Thirty-four teams, 54 games, two ice surfaces, and three days of hockey.
It's going to be a busy weekend at Kin Centre.
The 18th annual Prince George Aboriginal Youth Hockey Championship starts today at 8 a.m. at Kin 1 and Kin 2 and for many of the kids in action on the ice, this is their own version of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
"The reason why we keep it aboriginal is you have a lot of kids who live out on reserves or smaller communities and some of them don't get to play hockey until this one weekend," said tournament co-chairman Chad Ghostkeeper.
"It's a fun tournament and there's a big difference in skill levels. You could have kids who play rep hockey playing with kids who are skating for the first time this year, and at the end of the day they're all having fun. When you get to the final games they're pretty good hockey games."
Finals will be played Sunday in each age category from tyke to midget, starting at noon. The last game starts at 4:30 p.m. Bodychecking is not allowed in any of the age groups.
Ghostkeeper said there was sufficient interest in the tournament to allow 40 teams but the city was unable to accommodate them in one site, so the decision was made to limit it to 34 teams.
"We're a little upset at that because we easily could have got 40 teams and for a lot of these kids to come from those small communities and play in CN Centre, they're just amazed to play in there," said Ghostkeeper. "Why couldn't they keep it open for another couple weeks? That's what bugs us. We could have had 40 teams and kept it in one spot."
CN Centre and community arenas manager Andy Beesley said that due to this week's RV sale and the weekend outdoor show at CN Centre and the fact the Prince George Minor Lacrosse Association begins its season next week at Kin 3, the ice had to be taken out of both those arenas.
"In Kin 3 we have lacrosse starting Monday or Tuesday and they are a major user group so we had to accommodate them," said Beesley.
"All the other arenas have ice in them and we could have given them both the Coliseum and the Elksentre and it was their choice not to split it up. I have to say, my staff does a phenomenal job in juggling users, needs, requests to maximize whatever surfaces we have and 90 per cent of the time we can accommodate exactly what groups want. In this case we could have given them the ice, it just wasn't the perfect locations."
