Mr. Speaker, West Kelowna is one of our country's newest municipalities. When it entered the Kraft Hockeyville contest, it did so as an underdog, a new municipality without previous decades to establish an identity as a hockey town. The organizing committee was undeterred and worked incredibly hard to put on a first-rate Hockeyville campaign and the citizens of West Kelowna came together in a way like never before. That is what is important for a new municipality.
This past Saturday, we learned, somewhat earlier than expected, that we could congratulate the township of Stirling-Rawdon in winning Kraft Hockeyville for 2012. Faced with the early arrival of this news, what would become of the West Kelowna Hockeyville celebration on Saturday evening? Would anyone show up? However, something amazing happened. The premier arrived, the mayors, the MLAS and, most important, the thousands of citizens from West Kelowna literally jammed the rafters. West Kelowna may not have won Hockeyville 2012 but it did achieve a sense of community pride that is far more important.
I send a special thanks out to organizers Adam and Andrew for making believers of all of us.