There will be no 41st Oscar Hickes Memorial Hockey Tournament.
A social media post by one of the organizers, Pat Murray, announced the longest-running hockey tournament on Vancouver Island has no home next year.
That’s because the Village of the Port Alice has declined their request to hold it at the closed Doug Bondue Arena.
The village had a number of reasons for turning down the request, including “bringing in ammonia, loading and then evacuating the system after the ice is removed; the cost of hydro (the Village would have set a new peak hydro usage and that peak would be used to calculate hydro costs for the entire year); and the financial burden on the taxpayers of Port Alice.”
One of the biggest causes of this financial burden is the roughly $2 million in back taxes owed to Port Alice by Neucel.
In his post, Murray thanked the village for allowing the 40th tournament to proceed, saying they went out on a high note.
He promises the Oscar Hickes Memorial tournament will return “if and when the economic fortunes in Port Alice change for the better and the Port Alice arena reopens on a regular basis.”
