Tragedy has struck one of the teams that was supposed to play in year’s Coy Cup Hockey Tournament in Quesnel.
Tyler Coleman, Team President and General Manager of the Quesnel Kangaroos, says it involves a death on one of the teams that was supposed to be coming.
“It’s a sad and terrible situation. Unfortunately one of the players on Penticton passed away in a fatal car accident and the Penticton team is just really quite shaken up by it and decided, in light of the situation, it’s just not worth it to come up here and participate in the tournament.”
Coleman says the player that died also had close ties to their team and other teams.
He says it will now be a three team tournament as there just wasn’t enough time to find a replacement.
“We looked into it, we thought about it. The challenge is we’re so close to the start of this tournament. With it being a whole week long trying to get teams organized again after their seasons are over, people taking time off, all that sort of stuff, it’s just too tight.”
Coleman says it will now proceed as a three team tournament.
“Tuesday night will be Terrace against Quesnel, Wednesday night will be Dawson Creek and Terrace playing each other, and then Thursday will be Dawson Creek and Quesnel playing. The top team will get a bye to the final on Saturday, and then there will be a semi-final playoff between the second and third place teams on Thursday.”
The games on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights will be 8 o’clock starts with the teams warming up at 7-30.
Coleman says the semi-final and final will start at 7-30 with warm-up at 7.
All of the information can also be found on the Kangaroos’ Facebook and Instagram pages.