Hundreds of Osoyoos residents made their way to the Sun Bowl Arena on Monday, Jan. 30 for the final push to have Osoyoos declared CBC Kraft Hockeyville. It is now up to residents to visit the Hockeyville website and vote for Osoyoos before the finalists are declared. Osoyoos was in first place in the Pacific region of B.C. as of Tuesday morning. Photo by Mathew White
Hundreds of Osoyoosites made their way to the Sun Bowl Arena Monday night for the final push to have Osoyoos declared CBC Kraft Hockeyville.
“This is the final push to get in the finals, which I’m sure we will,” said Cathy Martins, a local hockey fanatic who has been leading Osoyoos through this Hockeyville journey. “Now everybody’s got to vote, vote, vote like crazy to get us to win the $100,000.”
“It’s exciting and I’m so glad everybody has been so supportive in the past week.”
A large crowd of over 200 local residents showed up at the arena Monday evening for a group photo and video shoot, which will be uploaded to the Kraft Hockeyville website, before contest organizers decide which communities across the country are moving on to the finals.
Even if Osoyoos doesn’t win the grand prize of $100,000 to upgrade the Sun Bowl Arena and the pre-season NHL game, Martins said just making it to the finals will guarantee the arena a $25,000 upgrade.
Decked out from head to toe in his Osoyoos Coyotes gear, Councillor Mike Plante said it’s wonderful to see the community come together like this.
“You can see it right here, this is something we can take pride in as a community,” said Plante. “All the people that come out here from our community, you can see they want to support this team and support this arena.
“To see this turn out, I can tell you right now that Cathy Martins, we have to give her a lot of props for actually starting this and we can now see the town starting to support this idea too and we can be Hockeyville. We can make this happen.”
January 31 was the deadline for submissions to the Hockeyville contest and now it’s up to people to go to the website and vote for Osoyoos to be in the finals.
Martins said the voting lasts roughly two weeks before the finalists are decided.
As of press time Tuesday morning, Osoyoos remained in first place for the pacific region. The Kraft Hockeyville website can be found at http://krafthockeyville.cbc.ca/.
