Donald
Teuma-Castelletti
SHAWVILLE Jan. 17, 2018
After many years of not having a local provincial tournament for the Pontiac Lions Bantam and Midget teams, local hockey fans and players can expect an exciting weekend this year.
That’s because the Pontiac Provincial Tournament has expanded, and this year will run across two weekends, with this coming one featuring the older players. THE EQUITY caught up with the president and organizer of the Pontiac Provincial Tournament, Scott Lemay, to learn how it came about.
“Shawville was always well-known for the Pontiac Provincial Midget Tournament, that ran for several years, and it kind of died off a few years ago, which [meant] we lost all tournaments, whether it was the higher level … right down to the younger levels,” said Lemay.

Lemay said that four years ago, while reminiscing with other committee members on local tournaments they played in growing up and the buzz of having a home tournament, they thought they’d look into starting something up.
“That’s kind of what paved the way towards the Pontiac Provincial Atom/Peewee Tournament, which we’re now into our third year and became a huge success,” continued Lemay. “We’ve got so much positive feedback not only on how that tournament was ran and organized, but the feedback from the community itself, as far as business owners noticing more traffic and spectators that came out to watch the kids [play].”
He said that after two years of success with that tournament, people started to buzz with the potential for a Bantam and Midget tournament. The first obstacle, Lemay said, was growing the committee, as the one running the younger tournament was fairly strained as it was.
“My concern was if you set up two different committees, one of them was going to die,” said Lemay. “Our town and our sponsorship can only go so far.”
The worry came that too much competition would arise between two committees vying for sponsors in the community. With that in mind, the committee opted to expand and have a name change to become the Pontiac Provincial Tournament.
With this change came a change to sponsorships as well, as sponsors will be featured at both weekends of the tournament.
This change means they’re now working with less sponsorship dollars, though they now have new sponsors that they hadn’t received from before.
“The problem for us is what the general public doesn’t understand is the actual cost of these tournaments,” said Lemay. “Just to get them off the ground is between a $14 – $16,000 budget.”
There’s, evidently, a lot of money needed to get these tournaments going. Everything from sanctions fees to the hockey organizations, to paying for ice time (though the town does offer the rink at a heavy discount, Lemay added), referees, time keepers, plus banners, marketing, trophies and website maintenance.
“It adds up quick and when you sit down here and look at your budget, you realize, teams don’t have enough money to pay for these tournaments,” said Lemay. “They have to be subsidized and that’s where our sponsors become of huge [importance].”
More costs will be offset throughout the weekends with raffle draws, a 50/50, door prizes and other fun activities.
Now, with all the fun ahead of them, the work isn’t over yet. The committee, volunteers, and players are looking ahead to a busy couple of weekends and hope to see as much as their hometown as possible show their support in the seats.
“We want to showcase our little town and at the same time have something fun and special for these kids that they can remember as they get older,” said Lemay. “Hopefully we just have people keep doing it over and over again, year-after-year for us.”