Joey Payeur
Fort Frances’ attempt to be named Kraft Hockeyville 2014 now has entered wait-’til-next-year territory.
When the top 16 communities to qualify for the next round of the competition were announced during “Hockey Night in Canada” on Saturday, local supporters found themselves on the outside looking in less than a minute after the first town was revealed.
Salmon Arm, Osoyoos, and Kimberly made up the choices from B.C. while Sylvan Lake, Bruderheim, and St. Albert got the nod in Alberta.
The map of Canada being shown on TV then quickly progressed to Saskatchewan, with Swift Current getting chosen.
That meant there was only one spot left in the West bracket, which Fort Frances was part of.
When Arborg, Man. was displayed on the screen, followed by a sudden drop of the map to southern Ontario to begin the list of the East candidates, the dream of getting $100,000 in arena upgrades—as well as hosting an NHL pre-season game this fall—dissipated in an instant.
“I personally don’t know what to say,” said local bid organizer Jon Glueheisen.
“I was actually dumbfounded when we didn’t make it,” he admitted.
“But as [my fiancée] Lisa [Stasiuk] put it, when you’re narrowing a contest from over 500 qualified communities down to 16, there are bound to be some that are disappointed.”
Glueheisen said there were “definitely factors both positive and negative” that were part of the Fort’s bid, without getting into specifics.
One of the obstacles may have been the fact the “Kraft Celebration Tour” visited Fort Frances just last August.
That may have prompted company executives to weigh the repercussions of bringing another Kraft-sponsored national sporting event to the same community in a little over a year.
The level of need for arena repairs also may have played into the decision.
The Ice For Kids Arena is only about 15 years old and not in near the state of disrepair faced by arenas in some of the other communities that were selected.
Sylvan Lake, Salmon Arm, and Osoyoos finished ahead of fourth-place Fort Frances in the West bracket in terms of the number of members who joined their respective community’s “Hockeyville” page, as well as the number of video and story uploads.
Those who made it out of the East bracket included the Ontario communities of Richmond, Prescott, Beeton, and Exeter, Chicoutimi, Que., the Nova Scotia communities of Amherst and Kingston, and Central Bedeque, P.E.I.
Glueheisen tried to take a positive approach to the situation.
“We had a fantastic turnout but there were definitely more communities with need for the money,” he reasoned.
“There are always more years and it isn’t a final word.”
