It's been three years in waiting... The originally scheduled March 2020 tournament was shut down suddenly, along with the whole world, when Covid 19 swept the planet, just weeks away from the Official Puck Drop. To learn the event would be postponed was disappointing, but the thought of having to wait a year turned out, to be optimistic. It would be cancelled again in 2021, and yet again in 2022.
We now anxiously await March 19th, 2023, very hopefully that we will finally be able to play in the long anticipated competition. But there is one small problem; we have all gotten older!
It was actually 4 years ago, in 2019 that we decided to sign up for this prestigious event. We thoughtfully entered into the over 55 age division, confident that we would be able to do well there. But remember, some of these over 55 year olds were already well into their 60's and now... well you do the math. This wasn't going to work and now we had a problem because we have since added more players in there 50's, so just bumping up a division excludes player. The solution: Enter two teams, one in the over 55 division and one in the over 65 division. Actually, we have three teams! The young Cowboys were also originally entered in the plus 30 category and they will continue as planned.
Splitting the team into two divisions does create some challenges, but it also provides an opportunity. While we have a very full roster in our league play with an age 53 and over restriction, we don't really have enough player to ice two full teams, so we will need a little help from our friends. The is advantageous in the long term. The fact is, some of our aging players are feeling they are no longer able to contribute in our current league. They are wrong, but the introduction of an over 65 team has breathed new life into our Club and the World Cup Tournament is a well positioned spring board to launch us into a new Cowboy era.
Plans are underway to develop an over 60 division with the Richmond Old Timers League. We are not the only team that is aging and there is interest among other teams to graduate to the next level. We have borrowed a Tuesday night ice time at 8:00pm for the purpose of building an over 65 year old team and consolidating a new over 50 team. If all goes well, we will come out of the tournament, perhaps with a few wins, maybe a championship, but the greatest victory will be the strengthening and uniting the Richmond Cowboys Hockey Club where players of all ages will be able to play as long as they like.
