Play! On Canada funding request moved to Economic SPC in April

The game of street hockey has been a Canadian tradition for generations. The City of Lethbridge is looking at spreading the growth of the sport here in our city. Lethbridge City Council was supposed to look at a funding request of $200,000 for the city to be able to host Play On! Canada street hockey events from 2023 to 2026.

That translates to around $50,000 for each year for the initiative. Jason Elliott, the director of customer, corporate and commercial services, asked council to move the item to an April Economic SPC meeting as Play On! Canada has not yet received federal funding.

“Their plan to organize their events across Canada is in jeopardy right now, and therefore they’re essentially postponing all activities for 2023. The request coming back in April will be a fulsome request as per councils or as per economic SPC’s direction previously, which will indicate what sorts of in kind activities the city would be prepared for our contribution. Prepared to provide in addition to the revised requests, which I suspect will remain the same at $50,000 per year for 2024, 2025 and 2026.”

The first Play On! Canada street hockey tournament was held in Halifax in 2003. Since that time, a total of 170 Play On! Canada events have been held in 37 communities, involving over 400,000 participants.