, we wouldn’t have enough kids then to actually put an age group together for that.”
Hendickson says he’s working with the All Peace League, which has teams in both BC and Alberta. “I’ve already been in communications with that group. I’m waiting to hear back if they will accept Tumbler Ridge. We were part of that league before. If we had left on bad terms, they probably wouldn’t want us back. But we left on good terms, so it’s looking like we’re in good shape.”
He says U18 hockey can be complicated, as there are different skill levels: tier one, two, and three, with tier one being the most skilled. And the ages overlap with Junior level play, though those include players up to 21 years old. “The old valuing method would be A, AA, AAA. So now they call it tiers one, two, and three,” says Hendrickson. “Due to our community size, we would be just in a single A or a tier three, but because of the talent that we have, we’re probably going to be into a double. I don’t think we’d be fitting into a AAA level. So that puts us into the All Peace League and we’d be playing mostly in Alberta because that seems to be where most of the same level sits.”
But if that doesn’t work out, there’s a few other options available. One would be to play in the Mountain League. “That’s Prince George and south, but I’d rather go Alberta, because the teams are closer. The other option would just be a traveling tournament team. So we’d play in eight or ten tournaments through the year, and then we’d host one ourselves and we would just travel to tournaments every weekend. That’s the backup plan.”
Councillor Klikach says he coached Triple-A Hockey back in the eighties. “The cost was usually around $12,000 a kid. It must be $20,000 a kid these days.”
No, says Hendrickson. “The nice thing here is we’re going to still be under Tumbler Ridge Minor Hockey. So the ice fees are still covered under minor hockey. Jerseys are still under minor hockey. A lot of the costs are already covered.”
According to Dennis Bento, Director of Community Services & Facilities, the cost of keeping the ice on will cost about $7600.
While the motion to extend ice time this year passed, it did face some opposition, including from the mayor, who didn’t like the price tag. While some of the other councillors balked at the cost most agreed that it was worth it to have things for youth to do.
“We might not have a recovery on this cost for this year,” says Councillor Noksana, “But we will have another team here potentially, and we can negotiate fees next year.”
Councillor Hoffman says there’s no way to justify this financially. “But it does look like the organization is serious about trying to get this level of hockey here, so I would like to take the big swing and spend the extra this year to see if we can make this work in this community.”
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.