By Jim Coggins

WHEN people in the small town of Crofton starting asking for something for kids to do, they had no idea they would get ‘Mr. Hockey’  himself: Gordie Howe. But we’ll get to that later.

The key thing is that Warmland Community Church and Duncan Christian School are hosting a joint fundraiser called “Hockey is Life!” September 17 – 18, and the guest of honour will be hockey great Gordie Howe.

The event kicks off Friday evening with a gala dinner at the Travelodge Silver Bridge Inn. Howe will be present, and there will be an auction for everything from jerseys and hockey sticks to barbecues.

The Saturday events will be held at Duncan Christian School. They start off with an all-day street hockey tournament with a corporate challenge – pitting big box stores against other big box stores, banks against other banks, and churches against other churches.

At the same time, there will be a vendor show, with companies and craftspeople selling everything from hockey jerseys to Tupperware.

The afternoon will conclude with Howe signing autographs. That evening, he will drop the puck at a B.C. Hockey League game between the Cowichan Capitals and the Surrey Eagles.

Proceeds from the weekend will be split between Duncan Christian School and Warmland Community Church.

Bruce Findlay, the main organizer, said the purpose of the event is fundraising. Duncan Christian School is celebrating its 50th anniversary and has just completed a major building project, adding a full-size gymnasium to its high school campus.

But Findlay said it is also hoped the event will raise the profile of Warmland. As a new church, it is not yet well known.

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The school is located in Duncan, which is the largest centre in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver island, with about 30,000 of the Valley’s 80,000 inhabitants. Warmland is in the town of Crofton, with a population of about 2,500 people, 15 miles to the north.    

Warmland (a translation of the local First Nations word ‘Cowichan’) is very much a community church. It originated when community leaders decided there were not enough things for kids in the town to do and asked Camp Qwanoes, a nearby Fellowship Baptist camp, if it could do anything to help.

Qwanoes, in turn, asked its denomination to consider planting a church. Three and a half years ago, Warmland was started. Meeting in the town’s community centre, it quickly grew to about 200 attenders.

An early sermon series at  the church called “Hockey is Life!” drew parallels between the game and life’s challenges. It helped bring a number of men from the community into the church and back to faith.

When the church started looking at fundraising events, church treasurer Findlay suggested thinking outside the box and doing something bigger.

When the church approached Duncan Christian School about doing a joint fundraiser called ‘Hockey is Life!,’ the school readily agreed.

It helped that Findlay runs a trading card magazine and website called The Insider’s Edge. This has brought him into contact with many  sports stars from the past. He had interviewed Gordie Howe a year or so earlier and was delighted to discover that he was available for the fundraiser.

Howe played in the NHL from the 1940s to the 1980s. He participated in four Stanley Cup wins; he also won six scoring championships and six most valuable player awards.

Findlay described the 82-year-old Howe as “very humble and soft-spoken, a gentle giant.”

Contact: hockeyislife.ca or 250.416.6740.

September 2010