Anyone who lives in this community knows that Osoyoos is a great little hockey town.
Now all of Canada knows as our town has once again reached the finals of the CBC Kraft Hockeyville contest.
Two years ago, the town was buzzing after Osoyoos was named one of the 15 finalists across Canada and one of the top three in British Columbia during the popular contest.
The labour dispute that locked out NHL players last season resulted in the Kraft Hockeyville contest being cancelled.
But the contest returned this year and is far bigger and better.
Two years ago, the winning community received a $100,000 arena upgrade and earned the right to host an NHL pre-season game.
The 2014 contest sees all 16 final communities receive a $25,000 arena upgrade, which means there will be some nice upgrades at the Sun Bowl Arena no matter what happens the rest of the way.
This Saturday, the final four communities – two from western Canada and two from eastern Canada – will be announced. All four finalists will receive at least a $50,000 arena upgrade and the winner will still receive the $100,000 upgrade and an NHL pre-season game.
The fact Osoyoos has made the finals during the last two Kraft Hockeyville contests says a lot about how much we love the game of hockey in this town and how much community spirit there is in supporting this very worthy cause.
Osoyoos got selected because of the outstanding submissions forwarded to the Kraft Hockeyville website.
To move on in the competition and make the final four all depends on how many votes were cast by Osoyoosites and Canadians across the country during the first voting period from this past Saturday evening until Monday at midnight EDT or 9 p.m. PDT.
Most of the other finalists are small towns just like Osoyoos and there’s no reason to believe our little town won’t make the final four when results are announced this Saturday.
We came awfully close two years ago and it made an awful lot of people from this community very proud.
Hopefully, we can go all the way this time around.
Organizer Cathy Martins got the ball rolling once again back in November by officially entering the Sun Bowl Arena on the Hockeyville website.
Close to 300 submissions were then downloaded onto the website from local hockey fans and that’s the only reason Osoyoos is again in the running to be named Kraft Hockeyville.
Kudos to Martins for another job well done and to every single local resident who took the time to download submissions and to vote for Osoyoos on the Kraft Hockeyville website once our community was named as a finalist.
We encourage all local residents to keep track on Saturday to see if we have indeed made the final four and then vote like crazy and continue the push to make Osoyoos Kraft Hockeyville 2014.
Can you imagine this little town hosting an NHL pre-season hockey game? It would be amazing. Go Team Osoyoos go.
