Joey Payeur
Those spearheading the charge to have Fort Frances crowned as Kraft “Hockeyville” 2014 won’t be caught unprepared should the community make it to the next round of the nation-wide competition.
A meeting was held Saturday night at the Memorial Sports Centre to come up with a plan on how best to generate support for Fort Frances should it be named as one of the top 16 communities to advance to the second stage during the March 8 broadcast of CBC’s “Hockey Night in Canada.”
Online voting will start at 10 p.m. (CST) the night of the announcement and local bid organizer Jonathan Glueheisen doesn’t want a single second to go to waste.
“We have to recognize that this contest will be different than the [Kraft] Celebration Tour we won last year,” he noted.
“There will be no delay when it comes to the vote [which runs until 10:59 p.m. local time on March 10].
“Therefore, we must act as if we know we are going to be announced as a contender even though I really think we are,” Glueheisen added.
“We need to be ready,” he stressed.
Fort Frances finished the first stage of the contest with 266 members having joined its community page on the “Hockeyville” website, along with 365 video or story uploads.
According to Glueheisen, that put the Fort fourth among communities in the West bracket in both members and uploads.
Sylvan Lake, Alta. led both categories with a whopping 1,966 members and 2,120 uploads, followed by Salmon Arm, B.C. (893/752) and Castlegar, B.C. (463/589).
Those named as one of the top 16 communities—eight from the West and eight from the East—automatically will receive $25,000 in upgrades to their respective arenas.
The overall winner will receive $100,000 in arena upgrades, the opportunity to host an NHL pre-season game, and have a CBC crew visit their community to record the day’s events.
Glueheisen said the idea came up at Saturday’s meeting to connect with those who led last summer’s successful “Kraft Celebration Tour” bid on how to set up another online voting station like the one hosted at the Fort Frances Curling Club that proved so effective in Fort Frances’ winning the head-to-head showdown against Dryden.
“We will also be needing a venue,” noted Glueheisen.
“We know we can make use of places that have Wi-Fi for their customers to do voting, such as Tim Hortons, McDonald’s, and Boston Pizza,” he said.
“But we would like to create a 48-hour voting station like the curling rink did.
Should Fort Frances make the top 16, and then garner enough votes to advance to the top four, Glueheisen said a second online vote will happen the following weekend (March 15-17).
The third and final round of online voting—to determine the overall winner between the top community in the East and West—is set for March 22-24.
“Basically, what I’m saying is we could be looking at possibly three weekends of voting back-to-back,” said Glueheisen. “So we would be needing a venue we can go back to three times.
“We would have the voting station manned for the complete 48 hours, with people just basically voting over and over again as it is an unlimited vote,” he explained.
In related news, Community Services manager Jason Kabel already has been contacted by representatives from Kraft and submitted details on the local arena’s suitability for hosting the pre-season game.
Glueheisen, meanwhile, plans to reach out to the Fort Frances Minor Hockey Association, the Fort Frances Lakers, and the Border Skating Club for their support in getting the word out about the upcoming announcement and the possible subsequent need for substantial online voting by the public.
“If we ignore the announcement, we lose all chances of advancing into the bigger-money rounds and the excuse will be, ‘I didn’t know,’” he stressed.
A second organizational meeting in advance of the March 8 announcement will be held this coming Monday (Feb. 24) at 7 p.m. at the Memorial Sports Centre.
Anyone interested in helping out is urged to attend.
