Fundraising twist for P.E.I. rink

N.S. HOCKEY GROUP WITHDRAWS FROM HOCKEYVILLE COMPETITION TO SUPPORT RIVAL

A minor hockey organization in Nova Scotia has withdrawn its entry from a national competition for funding, saying it is throwing its support behind a small P.E.I. town that lost its rink to a fire a few days after Christmas.

Jamie Munroe, a hockey dad with the Sackville Flyers Minor Hockey Association, said when he learned last week that the Tyne Valley Community Sports Centre had been destroyed Dec. 29, he decided to take action.

“I was thinking about how they don’t even have a rink now,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “We have two rinks in Lower Sackville. Yes, they need upgrades, but our kids can still play there.”

The winner of the annual Kraft Hockeyville contest, which focuses on building community spirit, will receive $250,000 for arena upgrades and an NHL pre-season hockey game.

Competing communities are awarded points for stories, photos and videos shared on social media. Nominations opened Jan. 1.

Munroe, who works at a sporting goods store in Lower Sackville, said he was at a tournament in Prince Edward Island last weekend with his nine-year-old son Cooper when a man at the rink told him about the fire in Tyne Valley. The man — another hockey dad — told Munroe he was also a volunteer firefighter.

“He sat there and watched his rink burn to the ground,” Munroe said.

Munroe pulled Sackville’s bid this past Sunday, a day after hundreds of people gathered outside the gutted Tyne Valley arena to show their support for the community’s Hockeyville bid.

Munroe posted a video on Facebook showing the boisterous rally in the snowcovered parking lot.