Girls’ teams back in the mix at Hockey for Hospice
The popular Hockey for Hospice tournament became collateral damage in a provincial rule change that threatened to bar all-girl teams from playing in the 21st annual event this December.
Only an 11th-hour intervention by Fran Rider, president of the Ontario Women’s Hockey Association, has allowed the tournament to receive a special sanction allowing girls back on the ice.
“It’s the best news scenario,” said Laura Lemmon, communications specialist for Hospice. “Those girls are great little fundraisers.”
Paul Pietraszko confirmed Thursday that the OWHA issued an exemption that morning.
Lemmon said the website would be adjusted accordingly, allowing all-girls’ teams to begin registering for the Dec. 27-29 event. Registration opened Sept. 6.
Until Thursday, the website directed interested coaches of any all-girls’ teams to a letter of explanation as to why they weren’t eligible for the 2016 tourney.
Last February, the OWHA sent out an email to all its members outlining a new regulation that limits the number of OWHA-sanctioned tournaments each association is allowed to one at the house-league level and one at the travel level.
Earlier this month, those coaching girls’ teams informed interested players and parents that a rule change brought down by the OWHA would no longer allow them to participate in Hockey for Hospice.
Lori Clarke, president of Sun Parlour Female Hockey Association, said they contacted the OWHA right after the provincial memo went out about the change.
“We said, ‘Listen we’ve got a problem,’ ” Clarke said.
Since the tournament is a charity event, it’s not part of any association and therefore can’t apply on its own for OWHA sanctioning.
Sun Parlour always applied on its behalf. With the new limit, Sun Parlour was forced to use its only house-league sanction on its own annual tournament.
“We use our tournament to raise money, which we need to keep going,” Clarke said. “I’ve got 400 girls to take care of.”
A girls’ team can’t play in an event if it’s not sanctioned by the OWHA, but despite the dilemma, the response from the OWHA was “rules are rules,” said Clarke.
Rider wasn’t aware of how the new rule adversely affected the charity tournament until contacted by the Windsor Star.
“We’ve sanctioned it centrally which we’ve done for other charity events in the past,” Rider said. “It’s great for the community and it’s great for the girls to be part of something bigger than their team, it’s about giving back to the community. “It’s a win-win.” Rider said they haven’t yet got to the bottom of why Sun Parlour received such a dismissive response back in February.
Moving forward, she said the entire issue of sanctions for charity events will be revisited by the OWHA board of directors.
“It will certainly be on our agenda,” Rider said.
She said the regulation was implemented to curtail certain associations from hosting numerous sanctioned tournaments.
Hockey for Hospice has become a holiday tradition for thousands of house-league players and their families in Essex County. Held annually for the past 20 years, it’s raised more than $2.3 million total for Hospice.