On Saturday night BC Conservation Officers played a charity hockey game against a Vancouver Canucks Alumni team at the Nicola Valley Memorial Arena.
Local players included Cents coach and GM Luke Pierce and Former Cents assistant coach and current coach of the Merritt Midgets Joe Quewezance. Local conservation officer Paul Pike also suited up to play in the bi-annual charity game put on by the conservation officers to raise money for local organizations in the host city.
“One of the reasons we do it is that our officers are scattered all over B.C., and most of us have crossed paths at some point,” says conservation officer and organizer Steve Wasylik.
“You can’t raise this kind of money for charity by yourselves and most offices are one or two person offices.”
“So we pool our resources and then it creates quite the impact on a town where you do have an office.”
The local boy came home to collect three points on the night, as the Vancouver Canuck Alumni collected the hat trick, defeating the B.C. Conservation Officers province-wide squad, 8-5 in Merritt last Saturday night (March 12th), capping off another undefeated season for the veteran squad.
“They had me playing defense which is different from what I am used to, but they were lacking some defencemen,” says Pierce.
“It was tied going into the third period so it was a pretty good game.”
There has not been a final tally as to how much the game raised and those numbers should be available next week.
