Flin Flon’s hopes of hosting an NHL preseason game and upgrading the Whitney Forum have gone online.
Last Saturday, Feb. 6, volunteers with Flin Flon’s Kraft Hockeyville (KHV) bid uploaded their nomination video to the contest website.
With a runtime of just under 10 minutes, the video has been making the rounds on Facebook and gained over 3,600 views on YouTube.
Alain Lachapelle, Mike Spencer, Darinel Rivera, Dorian Kent and Zach Rainville worked together to collect and edit current footage and historical images for the video.
“It was a community effort,” says Lachapelle of the video production.
The team operated on a short timeline. They first met in early January and had to submit the video by Sunday, Feb. 7.
They took a documentary-style approach, letting the community’s residents and hockey fans tell their own stories.
After meeting with Leanna Campbell, who spearheaded the nomination process, the team interviewed local hockey buffs, Bombers players and staff, Flin Flon mayor Cal Huntley and local historian Gerry Clark, among others.
Two former NHLers from Flin Flon, Reid Simpson and Gerry Hart, sent in video clips praising the community as a true hockey town.
“As many hockey fans know, Flin Flon is synonymous with hockey and the Flin Flon Bombers,” Hart says during his segment. “Many pro and college players owe their success to their formative years living and playing in Flin Flon.”
The annual KHV contest challenges communities across Canada to showcase their hockey culture by nominating their local arenas for the Hockeyville title.
The winning community receives an NHL preseason game and $100,000 in arena upgrades.
Each arena can be nominated multiple times; the Whitney Forum was nominated seven times in total.
All of the nominations can be viewed at the KHV website, though the video is only posted with one nomination.
Now that the nominations are in, a panel of judges will complete the first round of voting. On March 5, contest organizers will announce their top 10 shortlist.
Two rounds of public voting will follow the top 10 announcement. On March 13 and 14, and March 20 and 21, anyone can cast a vote online for one of the nominated arenas.
The first- and second-place will be announced on April 2.
While Flin Flon may have legions of hockey fans ready to vote for their hometown, this competition will be tough: there are 3,190 nominations on the KHV website, many from communities that are exponentially larger than Flin Flon.
But Tanya Benoit, a director and regular volunteer with the Flin Flon Bombers, thinks the town has a good chance of at least making it to the top 10.
“I love it,” she said of the nomination video. “I think they nailed a lot of the aspects of the Flin Flon community and it being a hard-rock hockey town.”
The Flin Flon nomina-tion video can be viewed at the Flin Flon Kraft Hockeyville Facebook page or the Kraft Hockeyville website at www.khv2016.ca.
Those interested in showing their support for the nomination can use the #KHV_WhitneyForum when posting on Twitter or Instagram.
How the top 10 are chosen
Cracking the top 10 in the Kraft Hockeyville contest would garner Flin Flon an automatic prize.
The grand prize winner receives an NHL preseason game in their community, plus $100,000 in arena upgrades. The second-place winner receives $100,000 in upgrades. The remaining eight entries in the top 10 get $25,000 in upgrades.
According to the Kraft Hockeyville contest terms, judging criteria include:
• Depiction of the nominated community’s passion for hockey and dedication to supporting the sport (30 per cent)
• Examples of actions/events that demonstrate the nominated community’s spirit and pride (30 per cent)
• A description of how prize money would impact the nominated community and the proposed project (25 per cent)
• Social media support, including a minimum of 250 Facebook or Twitter shares of the nominated community project from the Kraft Hockeyville website (5 per cent)
• Creativity and overall effort (10 per cent)
