New Year’s Eve has become a tradition not only to celebrate the end of a year and the beginning of another, but also a celebration of the sport of hockey for young players in Centre Wellington.
For the 11th year, the annual Centre Wellington Minor Hockey 3-on-3 Pond Hockey Tournament has taken to the ice at the Centre Wellington Community Sportsplex.
“It’s a totally fun day for the kids, the parents and everybody has fun just taking part in it,” said Jenn Mathewson, who together with her spouse Rick, has taken on organizing the tournament this year for the first time.
“Rick is a local league convenor for the Novice, Atom and PeeWee teams and coach for the Novice select team and the local house league team,” Mathewson said. “We were told the 3-0n-3 event would fall to the wayside if nobody stepped up, so we stepped up.”
This year players participated from area local leagues, with players from Erin-Hillsburgh, Arthur, Elora and Fergus in all five divisions, from Novice to Midget.
In total, 27 teams competed with six or seven players per team. The top two teams in each division received trophies and each participant received a commemorative T-shirt and food.
New this year, the Mathewsons organized a food drive as part of the event.
“Rick asked if the food bank could use the support, because after the holidays he figured they’d have been hit hard and would need help to keep the shelves stocked,” Mathewson said. “So we asked every player to bring along food donations to support the Centre Wellington Food Bank.”
The food donations continued to come in throughout the day.
“We’re grateful to the local businesses and the support of the community for the food bank and for this tournament,” Mathewson said.
In the tournament registration program, Rick stated, “Many thanks to all the volunteers who are donating their time generously to help run the tournament, to the parents who are helping with registration and in the kitchen, to the student timekeepers, the announcers and the rink staff who accommodate our crazy ice schedules.” He also credits the sponsors, with a reminder for participants and their families to shop locally.
Although the tournament took time to coordinate, Mathewson said both her and Rick were happy with the turn-out and the flow of the day.
“The kids love it, the parents love it, and we even have parents whose children aren’t in the tournament who still show up to support the kids.”
