As winter turns to spring, the hockey season draws to a close, but not before one last hurrah.
The 16th annual Yelnats Cup midget hockey tournament is set to take place at Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre from March 31 to April 3.
This year’s edition features 24 boys teams from all across the province, including five local ones.
“We’ve got teams coming from all over,” said Yelnats committee head Duane Johnson. “Edmonton, Calgary, Eckville, you name it. There’s even one from B.C. this year.”
The tournament accommodates eight midget teams in each of three tiers (1, 3, and 5/6), and around 430 players are expected to take part.
“It’s a very big tournament,” Johnson said. “When you get outside of the big cities in Alberta, it is without doubt one of the biggest there is.”
Apart from tournament games, one of the highlights of the event is the Showdown Skills Competition, which takes place April 2.
Each tier has its own contest, as players will compete against each other in four different events: fastest skater, hardest shot, shoot-out, and goaltender challenge.
“The guys who win the events get shirts and recognition,” Johnson said. “It’s a lot of fun, generally it’s the busiest time of the whole tournament. There’s usually around 1,000 people watching.”
As for what winners of the tournament receive, no one gets to take the actual Yelnats Cup home, but they receive trophies of other sorts.
“Winning teams each get a banner,” Johnson said. “There is an A side and B side winner in each tier. Players get their names engraved on the cup alongside past winners.
“It’s definitely about bragging rights.”
When the tournament first started in 2000 there were only eight teams involved, but since then word of mouth has caused the tournament to reach the maximum number of teams it can accommodate.
“We’ve had people ask us about making it bigger and bringing in another tier, but 24 teams is all we can handle at Spray Lake,” Johnson said. “The four days the event runs are pretty jam-packed. There are 57 games in total and that require a lot of volunteers. Trying to put on anything bigger would be pretty tough.”
One of the factors that’s made Yelnats so popular with the hockey community has been the fact much of the revenue the tournament generates gets pumped back into the community, as a thank you for all of the sponsorship from local businesses.
“We’ve always been fortunate enough to donate the money we make back to the community,” Johnson said. “This year, we donated over $8,000 from our 2015 tournament to Spray Lake to use on equipment and other hockey-related things.
“In total, we’ve donated around $75,000 to the hockey community over the last 16 years.”
Due to the economic downturn this year, the committee was worried there would be a drop in sponsorship, but to Johnson’s surprise that has not been the case.
“We’ve been pretty successful in getting sponsors this year,” he said. “There are so many families who own businesses in town, that have kids who take part. We also do a lot of fundraising for the event, as well as having 50/50 and raffle tickets while the tournament is on.”
The opening game is set to take place March 31 between the Tier 1 Cochrane Rockies and Rocky Mountain House Royals at Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre – Totem 1. Puck-drop is 12 p.m.
Spectators get in for free throughout the tournament.
