Glenn Witherspoon
Dear editor:
Sports rivalry . . . does it exist locally? Apparently not in the eyes or thoughts of our local high school principal, Peggy Keffer.
She claims her administration, including the Muskie boys’ hockey coach and athletic director, do not want to play the International Falls Broncos due to the fact that someone may get hurt.
She has stated that it is not the player who will get hurt, but that students and fans may be injured by flying bottles or fights breaking out.
If that is the case, why not more security or adult supervision at games?
If you do nothing, nothing will happen. Some would say it is an easy way out for an event that many look forward to every year.
The Muskie girls’ hockey team plays the Broncos’ girls’ hockey team twice a year . . . once in the Falls and the other here in the Fort. If we allow the girls’ program to play the Falls and not the boys, is that not discriminatory toward the boys’ program?
When the Fort and Falls boys’ hockey teams met in 1964, few could have imagined that it was the beginning of a rivalry. The games between our two towns representing the United States and Canada grew bigger than that of what Canada and Russia was thought to have been.
Yes, folks, it all started right here in Borderland—Canada vs. the U.S.A.!
In closing, I asked the boys’ hockey coach why he did not want to play the Broncos and he told me that he wanted to play them and if I had heard differently, it was not true.
Hopefully, local hockey fans now know where the problem starts and finishes . . . right here in the Fort High principal’s office.
It is time to renew our tradition that has been stopped by one person who does not know or understand sports rivalry.
(Signed),
Glenn Witherspoon,
Former mayor
and life member
of Fort Frances
Minor Hockey,
Fort Frances, Ont.
