The small township of Stirling-Rawdon will get some big-city hockey in 2013.
According to the Ottawa Citizen, the community of 5,000 will host an NHL hockey game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and a club to be determined in October of 2013.
Stirling-Rawdon is located northeast of Trenton and north of Belleville.
Last spring, Stirling-Rawdon won the annual Kraft Hockeyville competition and was to have hosted a pre-season game on Oct. 3 between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Columbus Blue Jackets but due to the current lockout, the game has been postponed.
“I’ve been talking about this for a month, what a kick in the pants it is,” mayor Rodney Cooney told the paper. “It is pretty bad. You win it and something like this happens.
“But it is what it is. It’s out of our control. We just have to move on.”
Cooney also said that despite the postponement, the festivities will carry on as scheduled.
There will be a parade, the Stanley Cup will travel through the town and there will be an alumni game between the Leafs and the Buffalo Sabres.
“Obviously some people are disappointed, and everyone feels bad about it — the NHL, the players, Kraft,” Cooney said.
“But at the end of the day we’ll have the game. We’ll just have to wait for a year. It’s still going to be a great weekend.”
