Everyone who played skated away a winner at a recent charity hockey game in the Lake City.
On Sunday January 4, members from the Williams Lake RCMP took to the ice to play the Williams Lake Fire Department.
The second annual “Guns N Hoses”, a fundraiser to help support the local chapter of KidSport, saw an even bigger crowd come out to watch than last year.
Organizer and KidSport volunteer, Officer Fraser Bjornson said they are hoping to continue this on as an annual tradition as it is a big fundraiser to help get kids 18 and under into playing sports.
“Last year we had about 650 people come out to the Cariboo Memorial Recreation Complex and this year we sold over 800 tickets,” Bjornson said, “I don’t think we had quite 800 in the stands but it was getting pretty close. We ended up raising over $6500 thanks to community donations and everyone who came out to the game, we had a 50-50 raffle and puck toss.”
Bjornson noted they had plenty of volunteers who came out to help out the local KidSport committee to help make the game a reality.
“At this point we’re going to try to make this game better. We found, I think our niche and the best time of year to do it for the Guns n hoses game. We’re a hockey town so it’s hard to be able to get ice time sometimes. This game right after the New Year seems to work out pretty well so we’ll do our best to keep it consistent, do some upgrades on the game, make it more exciting, and draw more of a crowd, there’s already people who don’t want to miss it, they want to be there every year.”
Bjornson added first responders from both teams are pretty pumped to be involved with this.
“The firefighters are all from the Williams Lake area and the Forest Fire Service. The RCMP players are all coming from the Cariboo district, Alexis Creek, 100 Mile House, and Quesnel. The score at the end of the game was 6-2 for the Firefighters, I think the RCMP want to get it next year but at the end of the day they are all happy to be making this important fundraiser for KidSport happen.
KidSport sponsors kids families that are facing financial barriers to register them in sports.
“Locally we do $300 per kid per year,” Bjornson, “Last year alone our local Williams Lake KidSport ended up sponsoring close to $20,000 and that helped almost 100 kids get into sports who may not have been able to do that. We’re responsible as a local committee here in Williams Lake to gather a lot of those funds, some come from National contributions but we’re responsible to make sure that we are able to fill that gap and get kids who need that sponsorship have that money there so this game raises a good portion of our annual budget.”
Bjornson added we talk a lot about how this Guns N Hoses hockey games gets everyone excited but the important part is to remember why we’re doing it and that’s to get kids into sports.
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