Some great stories are being shared with Kraft Hockeyville in hopes of helping the Ste. Anne arena win a big prize to improve the facility. 

Sarah Normandeau, recreational services manager for the town, says the stories show how important the arena is to many people, even to those living outside of the community. 

“It's been awesome, some of the stories are (from) people who are born and raised here and kind of grew up in that arena, our minor hockey is stepping up,” she says. “Everyone is stepping up to talk about their kids being in the arena, our Operations guys are putting stories on there, talking about making the ice and things like that, and you know they have first-hand experience on the struggles that are in that building so everyone's helping out.” 

Normandeau says they have a good shot at finishing in the top four, which would result in much needed upgrades to keep the arena open for next winter. 

“Things are going so amazing,” she reports. “We have almost 650 submissions now, we're a huge contender for top four right now.”  

The grand prize is the opportunity to host an NHL pre-season game, plus a quarter million dollars in arena upgrades. 

And three runner-up prizes of $25,000 will be awarded. 

“Regardless if we win, lose or draw in Kraft Hockeyville, we are looking at over $300,000 for next year to open the doors.” 

Normandeau says their arena is more than 50 years old and is rich in history. However, their ice plant badly needs an upgrade. 

She adds an important public meeting is happening tonight, February 8th, in Ste. Anne where the public will get a detailed look at all the challenges they face with an aging facility. 

Normandeau says they still need more people from the Southeast to continue sharing stories, photos and videos of the arena to the Kraft Hockeyville site in order to boost their chances of winning. 

“Go to www.krafthockeyville.com and on the top right-hand side it’s going to say ‘register.’ You just register, you fill out your information, it takes 5 minutes. And then you're going to find our arena, it's under Town of Ste. Anne, and then you can put a note, which is worth points. To max out your points, you can do five photos, you can react to 15 photos, ‘like,’ ‘love,’ things like that, and then you could put a story, which you answer three questions, if you have any experiences playing in our arena.”

-With files from Dave Anthony

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