Moosomin hoping to be finalist for Kraft Hockeyville

February 6, 2018, 3:00 am
Kevin Weedmark

A group of people in Moosomin is hoping to get enough support to make the town of Moosomin a finalist in Kraft Hockeyville.

Kraft Hockeyville is a competition designed to find which Canadian hockey community stands above all the others. The competition aims to rally people together to show their community hockey pride. The winning community receives a $250,000 grand prize in arena upgrades, as well an NHL pre-season game. Runners up in the competition—second, third and fourth place—each receive $25,000.

The online nomination process has started, and a group of Moosomin residents has entered Moosomin into the competition in hopes the town will become a finalist.

Four finalist communities will be selected—two from the east and two from the west—and will go head to head in online voting for Canadians to decide who will be the next Kraft Hockeyville and win the grand prize.

In order to become a finalist, people must go online to show their support. However the deadline for submissions is coming soon—on Feb. 11.

“We were talking about how much work our rink needs and happened to see a commercial about it,” says Summer Heide, who decided to enter Moosomin into the competition.

Judging will take place Feb. 12 to March 16, but before that happens Heide says people need to go online to the Kraft Hockeyville website and share stories, photos or videos, post notes, or share the rally page in order to show that Moosomin deserves to be a finalist.

“Add your stand-out story to nominate your arena and then keep an eye on the scoreboard to watch the people and spirit of your community unite around photos, videos, notes, reacting to posts and sharing your rally page on Twitter,” says the Kraft Hockeyville website.

“That gives us bonus points,” says Heide. “Ultimately they read through all the nominations and pick who they think should get it.

“This is the first year they have the rally points, so every time somebody shares a picture or a video from our rink, or shares their own story of what they think our rink needs, or their own team spirit means to them or our community, and each share on Facebook or Twitter gives us a rally point. It just brings more attention to our rink. Every time someone gives us a rally point it just helps out a little bit more.”

Heide says the Moosomin Communiplex is an unbelievably busy rink, and the money, if Moosomin were to win, could be put to good use.

“My daughter’s hockey team practices are in Welwyn every once and awhile because there are three teams her age, and they don’t get to practice on their own, so it’s kind of nice to go on their own and get to learn passing with their teammates that they play with all the time. It is probably pretty unique for a small town to have such a big group of players. I think this year is the most kids in minor hockey.

“I think the rink is the centre of our community, especially in the winter time. A lot of families spend a lot of their days at the rink. I know we live there pretty much, it seems like. It would be nice to have some work done to it and make it to be a nice place while we’re there.

“This is our first year in hockey. We can see that down the road, it is going to need some attention so that we can continue to enjoy the time with our family there and with all the other families that you get to know there too.”

Moosomin rec director Mike Schwean says there are a few places the $250,000 could go if Moosomin were to win.

“If we got it, and if it if was just up to me, we’d put new boards and plexiglass and a new centre ice score clock in,” he says.

He added that there has also been some talk from Moosomin Minor Hockey about covering the outdoor ice surface at Bradley Park so it could be used as an additional rink with shelter.

“It would be $300,000 just for a shell, and they are both great projects,” he says.

To show support of Moosomin in Kraft Hockeyville, people can visit the website at www.krafthockeyville.ca, then click on “find my arena,” enter the name of the town and province, and select the Moosomin Communiplex. There they will be able to add a story, share the rally page, add a photo or video, or post a note in support of Moosomin.

They can also go to Moosomin’s pagehttps://www.krafthockeyville.ca/#community/11E7E6A985E00700BCD2BB3AEA662A63