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Local volunteers nominated for award

Whitehorse couple Jim and Sue Stephens have been nominated for the RBC Local Hockey Leaders Program for their work in the hockey community.

Whitehorse couple Jim and Sue Stephens have been nominated for the RBC Local Hockey Leaders Program for their work in the hockey community.

The program’s a joint effort between RBC Insurance, Hockey Hall of Fame and Hockey Canada, which selects 13 winners from across the country.

Each winner will receive $10,000 towards a local minor hockey cause.

While their children competed in hockey at various levels for the last 10 years, Sue and Jim became involved in the community as coaches, managers, executive members, fundraisers and mentors.

Jim has been involved in various roles at the Bantam and Midget level, the House League and with the Mustangs.

He also played an instrumental part in the teams competing at last year’s Canada Winter Games and the upcoming Arctic Winter Games.

While improving his coaching skills throughout the years, Jim has put much effort in programming for the Best Ever program, assuring local athletes and coaches got the funding to develop their skills to compete in last year’s Canada Winter Games.

While Jim works in the forefront, Sue has been behind the scenes taking care of  fundraising through bingo, raffles and grocery bagging.

She also plays a major part in managing the budget of the various teams in Whitehorse.

If those tasks aren’t enough to keep her busy, Sue makes the arrangements for travel and keeps up to date on any BC Hockey requirements.

“Her work goes far beyond what a typical volunteer parent does and everyone involved in Yukon sport benefits from her effort,” said a news release.

“Not only does she organize events, she is also the one pushing the broom at the end of the night and locking the door,” said hockey parent Wade Hanna.

The fundraisers Sue and Jim help organize has given hockey players who can’t afford to travel an opportunity to participate at a higher level.

“I personally know of numerous talented kids that would not be going anywhere were it not for the efforts of Sue and Jim Stephens,” added Hanna.

“My hope is that this spirit of volunteerism rubs off on the kids and parents their efforts are helping,” said Walter Brennan, president of the Yukon Amateur Hockey Association.

The winners will be announced on March 6 in Toronto.

Hurry hard

The Yukon Curling Association is hosting the Territorial Men’s Championships in Whitehorse.

Two Yukon teams are competing against two NWT teams in a modified double round-robin format that had begun on Thursday with the winners being determined on Sunday.

Yukon Team 1 is represented by the Jon Solberg rink, consisting of Solberg, Clint Abel, Doug Gee and Gordon Puddister. Members of the Chad Cowan rink are Cowan, Wade Scoffin, James Buyck and Clint Ireland for Yukon Team 2.

The winning rink will represent the territories at the Tim Horton’s Brier in Winnipeg from March 8-16.

Draws continue at 3 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Saturday at the Whitehorse Curling Club. On Sunday the draw will begin at 10 a.m.