First off let me start by saying that everyone in the Lakes District News office is extremely proud of the recent accomplishments of the Burns Lake bantams and peewee teams.
These two teams both brought home gold in the provincials, and as I understand this is a Burns Lake first, to come home with two championship teams in the one year.
What an accomplishment.
It not only puts Burns Lake on the map, but keeps our teams there as formidable rivals for next hockey season.
It is just fantastic to see the passion that the Burns Lake Minor Hockey Association has for it’s teams and all things hockey, as well as the dedication of the parents of the young hockey players getting them to and from, sometimes very early morning practises and competitions and tournaments.
The hard work has all paid off for the team, the parents and the coaches
Before I go any further, I also want to mention that we are equally proud of the other sporting teams and individuals that have travelled to provincial competitions recently, as well as those that compete throughout the year to represent the local area.
For a small town, Burns Lake certainly packs a sporting punch that can not be swept aside and ignored.
Although many local residents felt we ignored the achievements of the peewees and the bantams after the Lakes District News published the pictures of both the peewee and bantam teams in the edition of March 30 announcing their provincial championship wins.
Our office was inundated with complaints, and from all accounts we just did not do the champions justice in what we had printed
It was by chance that I over heard about both team’s accomplishments while I was in a meeting.
I then emailed my Burns Lake Minor Hockey Association contact and the information and the photos that we printed were what had been submitted to us.
By no means did we intend the write up and two pictures to be an insult to the kids, the coaches or the parents.
In this case both teams travelled to the communities of Chetwynd and Mackenzie for their provincial championship games so we didn’t have the opportunity to cover the event ourselves.
So this week after many more questions, a number of phone calls to coaches and several emails from hockey parents later, we received more information about the teams, the games they played to get to the provincials, their accomplishments at the provincials as well as this seasons accomplishments.
From the information I have now received I think that a great story has emerged, and a story that I hope everyone, not just the minor hockey community enjoys reading.
This story is on page 8 and 24 of this issue.
We hope you enjoy the story and pictures this week and again, a big congratulations to both the peewee and bantam teams.
We love it when Burns Lake and local people do something great. It is not only great for the individual but also great for the whole community.
Like the one hockey mom said, ‘These two teams were truly ambassadors for Burns Lake’ and we can’t agree more.