City supports Lakeland Jaguars Provincials with $5000 credits

Cold Lake will be supporting two Provincial hockey tournaments in March.

The City decided last Tuesday to give a $5000 credit each towards the Lakeland Jaguars Bantam and Midget hockey Provincials tournaments on March 19-22 and March 26-29.

With no decision on ID 349, the City has deferred many sponsorships and grant requests from community groups to March 10, so they got creative with the credit idea, said Mayor Craig Copeland on The Morning After.

“Typically what we’ve done is give a $5000 grant the organization can use to pay the bills. This time what we’re doing is we’re going to do a credit up to $5000 towards any of the bills at the Energy Centre,” he said.

“That can be for ice time, for the field house or any of the rooms they want from the City, so that’s how we’re going to do it for both fo the tournaments.”

The Lakeland Bantam Jaguars are enjoying a successful season with a 13-1 in the regular season so far.

Meanwhile, the Midget Jaguars are 9-6-1 this year.

With hockey seasons nearing playoffs and Provincial playdowns, the City hopes the tournaments can give the community a boost off the ice as well.

“We built the double rinks and the way the arena is set up it really plays well for tournaments and so our council looks at it as an economic spin. That $5000 we know we will get at least a five to ten-dollar return in the economy,” he said.

“You look at all the parents and hockey players in the community, there are hotels, the restaurants, the local shops – anything we can do to help the local businesses survive in this economic downturn, council is always supportive of those types of ideas.”