Warm weather didn’t prevent the Third Annual Boot Hockey Tournament from taking place in Clearwater Saturday.

 

But the event got a facelift.

 

Instead of holding the games on the ice hockey rink at Lions’ Park, members of the Clearwater Fire Dept. decided to move the event to the parking lot near the fire hall.

 

“Because there was no ice and the rink holds water, we didn’t want to be playing in two inches of water,” said Clearwater Fire Chief Ryan Pridgeon.

 

Early on Friday, with temperatures in the 40s and a steady rain falling, the department members made the call to move the tournament. And that meant letting people know it was still on but at a different location.

 

“We updated our Facebook page and let people know who had already registered,” said Pridgeon. “We put a sign up at the rink and had someone stationed there Saturday to direct everyone to the fire hall parking lot.”

 

Figuring out how to make the parking lot work for hockey was another challenge. The first problem was building the “boards” to keep the puck in.

 

“Tri-County Lumber donated the lumber,” said Pridgeon. “One our guys works there, so we worked with him. He figured out in his head how much wood we needed.”

 

About 10 department members went to work putting the boards together. They built two rinks side-by-side, then waited to see how many teams showed up to play.

 

At about 10:30, a half hour before starting time, they decided there were enough players for two more rinks, so they went ahead and built them.

 

But without ice, pucks wouldn’t be sliding like they would at the kink. So they decided to use a ball instead.

 

“We knew it was going to be warm, so we went out about a week ago and bought hockey balls just as a back up in case,” said Pridgeon.

 

Without ice or a puck, the event became a street hockey tournament instead of a boot hockey tournament.

 

That didn’t seem to bother any of the players. In fact, they were happy they wouldn’t have to worry about slipping and falling.

 

The games went on as schedule, with running time shortened from 20 minutes to 15 minutes and break time in-between shortened to keep everything moving.

 

Meanwhile, an ice fishing house called “Grandpa’s Hideout” supplied by Outlet Recreation in Lynden Twp. served as tournament headquarters, and a place to make hot dogs for all the players and spectators.

 

“If it was colder, Gustafson Trailers was going to let us use one of their trailers as a warming house,” said Pridgeon. “But we didn’t need it. People could go into the fire hall if they had to warm up.”

 

In all, seven adult teams and two youth teams took part in the tournament. For the second year in a row, Team Johnston took home the crown.

 

Everything went well, even with the warm weather. So Pridgeon said there shouldn’t be any problem next year regardless of weather conditions.