how we got here

OUR HOME

We love where we live.

Natural beauty, safe and vibrant community, great place to raise your family. The Sunshine Coast is grounded, inclusive, diverse, and has a strong sense of home. It is a place for welcoming new families and for embracing those who have been here for multiple generations, a place to belong. Neighbors work together and support each other. We learned to because we needed to.

Our geography and demographics have provided great benefit and have created great challenges. It is not always easy to live here, and growing up here, you feel the need to leave to find opportunity. So young people leave and then they return. They come home keen to contribute to the fabric of their home.

When you live on the coast and endeavour to give back you will often hear “You can’t have that.” The familiar response is tested by community members and eventually becomes “we can have that here” and “our version is awesome.”

We are passionate about providing for our youth. We believe that dreaming is good and that a lot can be learned through engaging in sports. We ferry our youngsters to activities to learn about relationships, dedication, working hard, achieving, falling down and getting up. We teach them to believe in themselves and show them that goals can be accomplished 50 years ago, local residents were coming together for the good of the community and coming up with inventive ideas.

“Mike Shanks was a councillor for the District of Sechelt and long time local resident. The day before the 2016 Provincials started, he dropped off this important piece of local history at my office. He was moved by what we were able to do and mostly by how the local team was engaging with community during the season leading up to the Provincials.”

Brenda Rowe

Former SC Minor Hockey Association Board Member

Chair 2016 Midget Provincials Organizing Committee

Local residents came together under the banner of the Sunshine Coast Recreation Association and held a lottery to support the building of the Sechelt Arena. First prize was a lot in downtown Sechelt.

OUR SPORT

As the first sheet was being installed in the Sechelt Arena, registration for minor hockey was being organized. The sport of hockey spoke to people from all cultural backgrounds and helped to bring them together.

Almost 50 years later, hockey is thriving with boys and girls, young and old taking to the ice to enjoy our beloved game.

Sunshine Coast Minor Hockey is a strong organization, weathering all the economic and pandemic storms of the past, ensuring a stable future for players at all levels. At the ripe old age of 9 years old, children from the coast start to travel to the lower mainland to play games, continuing all the way through the years to Grade 12 when minor hockey ends and the potential of Junior hockey begins.

For players chosen, through a tryout process, to make the jump to Junior Hockey means living away from home and immersing themselves in a new community.

For us, the journey of trying to bring Junior Hockey to the SC started in 2016 with another dream, and that was for our small community to host the 2016 Midget Provincials. “It will never happen” they said. “They will never award it to a small ferry dependant community” they said. But they did.

Teams from across the province came to the SC for a week of competition, and it was during those games that we saw what our community would support. Local fans filled the arena and, when our local team made it to the finals, businesses shut down so employees could attend.

We thought how great it would be if we had the opportunity to bring our community together more often than once in a lifetime! And thus, the journey began with a few parents who teamed up to try and make that happen. Brenda Rowe, Alayna Josephson and Ward Ellis-Winters researched, went and did some site visits with other teams that were open to speaking with them but, at the time, the league was not open to having the Sunshine Coast become part of the League. But as time went on, their own children were now playing hockey at the junior level in other small communities and it kept the flame alive.

As parents, they were road tripping their way across the province and sharing their experiences. They saw the benefits. They watched theirr sons grow into young men and saw they learned so many valuable lessons from the experience. And they saw what the community gained and how they showed up “for the team”. Win or lose, this was their team and they were there to support. The experience of an entire community cheering for a common goal is invaluable.

JUNE 2022 - AUGUST 1, 2023

In June of 2022, the Sunshine Coast Junior Hockey Society was formed. Other community members stepped up to be on the executive. The Pacific Junior Hockey League (PJHL) hired a new commissioner. In this environment, the SCJHS group was the driving organization looking to bring a Sunshine Coast Junior Hockey franchise to the coast.

In August of 2022, a “Junior” hot dog give away was hosted at Gibsons Building Supply (GBS) supported by GBS and Gibsons IGA. It was met with tremendous enthusiasm by the community as, in a mere eight hours, more than 1,300 signatures were gathered in support of the push for a Pacific Junior Hockey League (PJHL) Franchise.

Rick Hopper was hired to spearhead the efforts of the SCJHS and provide his expertise and experience in a junior hockey start up. Rick was instrumental in bringing the Powell River Kings to the upper Coast and he worked closely with the PJHL to provide them with everything they needed to consider the Sunshine Coast application.

Two double header PJHL games were held at the Gibsons and Area Community Centre, one in October 2022 and the other in January of 2023, to gauge the potential community support and to showcase the Sunshine Coast to the existing PJHL owners. Attendance at each game was 400-500 people and the business community generously sponsored each game.

Two owners stepped up to invest in the potential Junior Hockey team. Julie Reeves, local owner of Gibsons Building Supply, committed to being the majority shareholder with Jon Hulstein, of Galloper Gold, being the minority shareholder. Together, they formed the Coastal Sports & Entertainment Group in June of 2023.

An application to start a new Junior Hockey franchise requires that that three separate organizations give approval.

On June 4th, 2023, a presentation was made by the SCJHS and Rick Hopper to the Pacific Junior Hockey League Board of Governors at their Annual General Meeting. On the agenda for that meeting was a request for a vote on the approval of a new Junior Hockey franchise located on the Sunshine Coast. The PJHL Board of Governors voted to approve the application.

The next organization that reviewed the application was the Pacific Coast Amateur Hockey Association. Their approval came in early July.

The final approval was sought from the British Columbia Amateur Hockey Association, more commonly known as BC Hockey. On July 20th, the Board of BC Hockey gave the final approval needed to have and host a Junior Hockey team based on the Sunshine Coast.

On August 1st, 2023, the community was invited to attend an “historic” announcement at the Gibsons and Area Community Centre to hear the results of the SCJHS’s efforts.