By David F. Rooney
The community’s Hockeywill 2010 bid is No. 1 in Western Canada and fourth in all of Canada. The community has an excellent chance of winning it all — but only if Revelstokians take 10 minutes out of their day to send in a story and a photo.
So far, 41 stories and 56 photos have been filed by local residents. Our closest competitors in the West are:
- Ken Trombley Arena, The Hazeltons, BC — 22 stories an 36 photos
- Arctic Ice Centre, Slave Lake, Alta — 16 stories, 334 photos
- Kaslo & District Arena, Kaslo, BC — 10 stories, 22 photos
The Yukon, Saskatchewan and Manitoba all have competing communities, but so far they have generally filed fewer than 10 stories and photos each. The picture in the Maritimes looks very similar.
However, it’s a different story in central Canada. In Ontario, supporters of the Billy Gebbie Arena in North Glengarry have posted 218 stories and 271 photos, followed by the JL Grightmire Market Street Arena in Dundas whose supporters have filed 99 stories and 133 photos.
First place in this national contest is currently held by the Leo Crepin Arena in Chateauguay, Que. Its supporters have published a whopping 489 stories and 598 photos and there are still about 50 days to go in the first round of the Kraft Hockeyville 2010 contest.
No one on the Revelstoke Hockeyville 2010 Committee expects that 500 new local stories are going to materialize overnight. But surely we can do better than 41 stories?
To spur the effort along, the Committee has created a form that has been sent to all of the city’s schools so kids can use them to write a short story. They are also being encouraged to draw a colour picture. The Committee will arrange to upload these to the contest site at www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/hockeyville.
There’s a lot at stake: $100,000 to help renovate The Forum, a nationally televised documentary on our community and an NHL exhibition game to be played at The Forum.
Revelstoke can win this… but only if YOU take 10 minutes to send in your story and photo.
They don’t have to be long — just a paragraph about what hockey, hockey culture or The Forum mean to you. The photo should be relevant in some fashion.
If you aren’t sure what to write or whether you have a story to tell, take a look at some of the ones that have already been written and posted to the Revelstoke community page at the official site at www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/hockeyville. Or read what I wrote a couple of weeks ago at https://legacy.revelstokecurrent.com//2009/11/17/how-to-write-the-perfect-well-how-about-a-great-hockeyville-story.
Speaking of support here are photos of some of the folks who came to the Committee’s Story Writing Workshop at the Community Centre on Saturday:
