Just like that, the 21st Annual Gump Cup is a wrap. Which almost concludes all things VFD Hockey…except the IAFF tourney in Burnaby!

The Kings & Canucks provided an absolute battle for a nail biting final game. Congrats to the Canucks with their win.

It’s important for all to know the many moving parts that help keep this club moving, and recognize those involved. It’s money, energy and volunteer time by many people that add up to hundreds of hours of planning & execution. This hockey club simply can’t operate without an enormous list of people and groups that help. I will try and name them all, hope I don’t miss any. The list is vast…..

Many many thanks to the following:

Our outgoing execs of Craig Archibald, Travis Hooper, Jay Zoney & Mark Whincup for their hard work for 3/4 of this season and many years before. Please be sure to thank these guys when you see them.

Your executive team : VP Joel Feitsma, Sec/Tres Adam Bordignon, and Directors Jordon Liang, Kevan Ramsden, Chris Kilfoil , Tanner Whincup & Kyle Leung. These guys put in many hours over the season, go along with some of my crazy ideas, and brainstorm new ideas. Our newest members joined at possibly the busiest time of the year, and rose to the challenge. They are quarterbacking our success as a club and I am eternally grateful.

Goalie wrangler Scott Turner for his role filling tendy spaces for the past 5 seasons. You just can’t have a game without 2 net minders, and Scott’s coordination of the most unique players on the ice is most appreciated.

Shout out to Local 18 /L18 Athletics for their continued support of the club. President Katrina Davison represented L18 at the ceremonial puck drop, and EVP Adrian Sherriff and Sec/Tres Darren Genge attended the banquet. Our union knows the value of sports & camaraderie for our mental health and we thank them.

Fire Chief Karen Fry for representing VFRS at the final game & banquet. Chief Fry enjoys coming out to socialize, hear the banter and meet many of our retirees. Chief Connolly & Chief Weeks also came to watch the final. It is comforting that our managers see the value of sports and the camaraderie of our club.

314 Fraternal Society was once again able to give the club a huge boost with financial support to help keep fees affordable and make our 21st year a success. We were honoured to host board president and retired BC Blair Franklin at the banquet.

Retired Capt Bryon Przednowek for volunteering his time & camera, capturing many special moments & photos . We will post some soon. He likes the shoe spikes we purchased him as freshly cleaned ice is very unforgiving on a hip…..

Retiree & long time club supporter Capt Tom Sullivan for his continued support of the club and helping every year with 50/50.

Retired BC Dan McClelland who travels all the way from Vernon to lend his golden vocals to sing the anthem.

Retired Capt Gary “Baby” Dahl for attending to help give out the cherished Best Beer Man award. Gary is an absolute legend in the hydration department of the job. Be sure to have a chat with him when you can.

Retired Capt Sandy MacPherson & his family : Linda (wife) Katie, Chelsea & Jessica (daughters) for their work selling the ALS 50/50 every year. Thanks to their efforts and your generosity, they raised a staggering $ 3390 for ALS. It’s really hard to describe how much the MacPherson’s prepare and how they go beyond the extra mile on this day, but the dollars raised in a matter of hours really speak volumes on their commitment to helping the ALS Society of BC. Congrats to 50/50 winner Rob Chorney who also donated back $800 of his winnings. A total of $4190 will go to ALS via the VFF charitable.

Members of the MacDonald family : Brian & Brenda Geeves (Ranny’s Brother in law & Sister in law), Courtney & Kim Geeves (Ranny’s nieces) Steve (Karen’s brother) and Beth Geeves (Ranny’s SIL) , Courtney Brito & Kelsey Batts (family friends) who attend every year and also help with ALS 50/50 sales.

Karen MacDonald (Ranny’s widow) who attends ever year and cherishes every memory the Gump Cup gives her & her family. She is grateful for the tribute to Ranny and it is a day dear to her heart .

Members of the VFRS Honour Guard who help add a touch of class and professionalism to the pre-game and Cup presentation ceremony.

Mike Duddy (referee coordinator) for quarterbacking all our officials throughout the season.

Jordan Liang, Jay Zoney & Carson Jones for all their efforts at QPA Friday Drop In. One of the fastest scrimmages on the best ice in the lower mainland. Same icetime since 1947!

Alex Dunse organizes the VFD SmokeEaters which is our outside team playing out of 8 rinks. Good luck to Alex & his mates as they enter their playoff run.

Retired Capt Todd Heibert for organizing QPA Wed Morning Hockey & the Alumni Classic. The great rivalry of red vs white will forever be played out at this great skate.

All Alumni & OldTimers who skated in the Alumni game. This was a mix of young and young-at-heart. Despite some last minute drop outs, the benches were still full and the action fast & furious. White beat Red 4-2. Pizza was consumed, beers were crushed and many a story and laugh were shared post game. Special thanks to Terry Bingley (Ret’d Burnaby FD) and Mitch Poulter for filling the goalie spots.

Probationers & junior members Slade McCallum, Paul Stoker, Mustafa Waziri, Renee Lamond, Rob Scarr, Taryn Hartner, Wada Nour, and Matthew Dee for help with set up, time/scorekeeping  , game ops and random tasks throughout the day. Good to see our next generation getting involved early in their careers.

Our Beer Sponsor , Strathcona Beer Company for providing post game hydration & celebration at wholesale prices.

Our apparell & gear sponsor The Hockey Shop Source for Sports Langley for always giving us team pricing on swag and jerseys.

The many past members of the VFDHC exec and other contributors who have built the club to what it is today , and who the present exec leans on for advice & ideas. The foundation is rock solid, we’re just adding the bricks.

Lastly, to all you members & players. It’s a pleasure to be able to help organize the game we all love. Our club is definitely one of the best things on our job, and Gump Day is by far the biggest and best event. We hope we’ve left you with the hunger to return to the 2024/25 season this fall.

We hope we haven’t forgotten anyone, but please give them a shout out if I did!

In closing, we hope you have a great spring & summer, and stay tuned for information regarding info & registration for next season.

Thank you,

Your VFDHC executive

Our friends at Burnaby Fire are hosting the annual IAFF Hockey Tournament, and have advised us they are FULL. Our club has declared teams in all divisions. Please use this link to sign up ASAP as they have a cutoff of Jan 10. Space is limited! This is a great tourney with teams from all over Canada and USA. Sign up and be part of the action!

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScSndYeBjhjIg2gJ1MS3qojIIwe5nh3N08fpUHb9rjZqu5dLQ/viewform__;!!E3YeXkmunRgu!x3GPvUUCyWOX6gIGWANR5Ujam0PhWb0jlRNEAORFQm2l-whKB5gvirMh2PAtpyYoufFk-LQYiG9kMNhdVbbGEFl8JQ$

Please note, you MUST be a past or present member of L18/VFRS in good standing to register.

Any questions, please contact Darren Ferris (8c) or Adam Bordignon (13c)

Thanks to all who attended the 21st Annual VFDHC MMH Draft!

Please click the links below to access documents for team rosters and schedule:
 *Link to Roster*
 *Link to Schedule*

Your team manager will be reaching out to you ASAP.

Games start on September 11th. See you at the rink!

Hockey club members

We hope you are enjoying your summer. At the 2023 VFDHC AGM you asked us to consider 3 things for the upcoming seasons :
a) spares for Monday Morning Hockey
b) a minimum games played to participate in the Gump Cup, and
c) moving the location of MMH from Delta to Planet Ice Coquitlam. Your executive board has been busy in the off season investigating and looking into options that best suit the needs of the members and the club operations.

First of all, we will not consider spares for MMH. We are looking for more commitment from our membership for this league, and assigning spares goes against this principle. Plus the time and effort required to assign players, collect money etc is a path we have no desire to go down. There are other non-committal options for members to play, such as Wednesday and Friday drop-in hockey.

Secondly, we have examined the option of imposing a minimum games played rule where members who don’t make the minimum amount of games (8, for example) would not be allowed to participate in Gump Cup day. This is common in recreational leagues in the Lower Mainland. However, you can imagine the colossal amount of work that would be required to track players who attended and who didn’t. Plus, given the complex nature of our work, we cannot dice up different categories of what would be an “excused absence” (such as working, book off or injury) or unexcused (simply not showing or travelling) or what falls under what category. In the view of the exec board, you would either be playing, or absent, period. We are going to table this request for now, but we will be making strong recommendations to team managers about players who do not show and fail to communicate to their respective managers. We will also add language to the Code of Conduct that will hold players more accountable for their attendance and communication to their team. Our poll showed that an overwhelming majority of members are frustrated with those that don’t commit to MMH and want a minimum games played, thus we will take steps to educate members as well as look into better options for tracking attendance (ie : electronic, apps, QR codes). This may be imposed if there are still issues of too many non-committed players.

We’ll take this opportunity to remind players that this is not a drop-in league. We base our team numbers off total player registrations, with the expectation of all players fully committing. We do hope for wiggle room for balance for players absent from working, injured, travelling, unexpected personal issues etc. Ideally, on a team of 17 players, 10-12 will attend a game on any given Monday.

Lastly, location of the league. This is a huge decision and we need to make it work. Members who participated in the poll indicate a slight lean towards playing out of Planet Ice Coquitlam. There are many positives to this move and PI Coq is a good fit for our league. However, the more we looked into this, we realized it is not as simple as packing up the moving van, arriving at the new rink and its business as usual.

There are two major issues with this proposal: referees and storage costs.
1. Referees : Our referee assignor also assigns referees for the rest of the FF hockey in the Lower Mainland, which plays out of ScotiaBarn (aka 8 rinks). He advises that league is already struggling for officials, plus with the addition of 2 more teams from Surrey in said league, there’s no doubt he will be struggling to fill those spots. PI Coq is not much farther east from 8 rinks. Until we can get a solid core of officials by networking or even training up our own members to officiate, we will not get enough referees to work our league . Also, if we were to expand to 12 teams as well as make this move, it would make filling referee spots extremely difficult. Not having assurance of ample referees is our main reason for not moving this season. Thus, we will play the 2023/24 season out of Planet Ice Delta.
2. Storage: the storage would be off site and we don’t consider it a deal breaker as it’s only 7 mins away. However, it does add considerable cost (almost triple what we are paying at PI Delta) for which our budget isn’t quite prepared to take on this season.
The exec board could work towards this move in the coming season or two to fully prepare and make this move seamless. Strategies, preparations and goals would be:
A) actively network & recruit referees and possibly even train any members who would be interested in officiating MMH games a slight raise in pay to entice officials to work our games
B) raise more funds by way of asking for more money from athletic committee, 314 and raising of players fees to offset costs of officials and storage.

We’d like to thank everyone for their patience as we did our investigating. We know many of you are anxious and excited about this proposed move and of course the 2023/24 season. We are obligated to make the best decision for the members and the league ops as a whole. We can confidently say the board has discussed all pros and cons thoroughly from our poll and numerous meetings. A shout out to board member Adam Bordignon who created a very detailed poll which allowed us to collect data and opinions in order to help our decision making.

In closing, we look forward to hosting members for another great season of VFDHC hockey. We always welcome ideas and help from the floor to achieve our goals, and do our best to answer your questions. Be sure to contact us or post here with any inquiries or questions about our decisions. Keep your eyes open for registration which will be coming soon.

Regards ,
Your VFDHC executive board
Darren Ferris , president
Joel Feitsma , VP
Mark Whincup, sec/tres
Travis Hooper, director
Craig Archibald, director
Jordan Liang, director
Jay Zoney, director
Adam Bordignon, director

We hope you are enjoying your summer! The VFDHC exec board is gearing up for the 2023/24 MMH season. Here are some important dates for the upcoming year:

Aug 1-31, 2023 Registration open

Sept 6, 2023 Draft night (location TBA)

Sept 11, 2023 Opening Day
Oct 9 , 2023 No Hockey (Thanksgiving)
Dec 7 & 8, 2023 Xmas tourney
Dec 25, 2023 & Jan 1 , 2024 No Hockey (Xmas break)
Feb 19 , 2024 No Hockey (Family Day )
Mar 1 , 2024 King of the Rink 4 Vs 4 (Planet Ice Coq)
Gump Cup Mar 25, 2024

**IMPORTANT INFO FOR ALL MEMBERS**

The VFD hockey club is looking at options regarding the location that Monday Morning Hockey will be played. The league is currently played at Planet Ice Delta. Another option would be Planet Ice Coquitlam. We are collecting data from all active and retired VFRS & Local 18 members in order to gather information to make an informed decision. As you can imagine, this is a very important one, wether we remain at Delta or move to Coquitlam.

At this time, we are only asking for those who currently participate, or plan to participate in MMH for the 2023/24 season and/or the next few seasons to complete this survey. We are not looking for general opinions from those who do not nor have any intention in participating in MMH.

Some info:

Planet Ice Delta
10388 Nordel Crt

Pros :
* league has been established here for 20+ years.  Good rapport with the staff
* Referees already in place and same referees work GVOHA games
* On site storage locker for hockey club jerseys, equipment , etc
* Fairly easy access with respect to traffic
* Pro shop open for members needs (skate sharpening etc)

Cons:
* MMH continually jockeying for ice with Delta Hockey Academy and GVOHA
* Located farther south for VFRS staff who live farther north
* Some challenges in getting ice for tournaments such as Xmas Tourney and 4 vs 4

Planet Ice Coquitlam
2300 Rocket Way

Pros:
* More centrally located in the lower mainland
* Same managers & some staff as PI Delta (same management company)
* More flexibility with respect to icetimes , wide open time slots (no academies or other leagues on Mondays)

Cons:
* no on site storage, VFDHC club would have to rent a locker approx 7 mins away
* Traffic crossing the Port Mann bridge at rush hour may be problematic
* May have to recruit new daytime referees as referees from Delta may not travel.
* unknown at this time of skate shop will be open

You are asked to only participate in this poll once.

Please contact any member of the exec if you have any comments or questions. Note that this poll is only open to Local 18 & VFRS members (not the general public).

Link to poll is here : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeWV05jV07gnplkSY4O7yLFWo6UICKHp_X9HWo62hPQ6X4WrQ/viewform

Congrats to the Stars in their win of the 20th Annual VFDHC Gump Cup Championship!