Small Sask. town needs help to become Kraft Hockeyville

A small Saskatchewan town needs the province’s help to fix up its arena.

Lafleche is one of four communities across the country in the running to become Kraft Hockeyville.

Voting opens Friday morning at 10 a.m. and runs until 6:30 p.m. Saturday an you can vote as many times as you can.

Lafleche resident Gillian de Grauuw is one of the campaign co-ordinators.

“It’s not only for us, it’s for Saskatchewan. A Saskatchewan community has never won Kraft Hockeyville, we’ve come very close, Ituna made a great run last year,” she said.

“Saskatchewan is strong and mighty when we come together and more importantly then that, we deserve it, we embody the hockey spirit and community spirit and everything I think this competition is all about,” de Grauuw continued.

The winning community gets an NHL pre-season game and $250,000 for arena upgrades.

De Grauuw said the prize money would mean the communities very survival.

“Not that we’re not making it through, we are, but every year we sort of worry about where those funds are going to come from, how are we going to get this ice plant going, how are we going to put good quality ice on for all of the kids,” she said.

There are nine other communities that play out of Lefleche’s rink.

“It is our only recreation, so if we lose that rink, we don’t have an indoor soccer facility or an indoor pool, we have nothing for these kids to do during the winter and it’s so important to keep our kids healthy and active,” de Grauuw said.

About 400 people live in Lafleche, which is about 135 kilometres southwest of Moose Jaw.