Prince Rupert rallying around Hockeyville quest

It's Game on for the North Coast as
Prince Rupert responds to the
Kraft Hockeyville campaign

The North Coast is putting it's best skate forward as Prince Rupert residents continue to submit nomination after nomination, as local hockey fans put the community's name forward for consideration in the annual Kraft Hockeyville competition.

As we noted on the blog last week, the competition was launched at the start of the month, with one of the first submissions that was put into motion from the Northwest coming from Masset, which outlined the Haida Gwaii quest to add a refrigeration unit to the roller rink in the community.

Shortly after that contribution to the Hockeyville data base, the first of the Prince Rupert submissions began to appear, the first two belonging Jennifer Nelson and Kelly Clifton who were among the early boosters for the North Coast on the Kraft Hockeyville site.

Since then however, it's been quite the task to keep up to date on the flow of submissions to the project.

With Prince Rupert hockey fans flooding the ice if you will, with a range of testimonials as to why our community should be the next one selected for the $100,000 in renovations for the Jin Ciccone Civic Centre and the opportunity to host an NHL pre season game.

Prince Rupert is responding to the call to
share the word on why this community
should be the 2017 selection
for Kraft Hockeyville

So far, there are over fifty submissions from Prince Rupert added to the Kraft Hockeyville website providing some glowing  testimony to the love of hockey in the community and how Prince Rupert should be in the running for the Hockeyville title!

We've been tracking the growing list through the week and making additions as fast as we can, but we'll be honest, the volume of entries is proving to be such that keeping the page updated is one of the bigger challenges for the blog in recent months.

(Not that we mind, as we don't!)

We'll continue to work our way through the daily reports from the Kraft Hockeyville site to add to our archive, and we welcome the challenge of keeping up that pace right through to the end of the nomination period on February 5th.

Residents of the North Coast can continue to submit a nomination for Prince Rupert here and remember, the more nominations, the more notice that the efforts from Prince Rupert will get from across Canada.

Your contribution can be a simple outline of why hockey is part of the fabric of the community, or it take on some of the impressive video presentations that have been included by some of the nomination pages.

Regardless of the approach you chose, get creative and submit, submit, submit!

You can review what the community has offered up so far  from our archive page here.

To get a glimpse of the overall competition. a look at the Kraft Hockeyville home page can be reviewed here, while the list of all competitors from across Canada can be examined here.

You can also get involved on twitter, a local twitter page has been created and you can share the word and the work of the community through the twitter handle of #PrinceRupertisHockeyville2017

There is also a Prince Rupert for Hockeyville Facebook page where those taking part in the nomination process can share some thoughts and organize get togethers to move the campaign forward.

For quick access to the list as we update it, our Update page is listed in our North Coast Extra Editions feature found on the right hand side of the blog.

Kraft Hockeyville campaign underway, with Haida Gwaii the first in Northwest to submit a community bid

The annual Kraft Hockeyville campaign is now underway launched earlier this week, and already attracting a string of submissions from across Canada from communities looking to claim the first prize of 100,000 dollars for rink renovations, as well as the prospect of a visit from a pair of NHL teams.

As of this morning, 27 submissions have been entered from British Columbia, with the only one from the Northwestern part of the province to this point coming from Masset on Haida Gwaii, with a quest to add a refrigeration unit to the community's John Lalonde roller rink

As the submission by Derick Chutter from Haida Gwaii notes, hockey is still a passion on the Islands despite the lack of ice, with a collection of old timers making the trek to Prince Rupert and Kitimat each year to compete in Northwest tournaments. As he outlines from the Kraft Hockeyville submission page, he believes that an ice rink would be a valuable addition to life in Masset.

We have been a hockey community for as long as I can remember, but here's the funny thing.. we don't have an ice rink, we have a roller rink. (The John Lalonde roller rink) in Masset, BC, a rink that was built in 1994, and was used a lot between 1994-2000. It was then sadly abandoned and abused for years after John had moved. A group of us decided to clean the building up and use it again in 2005 to play roller hockey. 

We have an old timers ice hockey team that goes off to Prince Rupert, and kitimat every year to compete in tournaments and we'd love nothing more than to have an ice rink here on Haida Gwaii. I know it's far fetched and there are many other great communities out there that deserve "ice rink" upgrades, but what do we have to lose. Right now, it's pretty cold out and we've been pretty lucky that one of our lakes has froze over about 7 inches. The amount of people playing shinny and skating, has me believing that this island is in need of an ice rink.

You can check out the Haida Gwai proposal here.

The rink in Masset sees some
unusual things but with no 
refrigeration unit in place
hockey isn't on the schedule
(photo from Facebook)

More background on what the Kraft Hockeyville competition is all about can be found from the Kraft Hockeyville website here.

Nominations close on February 5th, with the Top Ten Announcement to come on March 4th.

The first of the online voting for the successful nominees will be March 12 and 13.

A second voting period will take place on March 19 and 20, with the Announcement of Kraft Hockeyville 2017 to be made on April 1st.

And while the cross Canada competition is tough, the task is not beyond reach, just ask the folks in Terrace who successfully pulled together to rally the community to the cause, receiving over 1.9 million votes during the competition and claiming the Kraft Hoceyville title in 2009.

In addition to the top prize put to use on rink facilities in the community, Terrace played host to an exhibition game between the Vancouver Canucks and New York Islanders.

Time however is key when it comes to getting a community's name out there, with only a short period to get a submission in, those around the Northwest looking to enter the annual event need to put their plans in motion fast.

The nomination page for Kraft Hockeyville can be found here.

Should we see more updates on Northwest communities in the hunt for the top prize we'll be sure to share them here. We'll also put a link up at our Extra Editions feature.

While the competition continues on towards the February deadline, we invite you to check out some of our notes on Minor Hockey across the Northwest from our archive page here.