Scout House Marching In Stanley Cup Hockey Parade

Preston Scout House Alumni Band, of Cambridge, will march in a festive Stanley Cup parade in Stirling-Rawdon, Ontario on Sunday, September 30 even if National Hockey League players are off the ice because of an NHL team owners’ lockout.

The morning parade will wind up at the town’s arena, followed with a fun fair and other celebrations taking place from noon to 3 pm at the Stirling Recreation Centre.

Stirling-Rawdon, with a population of about 2,000, gathered almost four million votes in a national campaign to win the title of Kraft Hockeyville 2012. The community, located north of Belleville about halfway between Toronto and Montreal, will receive $100,000 in arena upgrade money from Kraft Canada, $10,000 in food bank donations and a visit from CBC’s Hockey Night In Canada television crew.

Kraft Hockeyville is an annual competition first organized in 2006 by CBC Sports, now sponsored by Kraft Foods, the NHL and the NHL Players Association (NHLPA). Communities all across Canada compete to demonstrate the strongest commitment to ice hockey.

Stirling-Rawdon is also scheduled to host a 2012/13 NHL pre-season game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Columbus Blue Jackets. However, players may be idle by September 21, the date that training camps are set to open, if owners impose a lockout before that date. Sharing league revenue is the key issue in the current collective bargaining talks between the two sides. Players currently receive 57 per cent of hockey-related NHL revenue of about $3.3 billion. The NHL proposes reducing the share to 46 per cent.

The Stanley Cup parade marks the start of another busy month for Preston Scout House Alumni Band.

Scout House will again appear on national television on Thanksgiving Day Monday October 8 in the popular Kitchener/Waterloo Oktoberfest Parade. Spectators regularly line the parade route through the business districts of the neighbouring communities three and four deep. Weather conditions over the years that Scout House has marched in the parade have varied from cold and snow to shirtsleeve and sunglasses temperatures.

The Kitchener/Waterloo Oktoberfest, running this year from October 5 to 13, is the largest Bavarian festival in North America, featuring about 40 family and cultural events and fund raising opportunities for more than 70 local charities.

Scout House will host its own cultural event on Friday, October 19: a 75th anniversary salute to all the drum and bugle corps in Ontario. The social evening, to be held at the Preston Knights of Columbus building on Speedsville Road in Cambridge, is one of several special events that will be held over the coming months to celebrate the Band’s founding in 1938.

The new Scout House Cadets youth drumline program, part of the Band’s anniversary recruiting campaign, began September 12 an information night for parents and potential members. Regular practice sessions will run every Wednesday evening. Information about the Cadets is available from Bruce Witmer, Scout House Band President, telephone (519) 756-0245 or email wwitmer [at] rogers [dot] com or Jim Pratt, Program Head, telephone (519) 823-8033, email kusankusho [at] hotmail [dot] com

The Scout House performance season will wind up in late November with appearances in local Santa Claus parades. This year’s long performance schedule began in late March with the first of several indoor concerts. The summer field show schedule included performances in southern Ontario, West Virginia, New York and Maryland. Scout House also marched in such major Ontario parades as the Burlington Sound of Music Festival grand parade, Welland Rose Festival parade, Preston Canada Day parade on July 1, Dundas Cactus Festival parade and the Strawberry Festival parade in Buckhannon, West Virginia.

Since its first stage show in 1999, Scout House Alumni Band has performed in more than 360 parades, field shows and concerts in communities across Ontario and Quebec, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Florida, West Virginia and Maryland.

For more information about Preston Scout House Alumni Band, contact Activities Director Nancy Weiler at telephone (519) 653-3376, email prestonscouthouseband [dot] adm [at] sympatico [dot] ca or visit the Web site at http://www.scouthouseband.com/