“I don’t know what it is like to win the Stanley Cup, but it’s got to be something like this. It has to be,” O’Leary Hockeyville committee member Jo-Anne Wallace commented after composing herself from the euphoria of hearing O’Leary being declared Kraft Hockeyville 2017.
Community Sports Centre in ‘O’Hockeyville’ was packed Saturday night when the announcement came down live during Sportsnet’s Hockey Night in Canada pre-game show. O’Leary wins the coveted prize, the Kraft Hockeyville Cup and the opportunity to host an NHL pre-season game in September.
By being named a finalist two weeks ago, O’Leary also receives $100,000 for arena upgrades.
New Jersey Devils and Ottawa Senators will treat this year’s Hockeyville champion to an exhibition game on September 25.
The location of the game will be determined during meetings with the Hockeyville committee next week, but the committee has indicated it really wants that game to be played in O’Leary.
“I was just wanting to win it for the kids and for this community,” said Della Sweet after accepting the Hockeyville Cup on behalf of her committee and all of O’Leary’s supporters.
Sweet said she wasn’t nervous as she waited on the ananouncement with Sportsnet Central’s anchor, Ken Reid.
“I just thought we couldn’t do any more. If Ituna (Saskatchewan, the Western Canada finalist) beat us, good for them, because we couldn’t have worked any harder; our community couldn’t have been any more supportive,” Sweet said of her ‘whatever happens happens’ approach.
She praised the committee which also consisted of Wallace, Tammy Rix, Bill MacKendrick, Dean Getson and David Peters.
“They are just an amazing group of people, a lot of fun and terrible hard workers. When they set their minds to it, they can do anything.”
“It’s been amazing,” Rix added. “Although exhausting, we’re really having a great time doing this and the community has been great and everyone is wonderful, and I’m so glad we could contribute this way to the community and make memories for these kids.”
Wallace continued her Stanley Cup analogy: “You’ve got a great team working on it around you, much like the Stanley Cup, and you come out victorious over almost 3,000 entries. It is not a small feat; it’s been a journey. It’s been a playoff run and now we’ve got the cup. We’ve got the Hockeyville Cup.”
