The Arctic Crane Peewee A2 Knights spent Sunday preparing meals for the residents of the Sunrise House Youth Emergency Shelter (Photo: Facebook / Jeremy Budde)

By Shaun Penner

Good Deeds Cup

Local peewee hockey team striving to be Good Deeds Cup champions

Nov 26, 2019 | 12:45 PM

A local peewee hockey team is hoping to claim national bragging rights, for their actions off the ice.

The Arctic Crane Peewee A2 Knights, a team in the Grande Prairie Minor Hockey Association, is putting together their bid to take home the fourth annual Good Deeds Cup. The award was started in partnership between Hockey Canada and Chevrolet, in an effort to encourage peewee aged teams to take the positive values learned through hockey and turn those into good deeds within their communities.

This is the second straight year a team coached by Jeremy Budde is going after title. Though he was clear on one thing: it’s not him that has been driving the decision to go forward with this.

“This is their thing. I’m just there guiding them along. Scheduling it and organizing it,” said Budde. “This is all on them. They want to continue to help out this winter and they are very excited to do so and to be a part of it.”

The good deed the team chose this season was to support the Sunrise House Youth Emergency Shelter.

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After helping out with organizations like Everybody Eats Grande Prairie and the Salvation Army last year, Budde had the idea to support the Sunrise House because the kids on his team are around the same age of some of the clients at the shelter.

“I thought kids helping kids would be very impactful.”

With that, the players spent this past Sunday shopping, cooking and preparing meals for the residents of the shelter, then delivering them to the house. The players prepared items such as lasagna, veggie trays and homemade buns.

The impact was certainly felt by the team, says Budde, as he notes how the players could see what the meal meant to the residents, and staff, of the shelter. With that, the team was so excited and pleased about the whole experience, that it has motivated them to make this more than a one-time thing.

“We’re going to try to continue to do it throughout the season. I’m hoping, if the schedule works, we can do every second Sunday,” said Budde. “We can go and deliver a warm meal. Maybe we can go help shovel the driveway when it snows. Just to be involved and help the Sunrise House anyway we can.”

Though Budde says the end goal isn’t necessarily about winning the trophy when it’s all said and done, he does admit it would be nice to take home the $100,000 prize for a charity of their choice. At the end of the day, he is glad to see the 11 and 12-year-olds on his team so excited to help others out within their community.

“We get so caught up trying to win a tournament, or win a championship, or win hockey games. It’s not about that,” said Budde. “They’re going to develop friendships, this hockey season, that they’ll have when they’re my age.”

The team will now need to put together their video submission to send to the committee for review. The 11 regional winners from across Canada will be announced on January 25, with the national winner being announced in February.