The Lumber Kings Sports Club was formed back in 1984 by Harley Chingee who had a vision that the area had an abundance of Aboriginal athletes in Prince George and the surrounding area. The Lumber Kings have a storied history in arenas all over Western Canada and a reputation of an entertaining brand of hockey ever since the team’s inception.
The Lumber Kings were known to be a special group of athletes because of the dedication to make the long road trips to the prairies through some tough road conditions and when the team attended these events winning the tournaments was almost a given on every occasion over a ten year span. Some of the tournaments that the team traveled to were Merritt, Salmon Arm, Vanderhoof, Fraser Lake, North Battleford, Meadow Lake, Prince Albert, Brandon, Enoch and Kenora. Some of the stories are legendary of 12 young men huddled in the little orange bus for over twenty hours and most of the time when arriving at the destination blowing off some steam.
Some of the players that played with the Kings during the eighties were Harley Chingee, Everette Rose, Lyle Rose, Brad Smith, Steve Ogbden, Randy Potskin, Joey Potskin, Frank Genialle and Al Loring. This takes us to the 1990’s when a younger and bigger team was formed with some of the above mentioned but increased its size by adding Trent Potskin, Rick Kooses, Len Potskin, Chad Ghostkeeper and the team was not made up of just local talent. The Kings added some very talented players such as Don Jones, Brent Pascal, Ivan Roulette, Andy Dubray, Glen Ahenikew, Terry Julian, Jimmy Lessard and Guy Prince. There has been an estimated 200 players that have played for the team over the 22 years from all over Canada and most of the players still stay in touch with each other today.
The tournament’s first home was the Prince George Coliseum as eight teams competed for the coveted trophy and cash prize and the venue seemed to have a carnival like atmosphere with all the action on and off the ice. The tournament became very popular and has grown to over 40 teams, in 1993 the organizers realized with the demand from many teams forced a move to the Kin Centres.
This year the tournament will have three men’s divisions, old-timer’s and ladies divisions that will be chasing $25,000.00 in prize money and we will see teams from all over Canada converging on the Northern Hub of British Columbia in the spring of 2010.
With some of the proceeds of the event the Lumber Kings Sports Club has raised over $300,000 for local teams that wanted to travel to other tournaments. The Lumber Kings Sports Club has sponsored many youth wanting to play hockey over the years and will hope to do so with the great fan support that it has received in the past and all of the great sponsors that help this stay the biggest men’s hockey tournament in Canada.
Event founder Harley Chingee understands the importance of volunteers and has surrounded himself with some key personal such as Lil’ Sap (Silas Prince) who drives the bus, Trainer and equipment manager all with his suit on that he purchased at Value Village, others that are key are Lenny Potskin and multi-tasker extraordinaire Sheldon “John Cho” Bjorklund. There are several other volunteers and paid staff that make this event run smoothly and the Lumber Kings Sports Club would like to thank them.
Lumber Kings Sports Club
