There could be a hockey team taking to the ice in Bancroft sooner rather than later.
That’s what Gordon McKenzie-Crow, the would-be owner and operator of the proposed Bancroft Hockey team, is hoping happens. He presented to council today his plan to bring a Junior C hockey team to the area. “I felt, and a lot of hockey guys I know felt, that Bancroft is the last jewel that doesn’t have a (hockey) team,” he said. He says the team would start play for the 2019-20 Ontario Hockey Association season.
McKenzie-Crow was the man behind the North Kawartha Knights being brought into the OHA in 2014, the same league the proposed Bancroft team would join.
“I feel like a very successful team can be here for years to come,” McKenzie-Crowe said. In the past, the Bancroft Hawks were a part of the OHA as a Tear II Junior A team. They played in the area from 1998 until 2007.
He says the process to create a new team with the OHA is long. Re-locating an existing team is easier, McKenzie-Crowe says. He says there’s “one of the horizon” that’s he looking at, but didn’t go into more detail.
McKenzie-Crowe says the next steps will be meeting with OHA staff as well as area staff here in Bancroft. “The OHA doesn’t operate quickly,” he added. That’s why he says a lot of work can be done in the background while the OHA works on the team’s application, McKenzie-Crowe said.
He added that he wants to make sure locals are involved with the team as volunteers and as paid employees.