How 'bout Athletes from BC? One Man's Opinion

By Ben Meisner

Last week there was an announcement from Train in PG that we had succeeded in getting a couple of teams to attend the Kelly Cup for a warm up to the world curling championship.  The information was greeted by those promoting the idea of Train In Pg as, well, almost the same as having Paris Hilton stay at your house for a week or two.

The Korean and Chinese curling teams will, according to the hype, stay in town for about a week. It is just the beginning of what we are hoping to accomplish.

Well that all has a nice warm fuzzy feeling about it, but let’s address some facts. Let’s say we are able to get, three of four Oldtimers hockey teams from out of town to come to this city for a tournament, which by the way they regularly do. So one team has about 25 guys, their wives, their kids, and in many cases their relatives, who get a chance to spend a week or “so” in PG.

Well the kids have to have somewhere to go, Mum wants to go shopping, dad wants to play hockey buy some new gear, maybe even a new truck, which car dealers report is a good time of the year, and what do we give them?

I think we might be hard pressed to say we have spent the kind of money that Train in Pg has, in trying to attract some of those off shore athletes ,on the old timers.  But the Oldtimers spend a lot, a whole lot more money, when they come to town.

So you wonder aloud, are we getting our bang for our buck?  

Well I suppose it is not as interesting in going to say Ft St. James to ask the Oldtimers to come to a tourney here, or heaven forbid, how about a day or two in Dease Lake getting those folks lined up for a visit to our city.

We never seem to be able to get away from trying to hit a home run, instead of looking around us to see where the money really is.

If the City wants to do something with curling, then by all means let’s stage the World Championship here. It's a bit like the up coming Royal Bank Cup.  

We know for a fact that we will be getting some good publicity from the Royal Bank Cup. I just hope that Events PG isn’t over in China trying to snag another curling team when it takes place.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man's opinion.

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