HockeyHockeyville helps rebuild community spirit

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There is a hockey crisis in this country that many people may not know about and it's affecting how many young people enroll in hockey every year. In some areas of Canada, kids are actually being turned away from hockey because of this issue.

The fact is that many of the arenas across this country are falling apart. So many of these rinks, especially in the small towns of Canada, were built in the early- to mid-1900s and are no longer safe to have hockey being played under their roofs.

With the help of the NHL, CBC and Kraft, this major problem in hockey across Canada is slowly being fixed. The Kraft Hockeyville program has been a brilliant idea, not only from a marketing perspective, but also from a pure hockey perspective. It is helping to refurbish arenas as well as introduce and keep young kids in the game of hockey.

Sense of spirit

This Saturday, the winner of Kraft Hockeyville 2010 will be revealed during the second game on Hockey Night in Canada. There have been so many fun entries year after year and every single one of them has the right to call themselves Hockeyville. I have yet to encounter one centre that hasn't shown a complete passion for the game.

Unfortunately there will only be one winner announced on Saturday night, but for those towns that have made it to the Top 5, the second through fifth-place finishers will receive a $25,000 cash prize to help with their community arena. The winner gets $100,000 to help upgrade their arena and the right to host an NHL pre-season game.

Now, you are probably thinking that no big-name players make it to the pre-season game, but that is not true.

Willie Mitchell and Kevin Bieksa from the Vancouver Canucks made it to Terrace, B.C. last year and even though they did not play against the Islanders, they spent countless hours in the community. Tomas Plekanec made it out to Roberval, Que., for the Montreal Canadiens and did play in the game. It truly has been fun to watch the NHL stars interact with the people in the communities across Canada. I believe it reminds them of what it was like to play back in their hometown as a kid.

Centre of the community

The Kraft Hockeyville project has made an impact. It has brought communities who have gone through tough times together to accomplish a common goal. It has brought back hometown heroes like Glenn Hall to Humboldt, Sask. It has given those of us who travel with the project some pretty fun times, like fly fishing in Terrace, B.C. or being "Screeched in" Newfoundland.

But the one thing Kraft Hockeyville has had the biggest impact with is rebuilding and maintaining old arenas that have been the foundation of the communities they are in.

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