Lloydminster Fire Chief Aaron Buckingham (pictured above) and paid-on-call firefighter Brayden Willard brought the Rotary Club of Lloydminster up to speed on the upcoming Battle of the Badges hockey game for charity. Geoff Lee Meridian Source
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Expect a bit of both at this year’s Todd Gustavson Battle of the Badges Memorial Hockey Tournament at the Centennial Civic Centre when the puck drops on March 9 at 12:30 p.m.
It’s billed as a fun community fundraising event for the Salvation Army Food Bank and The Olive Tree but the game itself could turn out to be a 9-11 clash.
That became apparent during a presentation by fire chief Aaron Buckingham at the Rotary Club of Lloydminster’s Monday meeting.
Buckingham made it clear the Lloydminster Fire Department wants to retain the trophy they won for the first time last year from Lloydminster RCMP and will pull out all the stops.
“We’re pretty proud of our victory last year and we hope to keep that going this year,” he said.
“We have our bag of tricks for sure. I can’t really disclose ahead of time what we’re going to do but we’re feeling pretty confident.”
Buckingham noted he used to play for the RCMP having done some work for the detachment for a few years, until they cut him from their team last year but he had the last laugh.
“I was pretty cranky about that, so I quit being a city councillor and gave up everything else just to join the fire department to show the RCMP what they missed last year by cutting me,” joked Buckingham.
He noted the cops haven’t gotten over that loss with the 7th edition of the tournament looming.
“The RCMP has affectionately named our team something I’m not going to share with you, but I don’t like it,” Buckingham told Rotarians.
“So we’re coming up with a rebuttal to the team name they’ve given us.”
He says both departments want to do stuff together, but he stressed, “The bottom line is, police officers need heroes too and that’s why there’s firefighters.”
All joking aside, Buckingham says the game is for charity.
“Basically what we want to do is raise money for the food bank and food for the food banks,” he said.
“They run low after Christmas so this will help to restock the shelves for the busy Easter weekend.”
He said the event is always great and it’s for the community.
“That’s what we do it for. It’s just a way for our emergency services to get in front of the public,” Buckingham.
The event is open for all ages and admission is by cash donation or non-perishable food items.
Half of the proceeds will go to The Olive Tree supported by the RCMP with the rest going to the Salvation Army Food backed by the firefighters.
Monetary donations will go toward youth mentorship programs at Big Brothers, Big Sisters Lloydminster who will also sell 50/50 tickets.
The event promotes the “more the merrier” concept with some Lloydminster minor hockey players playing a game during the intermissions.
“We want to get as many people involved as we possibly can,” said Buckingham.
The event is being coordinated by paid on-call firefighter, Brayden Willard, who is rounding up even more community participation.
“We also have the public and Catholic school divisions doing a food bank drive and they are in the process right now of raising tons of food for these food bank charities,” he said.
Willard explained the tournament started out as just a fun thing for the fire department and the RCMP to compete against each other for a bit.
“After our late fire chief Todd (Gustavson) passed away, we dedicated the game to him,” he said.
“It’s my favourite event with the fire department every year. It’s a lot of fun. It’s great to see the community support good causes and everything.”
