It’s a tournament that comes with many honours and automatically draws a huge respect from the players fortunate to take part.
The Cowichan Valley Memorial Under 18 Hockey Tournament is in its 12th year, but it’s just the second since switching to a new place on the calendar from spring break to the Family Day weekend.
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“We’ve been doing it since 2010, but we lost those two years because of COVID,” said Kathy Irving, the braintrust behind the tournament concept.
It began as the Ryan Clark Memorial in honour of the Chemainus goaltender, who was a passenger and died in the crash of a car that lost control in March of 2009, and to give back to the community. After a few years, the tournament expanded to include other young people from the Cowichan Valley who were associated with hockey in some way and died under tragic circumstances.
The tournament has been going strong ever since, other than having to go on hiatus during the pandemic, and has generated interest from teams at the U18 age level from around the Island and Lower Mainland.
There’s a special prestige that goes with winning the individual awards as much as the tournament title itself.
The award named after Clark is for the tournament’s most outstanding goaltender. Others are: the Karny Award for the most fearless player, honouring Eric Kernachan; the Caleb Kroffat Award for the player with the most character; the Christina McLeod Award for the player having the most passion for the game; the Zak Andrews Mr. Personality Award; the Paige Whitelaw Award for most sportsmanlike player; and the Brayden Gale Award for the player with the most heart.
Each of the award recipients receives a commemorative crystal and obviously gets their names engraved on the perpetual trophies that are all unique in design.
Players who’ve learned the history of the tournament over the years and the stories behind the names have often been beyond grateful for the recognition.
There’s far more teams that want to get into the tournament than there’s room to accommodate. Last year, there were 15 teams entered, including eight from the Lower Mainland.
“Due to the fact we don’t have volunteers, we have to scale back,” said Irving. “We had about 30 applications.
“We have 10 teams this year, four of which are Cowichan Valley. We don’t have a competitive team (in Under 18) this year so our teams are very good.”
That left just six spots for other teams and unfortunately many had to be left disappointed. But those ready to play this weekend are excited for the opportunity.
Pool A for round robin play consists of Cowichan Valley C3, Cowichan Valley C4, Langley, Victoria and Ridge Meadows.
In Pool B, Cowichan Valley C1 and Cowichan Valley C2 will be joined by Port Hardy, Semiahmoo and Sooke.
There are 15 games being played at Fuller Lake Arena over three days, with eight more in Duncan at the Cowichan Community Centre.
Friday action at Fuller Lake includes games at 5:35 p.m., 7:10 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. It’s an early start Saturday at 9:05 a.m. for games there all day and three games Sunday at 9:15 a.m., 10:50 a.m. and 12:25 p.m., leading up to the semifinal at 3:05 p.m. and the championship game at 6:05 p.m.
Two games in Duncan Friday are at 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Saturday’s schedule has games at 8:30 a.m., 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., with one final pool game Sunday at 11:10 a.m. and one of the semifinals at 2:30 p.m.
Kathy Irving, Dale Irving, Kristen Arnold, Kirstin Marshall and Petra van Deventer make up the tournament committee. They’re always looking for additional help for 50-50 draws or picking game MVPs.
Anyone interested can send an email to cvmha@shaw.ca.
The most valuable players for each team in every game receive special tournament toques. There’s also towels embossed with the tournament logo for the MVPs of the semifinals and final while every participating player gets a hoodie.
No one is overlooked for being part of the special tribute.
“There’s a lot of work people don’t realize goes into it,” said Kathy Irving.
The tournament also relies totally on 50-50s and donations to pay all the bills so public support is greatly appreciated. Funds from the tournament have long assisted those unable to afford to play hockey and other worthwhile causes.