Chase’s KIJHL team is turning up the Heat to encourage more community support in order to remain on the ice.
The Chase Heat held a rally on April 23 to reignite interest and, while they had a good turnout, are still looking for additional assistance to remain viable. President Darryl Adamason said it’s a lot to maintain a junior hockey team and, like many other small town teams, the Chase Heat is facing a shortage of people willing to step up and volunteer.
“Our thought was to bring it to the village and the people of Chase and say, look, we’ve done all we can over the years and we’ve got a successful program,” he said. “But now we need more volunteers, we need more billets, we need, you know, butts in the seats.”
He added that is partly due to the changing demographic of Chase, which was primarily a senior community of people who had spare time to volunteer and spare money to do things. Now, however, more younger families are moving to town and they’re busy with kids and jobs and it “becomes a bit of a stretch for them to take billets, or volunteer or even come out to games.”
“So after a couple of years of kind of just making it, we thought we’d talk to the people and say look, if it’s important to you that we exist as a pride point for the Village of Chase, we need more help,” Adamson said. “It was just time that we reached out.”
He added the meeting resulted in some new volunteers and sponsors stepping up, as well as a better than ever turnout at the recent Annual General Meeting, but they still need continued support.
As an added challenge, the team is again looking for a new head coach after Kyle Evans announced his resignation on May 4 after just one season behind the bench, with Adamson currently fielding resumes to fill the position.
Adamson did, though, acknowledge the people who have been there for the team, both as fans in the stands and those who have contributed time or funding.
“I’d just like to thank everybody who has supported us over the years,” he said. “We offer a great program, but it costs.”
