Chris Dawson (left) accepts a cheque for $10,000 from Michael Sproule, Kraft Retail Sales Manager. Kraft Canada brought the Cheese Whiz to Memorial Gardens Monday, as a cheque for $10,000 was presented to the North Bay Hockeyville committee.
Chris Dawson (left) accepts a cheque for $10,000 from Michael Sproule, Kraft Retail Sales Manager.
Kraft Canada brought the Cheese Whiz to Memorial Gardens Monday, as a cheque for $10,000 was presented to the North Bay Hockeyville committee.
The cheque is part of the merit prize voting, which took place February 5 to February 23rd. The $10,000 will be used for arena upgrades. Another $50,000 will be presented later as part of the grand prize of winning Kraft Hockeyville 2007.
“We don’t have any specific allocations for the funds at this point. We’re still in the infancy stages trying to get feed back from the community and prioritize based on what the costs are and what we have money for,” Cathy Seguin, Memorial Gardens Arena Manager, said.
Different suggestions for upgrades to the building brought up by Seguin include adding a new marquee to the front of the building, replacing the seats in the stands and also adding new water fountains.
“It’s $60,000 worth of work that wouldn’t have been done otherwise because of budget allocations which are based on what our priorities are,” Seguin said.
“This $60,000 will go back into community renovations that will hopefully leave a lasting legacy for the community and leave something for North Bay to look at down the line as being Hockeyville 2007,” Seguin added.
Chris Dawson, North Bay Hockeyville Chairman, explained when the committee submitted North Bay to be in the Kraft Hockeyville 2007 challenge they had to pick a rink to be a partner on the application.
“Since we knew that this was going to be the rink that the NHL game would take place on, we thought we would put the money here,” Dawson said.
Dawson also explained the decision to make Memorial Gardens the partner rink on the application was due to the talk of getting an OHL team in North Bay.
“With all the talk of the OHL, we thought this would be good because we could get the rink above the OHL standards. We thought it would be a nice tie in,” Dawson said. According to Seguin the current condition of the rink is up to NHL standards. NHL officials took a tour of Memorial Gardens last week.
“There are a few things that need to be done. There are small pieces of glass that we will have to replace but we’ve heard nothing in terms of a major ticket item at this point in time and I think we’re in pretty good shape to host the game,” Seguin said.
