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And yet another season flies by. As minor hockey associations across the country say goodbye to a long season of sweat and tears, wins and losses and hopefully a lot of fun, we at HockeyNow have been putting together another edition of our Parade of Champions. The Parade of Champions is a time honoured annual event in these parts, where we get a chance to shine a light on some of the names and faces of minor hockey players, volunteer coaches and parents that make this great sport possible. We hope you enjoy leafing through the winners—a big congrats to all of them.

Also on our radar right now, of course, are the upcoming RBC Cup and Memorial Cup. 

This year, the road to the RBC Cup started with an outstanding 131 teams from coast to coast, all vying for a spot in the final race. That alone makes this one of the—scratch that—THE toughest trophy to win in hockey. We’re getting down to the last few teams now and plan on bringing our readers along every step of the way to see how the final contenders earned a chance to compete.

The Memorial Cup is no second sister to the RBC Cup. The Memorial Cup doesn’t include quite as many teams, but in order to get a seat at the table, teams need to win their way through their conference and league to finally battle it out against two other conference and league winners, plus a host. No easy feat. We’re excited to once again feature an extensive Memorial Cup preview in our May issue, so stay tuned.

Throughout all this, we’re narrowing in on the final preliminary lists for the HockeyNow Minor Hockey Player of the Year award, which will be presented to a player in each B.C., Alberta and Ontario. The award is centred around what we value most in minor hockey: leadership, sportsmanship, ability and skill, and community involvement. Past winners have included Memorial Cup and Stanley Cup winners, amongst others. We’re getting down to the last few weeks before making our final selections, so keep an eye on our Player of the Year section online to track your favourites. We’ll be choosing our winners in June and announcing them in July. 

Finally, we’re setting our sights on yet another exciting spring season. Every year, we see the number and calibre of spring tournaments grow and this year promises to bring us some of the best action yet. So keep picking up our print edition, check us out online and follow us on Twitter and Facebook as we cover major spring tournaments across Canada. 

As always, thanks for reading and see you at the rink!